Robotics, artificial intelligence and innovative medicines have emerged as new growth engines in China's trade portfolio, with some calling them the "new new three," following the earlier trio of electric vehicles, lithium batteries and solar cells. The numbers are striking. Chinese large language models processed more than 36 trillion tokens in the third week of July, ranking first globally for the 12th consecutive week. China exported 930 million US dollars worth of industrial robots in the first half of the year, up more than 18 percent year on year. Meanwhile, Chinese pharmaceutical firms were involved in eight of the world's 10 largest innovative drug licensing deals, worth around 110 billion dollars.

AI startup Kimi released its K3 model on Tuesday Beijing time, with third-party evaluations showing performance comparable to Claude 5 at a fraction of the cost per task. The rise of capable and affordable Chinese AI models is fueling global debates over technology competition and regulation. In the US, companies including Nvidia, Microsoft and OpenAI, along with more than 30 signatories, are urging policymakers to support open-weight models and avoid conflating legitimate techniques like distillation with unlawful extraction. Where is the debate heading, and what could it mean for future AI development and China-US AI dialogue?

Chinese mathematicians Deng Yu and Wang Hong were awarded the Fields Medals at the 2026 International Congress of Mathematicians on Thursday. Shing-Tung Yau, a renowned mathematician and a professor at Tsinghua University, sent his congratulations. We earlier interviewed Professor Yau, who has long championed the cultivation of young talent and the pursuit of scientific rigor and originality.

The ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Meeting series has recently concluded in Manila. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi cited the tangible achievements of the China-ASIAN Comprehensive Strategic Partnership over the past five years. He stressed the need for greater unity in facing emerging challenges and uncertainties. Wang also met US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on the sidelines of the ministerial gathering. What are the outcomes of this key diplomatic interaction? What could be its impact?

As this year's World Artificial Intelligence Conference wrapped up, China's vision for developing Al has become remarkably clear. Yet one fundamental question stands out: what does people-centered Al truly mean? I post this question to leading policy makers, scientists and global leaders at the conference, including UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. He did say global Al governance remains in its infancy, urging nations to build bridges in shaping Al. He also welcomed China's initiative to help the developing world harness Al responsibility as these technologies determine our shared future.

China's latest large language model Kimi K3 is believed by many to be among the most powerful LLMs in the world, yet developed at a fraction of the cost and compute of its American counterparts. The conversation in Al is increasingly turning to something bigger: AGI, artificial general intelligence, a hypothetical Al that can match or exceed human cognitive abilities across virtually any task. Professor Song-chun Zhu, founding director of the Beijing Institute for General Artificial Intelligence, has spent three decades researching Al. He firmly rejects the idea that building ever bigger, more powerful language models is the road to AGI. Instead, his team is taking a fundamentally different approach, a cognitive architecture embodied by a virtual child called Tongtong who learns continuously through interactions with the world.

Major announcements were made at the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference and High-Level Meeting on Global AI Governance, leading to new momentum for global Al development. But a crucial question must be asked, what exactly is the relation between humans and Al? What's the prospect of people-centered Al?

In this special series "Season of AI & Basic Sciences", we talk to three Turing Award winners, who shared their views on topics about artificial intelligence.

The global artificial intelligence community gathers in Shanghai for the 2026 World Al Conference and High-Level Meeting on Global Al Governance, bringing together top minds in science, policy and industry. The forum looks at where Al is headed next and the role of global governance of Al, which is now lagging much behind the development of technologies. AI is changing science. How is it conducted, what questions scientists can ask and how quickly discoveries can benefit society? I talked to Professor Omar Yaghi, the 2025 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry who is one of the world's foremost chemists and material scientists.

Today we are stepping into one of the most decisive conversations in global tech: the race to build humanoid robots. Capital is flooding in worldwide. Tesla is retooling factories, Nvidia and SoftBank are placing major bets. China, meanwhile, is scaling manufacturing at record speed. Behind this gold rush lies a real disagreement: is the humanoid form the inevitable future of embodied intelligence or just a compelling story we tell ourselves? The choices we make today could shape who leads this field for the next decade and also the fate of mankind. We are putting forward this question: whether the world's biggest players should be betting specifically on humanoid robots.