🎙 The CTR Podcast — 14 August 2026
Your audio digest of China technology news. Today's podcast covers 7 stories.
Latest News
- Chinese foundries like SMIC are seeing massive profit surges due to AI demand, demonstrating that the broader computing hardware market is benefiting despite US technology restrictions.
Read the original story at AI Demand Fuels Triple-Digit Profit Surges for Chinese Chip Foundries SMIC and Hua Hong - Researchers are developing bioluminescent plants for sustainable urban lighting, creating a natural, low-energy illumination source that helps reduce light pollution in cities.
Read the original story at Bioluminescent Plants: Revolutionizing Urban Lighting with Living Light - Huawei launched the MateBook Pro S, an ultraportable laptop featuring its custom Kirin XE90 processor, emphasizing lightweight design and efficient performance for mobile professionals.
Read the original story at Huawei Launches MateBook Pro S: Ultraportable Powerhouse with Kirin XE90 Chip - DeepSeek introduced Harness, an open-source framework enabling developers to build sophisticated, multi-step autonomous AI agents on top of existing large language models.
Read the original story at DeepSeek Unveils Harness: An Open-Source Framework to Build Autonomous AI Agents - DeepSeek announced a major price hike for its V4 model by implementing peak-off-peak differential rates, potentially increasing costs up to 500% during high-demand periods.
Read the original story at DeepSeek V4 API Price Jumps Up to 500% with New Peak-Off-Peak Model - Honor predicts that future smartphones will transition into platforms hosting sophisticated, autonomous AI agents, moving beyond simple communication tools to proactive task execution.
Read the original story at Honor Predicts Future Smartphones Will Become Staging Grounds for Autonomous AI Agents - Zhipu launched GLM-5.3, escalating China’s drive for sovereign AI by focusing the advanced language model on critical applications within cybersecurity and national defense.
Read the original story at Zhipu Launches GLM-5.3: Escalating China's Race for Sovereign AI in Cyber Defense
