Here Comes China – At technical breakthrough speed

I chose mainly technical issues from Godfree Roberts newsletter for this time, and as usual, it is astonishing.

A quick reference to corn and wheat  US-China corn imports fell 83% in August YoY, while corn imports from Brazil went from zero last August to 580,000 metric tons in August 2023. Imports of Brazilian corn are expected to reach 1.22 MMT in September and US imports drop to 70,000 metric tons. Read article →

The reason why I start with that is that BRICS with the mix of membership countries currently, are qualified to open their own grain bourse.

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US treasuries are no longer the bedrock of global portfolios.

China’s eonomy grew by $1.6 trillion PPP. US GDP grew by $300 billion:

• GDP grew 5.4%
• Electricity consumption rose 5.6%
• BRICS trade rose 19%
• US-China corn imports fell 83%
• Russia-China goods trade rose 32%

SOE salaries are double private enterprise wages.

The $212 million Meridian Space Weather Monitoring network links 300 instruments – including some of the world’s most powerful – to provide all-time, all-weather monitoring of space weather, which disrupts satellite operations and knocks out power grids on Earth.

Huawei’s 7nm chip renders US chip blockade obsolete, its NearLink is six times faster than WiFi, its revenues hit $1 billon, it has taken Apple’s #1 spot. Its 2019 Mate30 had 42% domestic content, the 2023 Mate60 is 90% domestic, thanks to its own, $30 billion chip fab network.

China leads the world in expanding semiconductor production, with 18 new fabs beginning production in 2024.

First ever integrated neuro-memristor improves learning ability, cuts energy consumption. 1,000 layers, billions of synapses will obsolete circuit boards.

Mach 30 Wind Tunnel tests scramjet’s high-speed oblique detonation wave engine.

Remote Sensing Satellite #41 monitors US military 24×7, using onboard AI.

First 232 layer stacked flash memory–made by YMTC.

New high-rate quantum key distribution record.

First superionic hydride ion conductor at ambient conditions.

First primate brain-computer interface offers hope for robotic limbs.

First human kidneys grown in pig embryos.

First chimeric monkey live birth.

First high-temperature gas-cooled reactor, HTGR, produces 200,000 kW for the grid.

7,000 ft. physics laboratory is the world’s deepest, largest underground lab.

After #1 Nature and #2 Science, China’s Young Science is the world’s #3 journal.

America’s Frontier exascale computer has 10,000 nodes. Sunway’s has 2 million cores across 40,000 nodes.

First high-energy lasers stay cool, generate laser beams for as long as desired.CATL batteries get 400 km on 15 min. charge, 700 km. on a regular charge across all temperature ranges.

First high-orbit Synthetic Aperture Radar satellite provides all-weather, all-day observations.

Only China has a complete industrial IC chain.

LandSpace’s world-first, liquid oxygen methane rocket lifts 6 tonne payload into a sun-synchronous orbit (SSO).

China installed 290,000 industrial robots, as much as the rest of the world combined.

754 million 5G subscribers, 3.2 million base stations,  8,000 ‘5G+ Industrial Internet’ projects, 1,800 5G factories, and 5G industry applications integrated into 67 national economic categories, with 100,000 application cases.

Chinese chip foundries bought 62% of machinery equipment domestically this year, 47% last year.

With $228 Bn  R&D budget, 3 million Chinese corporate scientists applied for 29,853 AI-related patents in 2022, compared to USA’s 16,805, Japan’s 8,870 and S. Korea’s 7,899.

China is far ahead of US in GPS inertial navigation, magnetic field, multispectral and hyperspectral imaging sensors, radar systems, and sonar and acoustic sensors – and even in quantum sensors, atomic clocks, and gravitational sensors.

235 Chinese EV models average $35,000. Americans 51 EVs average $70,000.

It would be one thing if China’s performance in these industries was proportional to the size of its economy. But location quotients (LQ) show China punches 47% above its weight, the US 17% below. Read article →

China now dominates the strategically important industries in ITIF’s Hamilton Index, producing more than any other nation in absolute terms and more than all but a few others in relative terms. Its gains are coming at the expense of the United States and other G7 and OECD economies, and time is running short for policymakers to mount an industrial comeback. Read article →

Newly installed PV hits 80 million kW, up 154%. PV now generates 266 billion kWh in H1, up 30% YoY. PV capacity hits 500 GW.

China produces 30,000 tons of green hydrogen annually.

Giant Rice hybrid has a bumper crop.

Seawater aquafarming in Xinjiang?

Wind provides 15% of China’s energy.

Gasoline demand peaked in 2023. Diesel peaks in 2024.

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Godfree’s newsletter is available here: https://www.herecomeschina.com/order-page/