China Tech News

News broke yesterday that Chinese Internet behemoth Tencent took a 5% stake in U.S.-based Tesla. Though the stake is small, the impression was large enough to push Tesla's stock up by more than 2.5% by the end of the trading day.

While investors appeared to applaud Tencent's purchase of about 8.17 million Tesla shares, some critics on social media wondered if this was more Chinese encroachment on American jobs, technology, and competitiveness.
Some of the job worries may be justified. China-based LeEco's Faraday Future, which is planning to build a factory in Nevada, yesterday cancelled its plans to build a second California factory. Will the company now throw up its cash-strapped arms and move operations back to China and employ Chinese laborers?

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New Zealand's government revealed that Chinese telecom device maker Huawei will invest NZD400 million, which is about CNY1.938 billion, in the country for data center and innovation lab construction.

Simon Bridges, minister for Economic Development of New Zealand, and Paul Goldsmith, minister for Science of New Zealand, said in a joint statement that Huawei will cooperate with local partners to build a data center in New Zealand and two innovation labs in Christchurch and Wellington, respectively.

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Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi has cooperated with Foxconn in the building of its second Indian manufacturing plant, which is located in Sri City, Andhra Pradesh.

Xiaomi entered the Indian market in 2014 and the company started local production one year after. Xiaomi's first plant in India is not exclusive and Foxconn also makes phones for other brands. However, this new plant is exclusively for Xiaomi.

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Xiaomi's payment service Mi Pay recently published its semi-annual user statistics report and claims that three new banks support Mi Pay bringing the total number of banks supporting Mi Pay to 33.

Meanwhile, over one million Mi Pay users have bound their credit cards to Mi Pay accounts.

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On the heels of its American partner Uber ensconced in controversy of its treatment of women, Chinese ride-share company Didi Chuxing is focusing on more opportunities for its female employees.

Jointly initiated by Didi Chuxing's chief executive officer Cheng Wei and president Liu Qing, the company announced the launch of a female career development plan and the establishment of the "Didi Women's Network".
This is reportedly the first female-oriented career development plan in a major Chinese Internet company.
With the slogan of "Be Great Be You", Didi hopes to inspire the company's multicultural atmosphere, promote faster growth of high-potential women, and create a working environment which is more conducive to the career development of female employees.

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Chinese-language mobile voice search engine provider Mobvoi announced a deal with Volkswagen Group, and the two parties will set up a joint venture to explore the vehicle artificial intelligence sector.

Volkswagen will invest USD180 million in Mobvoi. This makes the German automaker the sole investor of Mobvoi's series D financing.

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Lenovo announced the appointment Ricardo Bloj as new president for its Brazil business.

Bloj joined Lenovo's Brazil branch as chief operating officer in 2016 and he was promoted to president as replacement for Silvio Stagni. Stagni departed Lenovo Brazil at the beginning of 2017 and joined Allied, a local information technology distributor in Brazil.

Bloj has 25 years of experience in the information technology industry. He previously worked for IBM and Brazil's manufacturing giant Itautec.

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Chinese PC maker Lenovo has started a new Asia Pacific data center partner program aiming to help Lenovo's channel partners provide the best data center solutions to the enterprise market.

Sumir Bhatia, vice president of Lenovo's Asia Pacific data center, said that they are excited to launch the Lenovo data centre partner program for Asia Pacific, which reflects Lenovo's solid commitment and dedication to their channel partners in the region. As a major data center brand, Lenovo is uniquely positioned to help their business partners meet diverse needs in the enterprise market, through best-of-breed data center solutions and their open eco-system of partnerships with leading IT providers.

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Chinese pioneering recruitment website Zhaopin.com, which previously received three privatization proposals, announced that its board of directors has reached a privatization agreement with a consortium led by its controlling shareholder and the offer price is USD18.2 per ADS.

Zhaopin said that the consortium comprises its controlling shareholder SEEK International Investments, Zebra Mergerco under Hillhouse Capital Management, and FountainVest Partners.

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Chinese search engine company Baidu announced plns to fully acquire American technology company xPerception.
xPerception focuses on machine vision software and hardware solutions. It provides visual perception software and hardware solutions for a range of applications, including robotics, virtual reality, and devices for people who are visually impaired.

With the acquisition, Baidu will be able to enhance its software and hardware abilities in the visual perception sector, which will become an important supplement to Baidu's core businesses such as AR and autopilot.

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