Weekly summary of China's economy and technology: Siemens promotes UBTech robots, China leads in AI, Flights in Europe on the rise

Welcome back to China Insights Weekly. Here are some of the highlights of this release:

• Chinese pharmaceutical giants deepens bets on China, Novartis adds $480 million
• Gap plans 50 new stores and seeks to return to China
• Chinese chip and battery makers extend global lead, competitors are losing ground
• The world's first floating deep-sea laboratory is forming with the aim of reaching a depth of 10,000 metres

Main News

Chinese AI models outpace US competitors in global usage for third week; average daily token consumption in China up 40 %

China's big language models led global AI usage for third week in a row, according to rankings OpenRouter from March 23rd. Five of the top nine models were Chinese, including the top four: the MiMo-V2-Pro from Xiaomi, the Step 3.5 Flash, the M2.5 from MiniMax and the V3.2 from DeepSeek, with the GLM5 Turbo from Z.ai coming in sixth. Chinese models generated 7.359 trillion tokens, an increase of 57 % from the previous week's 4.69 trillion, while US models from Anthropic and Google produced 3.536 trillion tokens, an increase of 7.3 %. Chinese open-source models also saw the highest global download numbers in 2025, and US firm Cursor confirmed that its latest version uses Kimi 2.5 from Moonshot AI.

Average daily token consumption in China rose by 40 % this month to more than 140 trillion, up from 100 trillion at the end of 2025 and more than 1,000 times the level of early 2024. This growth reflects the rapid growth of the ecosystem around data usage and distribution. By the end of 2025, China has built more than 100,000 high-quality datasets totaling over 890 petabytes. The government has declared 2026 as the „Year of Unlocking the Value of Data Elements“ and is accelerating the building of a national data registration system and the development of AI-ready datasets.

Novartis joins multinationals expanding into China with $480 million commitment to boost manufacturing and research

Novartis is investing more than 3.3 billion yuan ($480 million) to expand its manufacturing and research operations in China, including 1.5 billion yuan to upgrade its Beijing plant, which has been operating since 1987 with an annual capacity of 3 billion tablets or capsules and 550 million boxes, and 1.8 billion yuan for the second phase of its Shanghai campus - its Chinese headquarters and third-largest global research center. The company also completed a 600 million yuan radiopharmaceutical plant in Haiyan, Zhejiang province. China is Novartis' second-largest market. The move follows major investments by AstraZeneca of $15 billion in January 2026 and Eli Lilly of $3 billion earlier in March.

Operator Gap China plans to open 50 stores and return to Hong Kong in 2026

Gap China, the operator of Shanghai-based e-commerce service provider Baozun, plans to open 50 new stores in first- to third-tier cities in mainland China during 2026 and return to Hong Kong. Baozun, which took over Gap China's operations in late 2022, grew its network to 164 outlets in 2025 by opening 29 new stores. Revenue grew by more than 20 % in 2025 and the company aims to maintain growth of over 20 % in 2026 before accelerating it to 30 % in the next two years.

Chinese EV battery makers extend lead to more than 70 % global share

Chinese EV battery makers have gained 70.4 % of global market share in 2025, an increase of four percentage points from 2024 and more than double the sub-50 % level of 2021, according to research firm SNE Research. Six of the top ten manufacturers were Chinese, with CATL leading the way with a 39.21 % share and posting a record net profit of RMB72.2 billion (US$10.5 billion), an increase of 42 % year-on-year. Global battery installation volume reached 1,187 gigawatt hours in 2025, an increase of 32 %, with China accounting for approximately 60 %. By contrast, South Korean competitors saw their combined share fall three points to 15.3 %, LG Energy Solution's profit fell 76 % and SK On laid off 1,000 workers (40 % of its workforce) at its Georgia plant.

South Korean chip giants increase investment in China; Swiss STM localizes supply chain with China's Huahong

Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are increasing investment in China due to the growing AI memory shortage. In 2025, Samsung invested 465.4 billion won ($308.8 million) in its Sichuan plant, an increase of 67.5 %, which produces about 40 % of its NAND output. SK Hynix invested 581.1 billion won in its Wuxi plant, an increase of 102 %.

STMicroelectronics has started shipping China-made STM32 microcontrollers in partnership with Huahong Semiconductor, creating a dual supply chain. The first batch of 40nm eNVM wafers was produced in Huahong's 300mm factory in Wuxi, with packaging and testing in Shenzhen.

Tomáš Kučera & Yereth Jansen

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