ByteDance puts AI in cars; Chinese GPU maker wins orders from Microsoft; Airbus orders reach $55 billion

China Insights Weekly, March 4. Analysis of China's economic and technological progress.
Welcome back to China Insights Weekly. Here are some of the key events in this week's edition:

• Electric two-wheelers grow rapidly abroad, fuel shocks boost demand in Southeast Asia

• CSSC delivers world's largest car carrier, extending China's lead in shipbuilding

• Renewables exceed 60 % of capacity, with hydrogen and electric vehicle charging expanding rapidly

• Tiangong plans six modules, China prepares for post-ISS era

China's AI race evolves into a war of features in cars; Tencent launches preview of Hunyuan Hy3 with AI

ByteDance's AI-powered chatbot Doubao is now used by more than 50 automotive brands, integrated into 145 car models and more than 7 million vehicles, including the Mercedes-Benz GLC, SAIC Audi E7X and SAIC Volkswagen ID. ERA 9X. Alibaba's Qwen artificial intelligence integrates into BYD and Volkswagen's joint venture vehicles, enabling voice-controlled food delivery, hotel reservations and package tracking. DeepSeek has also been integrated with nine automakers, including Geely, Dongfeng and Leapmotor. Many Chinese automakers are adopting a multi-model strategy, integrating AI assistants from different providers either across different vehicle models or even within the same vehicle for various functions such as navigation, entertainment and voice control.

Tencent has released a preview of its Hunyuan Hy3 base model, which enhances reasoning and coding capabilities, and integrated it into its chatbot, coding tool and QQ. In March, the company reorganized its research teams and plans to more than double its AI spending to more than $5 billion by 2026. Hy3 uses a Mixture of Experts architecture with a total of 295 billion parameters, activating 21 billion at a time to reduce costs. The project is now being led by senior AI scientist Yao Shunyu, an OpenAI graduate who has returned to China to lead development. Tencent, meanwhile, is in talks to raise up to 20% stake in DeepSeek's first round of external funding, while Chinese tech giants are creating their own models while investing in competitors to secure a foothold in the fast-growing AI market.

Chinese graphics card maker Lisuan Tech joins Nvidia, AMD and Intel in earning Microsoft Windows WHQL certification

Chinese graphics card maker Lisuan Tech has become only the fourth company in history, after US companies Nvidia, AMD and Intel, and the first in China to achieve Microsoft WHQL certification for its drivers. The certification was awarded to the LX 7G100 graphics card, which is manufactured using a 6nm process and features 12GB of GDDR6 memory. The performance is close to that of the Nvidia RTX 4060 graphics card. The WHQL certification enables driver distribution via Windows Update and ensures compatibility and security. WHQL allows Lisuan graphics cards to be pre-installed in branded commercial computers (Lenovo, Dell, Huawei) and meet mandatory Windows compatibility requirements in the financial, government and industrial sectors. This milestone represents a significant advance in software reliability for Chinese GPUs and could open the door to global markets. Airbus has won orders worth $21.4 billion since December and a total of $55 billion in six major deals with Chinese carriers.

Airbus has struck a deal worth $21.4 billion with China Southern Airlines and Xiamen Airlines, the European aircraft maker's sixth major order from Chinese carriers since late last year.

China Southern has ordered 102 aircraft from the Airbus A320neo family and Xiamen Airlines 35. China Eastern ordered 101 A320neo aircraft in March, including the A320neo, A321neo and A321XLR, with a price tag of $15.8 billion. At the end of 2025, Juneyao Airlines and Spring Airlines announced agreements to buy 25 A320s and 30 A320neo aircraft worth US$8.2 billion, while Air China said it was buying 60 A320neo aircraft worth US$9.5 billion. China Express Airlines also ordered three A320s worth up to US$420 million. The total value of all the deals was over US$55 billion, with an order for 356 aircraft. The A320 is one of the most widely used single-aisle transport aircraft in the world, with approximately 11,300 in service. More than 2,000 of them are flying in China, accounting for nearly half of the country's civil aviation fleet. The A320neo is an upgraded, next-generation aircraft.

Iran conflict boosts Chinese electric two-wheeler exports to Southeast Asia.

Chinese electric motorcycle orders are fully booked through July, thanks to growing demand from Europe, Southeast Asia and Latin America. Exports by private firms in the first quarter of 2026 rose by 30 % from a year earlier. In Chongqing, one of China's major motorcycle manufacturing centres, exports in the same period reached 170 million yuan (about US$23.4 million), up 23.6 % from the previous year. Exports to Myanmar increased by 617.5 % year-on-year to 64.7 million yuan, while shipments to Laos (+25.7 %) and Cambodia (+34.2 %) reached 43.5 million and 38.2 million yuan respectively. The main export models now offer a range of over 150km on a single charge, and Chinese dealers are also supplying battery swapping solutions for regions with unreliable grid access. In 2025, combined exports of motorcycles, electric motorcycles and electric bicycles from China reached a record 45.03 million units worth RMB18.29 billion, an increase of 23 % from the previous year.

Tomas Kucera and Yereth Jansen