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Now, can we stop this offtopic discussion?
News on China's scientific and technological development.
- Thread starter Quickie
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Now, can we stop this offtopic discussion?
I second this.
Not to mention even with the tech crackdowns and all, the tech companies still exists (and the crackdowns and the likes can hopefully create breathing space for smaller tech companies), and we're still seeing games/music/chinese animation etc. being produced.
In fact, I would overall say that the quality of chinese animation is generally improving (and I believe games as well?). So there's no need for the chinese government to put EXTRA resources into these things (although better legislation, administration and regulation will help these things as well as something that is needed overall).
Three Chinese astronauts return to Earth after six months in space
by Laurie Chen
Astronauts Ye Guangfu, Wang Yaping and Zhai Zhigang, wave at a departure ceremony before their launch
Three Chinese astronauts returned to Earth on Saturday after 183 days in space, ending China's longest crewed mission as it continues its quest to become a major space power.
The Shenzhou-13 spacecraft was the latest mission in Beijing's drive to rival the United States, after landing a rover on Mars and sending probes to the Moon.
Live footage from state broadcaster CCTV showed the capsule landing in a cloud of dust, with ground crew who had kept clear of the rushing in helicopters to reach the capsule.
The two men and one woman—Zhai Zhigang, Ye Guangfu and Wang Yaping—returned to Earth shortly before 10 am Beijing time (0200 GMT), after six months aboard the Tianhe core module of China's Tiangong space station.
Ground crew applauded as the astronauts each took turns to report that they were in good physical condition.
Zhai was the first to emerge from the capsule roughly 45 minutes after the landing, waving and grinning at cameras as he was lifted by ground crew into a specially designed chair before being bundled into a blanket.
"I'm proud of our heroic country," Zhai said in an interview with CCTV shortly after leaving the capsule. "I feel extremely good."
The trio originally launched in the Shenzhou-13 from China's northwestern Gobi Desert last October, as the second of four crewed missions during 2021-2022 sent to assemble the country's first permanent space station—Tiangong, which means "heavenly palace."
You'd be surprised at the technical level of Chinese animation that is out there; stuff that's on par with the best of the West and Japan. Granted, China's volume of this material is low, but the raw potential is there. It simply needs to gain enough popularity to be a self-sustaining industry that feeds more money into creating more material. Some examples below:
This here is the intro to Jiang Ziya; however, only the first couple minutes have incredible animation like this. The rest of the movie is standard CG fare (which the Chinese animation industry seems to be so in love with, unfortunately, and always ends up looking second-rate to the best of Pixar. I really think 2D animation is superior from an aesthetic perspective, but that's just me).
The cutscenes in the game Honkai Impact are well-known for their quality and emotional impact:
And this seems to be some kinda promo for the Beijing Winter Olympics. Not sure what it's about but I randomly found it, and damn it's good.
manqiangrexue
Brigadier
This has already been debunked numerous times. One cannot create soft power without leading in hard power because hard power is what causes nations to want to follow you in order to be on the winning side. Only when you've achieved this, will those nations, who control their own medias, allow your country (even helping it) to create a positive image for itself in said countries because that would align with its interests of joining your side. Attempting to create soft power without leading over your rival in hard power is impossible because countries will choose to align themselves with your more powerful rival over you and thus use their own power over their own media to endlessly demonize you because that aligns with their interests of joining the other side against you. You can never speak to a people more loudly than their own government speaks to them and that government is not enamored with your music or shows; they care about your hard power. Attempting to create soft power is useless because everything you make can be banned and even when it is not, people can say, "Chinese food is delicious even though those people are evil." Soft power comes by itself when countries feel the need to align with you due to your hard power because those governments need their people to support the decision to side with you. Chasing skirts is useless; be the strongest, smartest, richest guy in the room and skirts will chase you.
Before you attempt to counter with the case of Japan being weak at hard power but considered a soft power giant, it is irrelevant to China. First of all, Japan bends its knee to Western domination and thus the West allows Japan to build a positive image for itself in the Western world; it is in their interest for their people to like Japan, a subservient country. Also, what Japan has is not soft "power" because it is no power at all. It is simply that people hold a temporary positive image of it, which will allow Japan to achieve nothing at all if its interests clash with another country and neither does the image endure even with the common people. At the slightest news that Japan has refused anything that American demanded, Americans revert to, "Looks like someone needs another 2 bombs to remind them where they are on the totem poll." What they have is worth nothing; it goes them nowhere with the political leadership and nothing from the people whenever interests clash.
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A really good Chinese 3D anime is Ling's Cage Incarnation. It's Pixar and Disney level but it's really dark.
If this is real, then Oppo is truly becoming a competitor to Apple and Samsung.
That's cool. Gimmicky but the tech is cool. Bendable/foldable display tech to the next step beyond the Huawei and Samsung folds. You can tell it's prototype only here since the projected stuff doesn't move at the consistently same rate as the roll. Still pretty cool. They should work with TCL and Xiaomi on those transparent displays they came out with years ago. Actually quite a lot of cool things that can be applied with transparent display.
I haven't seen this so I can't comment on how good the story is. But just purely going off looks after looking up video of it: this is exactly what I'm talking about with the kind of 3D animation that China loves to make but I hate the look of. It looks like stuff the West was making 10 years ago. I have no doubt that China will eventually have the most advanced 3D animation in the world, but even then, I would still prefer they go the 2D hand-drawn (with computer assistance) route just because it looks so much better. In fact, you could put the most advanced 3D animated movie from Pixar today up against freaking Steamboat Willie from the 1920s and I think Steamboat Willie looks better.
Of course, they don't have to choose one or the other. They can and should do both. But I hope they don't abandon traditional 2D animation, because it's a great form of art.
China is gathering momentum for an artificial intelligence-backed drug discovery boom, thanks to the nation's emphasis on innovation-driven development that has led to a continuously improving innovation ecosystem, according to industry experts and business leaders.
Insilico Medicine, an end-to-end AI-driven drug discovery company with a key research and development team based in Shanghai, announced on Feb 24 it had dosed multiple healthy volunteers in the phase-1 clinical trial to evaluate the safety of ISM001-055, the first anti-fibrotic small molecule inhibitor generated by its AI-powered drug discovery platform for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. IPF is a chronic, progressive lung disease with unknown causes.
This marks the world's first phase-1 clinical trial of a drug developed with AI technology from scratch. The novel anti-fibrotic target and the drug candidate were both discovered by Insilico using an AI platform.
A drug target is a molecule in the body, usually a protein, which is intrinsically associated with a particular disease process and could be addressed by a drug to produce a desired therapeutic effect.
The company has also nominated a preclinical candidate compound for innovative cancer immunotherapy in a collaborative project with Chinese pharmaceutical giant Fosun Pharma.
The candidate compound is a potential first-in-class small molecule inhibitor, Insilico claims.
Alex Zhavoronkov, founder and CEO of Insilico, said, "It is not a question of whether China will become a powerhouse in AI-driven drug development even though it started relatively late (in the field). The only question is when that will happen."
"China has a complete support system for startups and big-name pharmaceutical companies to make good use of AI technology to develop new drugs," he said.
A report from VBData, an industry database affiliated with online healthcare information provider Vcbeat.top, said the number of financing events and the total financing value in AI-powered drug research and development in China last year almost doubled from 2020, driven by an improved regulatory environment and growing market demand, although the report didn't reveal the exact figures.
The report said 25 AI-powered drug discovery enterprises in China had obtained new financing in 2021.
According to a report by online pharmaceutical news service Blue View, financing for AI-assisted drug discovery in China exceeded 8 billion yuan ($1.26 billion) last year.
XtalPi Inc, a Chinese AI drug miner, received more than $7 million from two rounds of financing last year, bringing its total valuation to approximately $2 billion.
Jiang Hualiang, a pharmaceutical scientist and an academician at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said at an industry forum in Shanghai last year that AI technology could speed up new drug discovery at various R&D stages, from discovering new drug targets and drug candidates, to candidate optimization and clinical research.
AI could also help reduce research costs and improve the success rate for new drug discovery, he added.
China has built sophisticated and advanced infrastructure over the past 20 years, which can synthesize and test any new drug designed anywhere to support drug discovery, Zhavoronkov of Insilico said.
The country has also reduced many regulatory barriers to speed up clinical trials, which makes companies in China willing to take risks for innovation and new drug development, he added.
AI-driven drug discovery companies like Insilico are injected with a new development momentum because they are expected to help biotech and pharmaceutical companies reduce risks in new drug discovery.
In December, Jiangsu Hengrui Pharmaceuticals Co Ltd, a leading pharmaceutical company in China, announced a collaboration with French AI drug design tech firm Iktos.
"Hengrui has a strong interest in exploring and utilizing enabling technologies, such as AI, to transform and accelerate the discovery of innovative medicines," said Tao Weikang, vice-president of Hengrui Pharma and CEO of R&D Centers, according to a news release.
"We are excited about the opportunity to use Iktos' proprietary AI platform to beef up our drug design and discovery capability to better address unmet clinical needs," Tao said.
Zhavoronkov also said startups like Insilico can expand R&D very quickly in China thanks to an effective network of cooperation.
The company spent about five years working with many pharmaceutical companies to build AI expertise, which made it one of the tops in the world.
Zhavoronkov said established pharmaceutical companies in China have high potential in AI-powered drug discovery as they have the core drug discovery expertise, which allows them to create better AI while they collaborate with AI companies and academic institutions such as universities.
"Drug discovery and AI capabilities together is the future," he said.
"It is very expensive to discover new drugs. Either established AI-powered drug discovery companies or biotechnological and pharmaceutical companies with drug discovery expertise using AI are those that will be successful," he added.