China Digital Digest Weekly: Exploring the Chinese Digital Landscape
- ClickInsights
- 17 hours ago
- 7 min read
Hi folks, we are back with our weekly edition of China’s Digital Digest, wherein we bring you weekly updates on China’s digital space. The report takes a quick glance at China’s complex and rapidly evolving social media landscape by providing updates on the latest happenings across the social media industry. Here are the major highlights of the report.
1. Former TikTok Creative Leaders Launch NemoVideo
NemoVideo, a video-creation Agent platform founded by former TikTok Creative team leads Jin Li and Evy Liu, has closed nearly $10 million across its Pre-A and angel rounds.
The Pre-A round was led solely by IDG Capital, while angel investors include Jingqiu Capital, Tidon, WeLight Capital, and former 01.AI co-founder Xuemei Gu. Palm Capital served as the exclusive financial advisor for the Pre-A round. NemoVideo began with a "viral-video replication Agent" targeted at video creators, with the long-term goal of building a full video-creation Agent marketplace and community.
2. US Senator Demands Answers to Trump’s TikTok Divestiture Plan
Democratic senator Ed Markey from Massachusetts has asked US President Donald Trump to answer key details about a plan by TikTok’s Chinese owners to sell a majority stake in the short video app’s US assets.
Trump signed an executive order on September 25 declaring that a plan to sell TikTok’s US operations to a consortium of US and global investors meets the national security requirements set out in a 2024 law and gave them 120 days to complete the transaction. In doing so, he delayed enforcement of the law banning the app used by 170 million Americans until January 20. The senator said the White House has not answered numerous questions and has not followed the 2024 law.
3. TikTok Rolls Out Setting to Reduce AI-Generated Content in “For You” Feed
TikTok is introducing a new option that lets users see fewer AI-generated videos in their “For You” feed.
The toggle, currently in testing, will appear in the Manage Topics section within the coming weeks. Similar to existing controls for categories like dance, sports, and food, the AIGC setting allows users to dial down AI content without completely removing it. To improve labeling, TikTok is also testing invisible watermarks.
4. Chinese Tech Giants Reap Early Gains From big AI Bets
Chinese technology powerhouses are beginning to reap early returns from their heavy investments in artificial intelligence, with quarterly results showing the impact across businesses from short video platforms like Kuaishou Technology to social media giants like Tencent Holdings.
Kuaishou, in an earnings statement, attributed its third-quarter revenue growth to the use of AI technology to upgrade marketing solutions and its Kling video tool. Tencent, the Chinese social media and video gaming powerhouse, posted a 19 percent jump in third-quarter profit on AI-related gains.
5. Baidu Establishes Two New Large Model R&D Departments Reporting Directly to CEO
Baidu has announced a major technical reorganization, creating two new departments dedicated to large model development, both reporting directly to CEO Robin Li.
The two departments, Foundation Model and Applied Model, will be led by Wu Tian and Jia Lei, respectively. Wu Tian and Jia Lei are long-time homegrown Baidu technical leaders, highlighting the company’s talent depth and ongoing push toward younger leadership. The move elevates large model R&D to the highest level, adopting a “divide-and-conquer” strategy to strengthen Baidu’s core AI competitiveness and better meet customer and user needs.
6. Baidu’s AI Revenue Surges Over 50%, Total AI Investment Exceeds 100 Billion RMB
Baidu has reported Q3 revenue of 31.2 billion RMB and core revenue of 24.7 billion RMB.
For the first time, the company disclosed AI business revenue, which soared over 50% YoY, beating market expectations. Founder Robin Li stated AI is driving transformative value, with Radish Run scaling fully unmanned operations and entering Switzerland, while AI-native products show strong long-term potential. CFO Herman Yu revealed Baidu has invested over 100 billion RMB in AI since launching ERNIE Bot in March 2023, with continued heavy investment ahead.
7. Xiaomi’s Q3 Profit Surges 80.9%, EV Business Turns Profitable
Xiaomi Group’s Q3 2025 financial results exceeded forecasts, with total revenue reaching 113.1 billion RMB, up 22.3% YoY, and adjusted net profit hitting a record 11.3 billion RMB, surging 80.9% YoY, alongside a gross margin of 22.9%.
The spotlight fell on the smart EV and AI innovation business, achieving its first quarterly operating profit of 700 million RMB, signaling a shift from investment to profitability. Segment revenue totaled 29 billion RMB, with the auto business contributing 28.3 billion RMB from a record 108,800 deliveries, gross margin rising to 25.5% thanks to cost reductions, scale effects, and higher premium model mix.
8. Ant Group Launches Ling Guang
Ant Group has officially launched "Ling Guang," a full-modal universal AI assistant capable of generating functional mini-applications from natural language prompts in just 30 seconds. The assistant is now available on both iOS and Android app stores.
Ling Guang creates multi-modal content entirely through code generation. Its initial release includes three core features: "Ling Guang Dialogue," which provides logically structured responses; "Flash App," enabling rapid app generation; and "Ling Guang Insight," which supports rich content creation. The system can output diverse formats including 3D models, audio, video, charts, animations, and interactive maps.
9. JD.Com Enters Local Services Fray With "JD Review" Platform
JD.com has officially rolled out its “JD Review” platform along with a new food delivery app, marking its full-fledged entry into China’s fiercely competitive local services sector and positioning itself as a challenger to Alibaba and Meituan.
Unveiled by founder Richard Liu at a corporate event in Sanya, JD Review spans five categories—dining, hotels, shopping, travel, and home services. At its core is the “JD Authentic List,” which JD bills as China’s first AI-powered service rating model. The system evaluates online content related to restaurants and hotels to produce unbiased, data-backed recommendations.
10. Alibaba's Qwen App Hits 10 Million Users in One Week
Alibaba's AI assistant “Qwen” has surpassed 10 million downloads just one week after its public beta launch, making it the fastest-growing AI application in history—outpacing initial growth rates of ChatGPT, Sora, and DeepSeek.
The explosive adoption stems from the strong technical foundation and open-source influence of Alibaba’s Qwen model series. Since its full open-source release in 2023, Qwen has surpassed competitors such as Llama and DeepSeek to become one of the world's most widely adopted open-source large language models, with cumulative global downloads exceeding 600 million. The recently released flagship model, Qwen3-Max, now ranks among the top three globally in performance metrics, outperforming leading international counterparts including GPT-5 and Claude Opus 4.
11. Alibaba Launches Quark AI Glasses
Alibaba’s Quark brand has officially released its new Quark AI Glasses, now fully integrated with Alibaba’s Qianwen AI model.
On the hardware side, the Quark AI Glasses feature a dual-chip design, combining Qualcomm’s AR1 flagship processor with the BES2800 chip from Hengxuan Technology. The device runs a dual operating system (Android + RTOS), supports dual displays, dual optical engines, and adjustable convergence distance. It also includes dual-battery architecture and a six-mic array (five microphones plus one bone-conduction mic).
12. Alibaba to Lead AI Capital Spending Among Chinese Firms Amid Strong Demand
Alibaba.com, which operates under the group’s international commerce arm, has created “AI Mode” for its online search engine to help global users reliably find the products they need, according to Zhang Kuo, the platform’s president.
In AI Mode, tailored results and recommendations are generated via natural language queries. Based on user queries, the AI tool would automatically compare suppliers in minutes – using metrics that include price and production capabilities – and provide straightforward recommendations, Zhang said. Before AI, this was a tedious sourcing process that took days or weeks to complete, he said.
13. Alibaba Posts 5% Rise in Quarterly Revenue on AI, Cloud Momentum
Alibaba Group Holding, China’s e-commerce and cloud computing giant, has reported a better-than-expected 5 percent increase in revenue for the September quarter, as its cloud and artificial intelligence businesses continued to gain momentum.
Total revenue for the Hangzhou-based company reached 247.8 billion yuan (US$34.8 billion) for its financial second quarter ended September 30, beating the consensus estimate of 245.2 billion yuan by Bloomberg-polled analysts. That was more than the 2 percent growth rate in the previous quarter. Net income attributable to ordinary shareholders fell 52 percent to 21 billion yuan from 43.9 billion yuan a year ago, primarily due to the decrease in income from operations. That was still better than the 9.2 billion yuan estimate by analysts.
14. DeepSeek Releases New Mathematical Reasoning Model “DeepSeekMath-V2”
DeepSeek has unveiled DeepSeekMath-V2, a next-generation mathematical reasoning model built around a self-verifying training framework.
Developed on top of DeepSeek V3.2-Exp-Base, the system uses a large-language-model–powered verification module to automatically check the correctness of generated mathematical proofs, while continuously refining its performance using increasingly challenging, high-difficulty samples. It demonstrated performances that reached gold-medal levels at both the 2025 International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) and the 2024 Chinese Mathematical Olympiad (CMO).
15. Singapore’s Temasek Invests in WeRide, Pony.ai to Boost China Tech Holdings
Singapore’s Temasek Holdings, one of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds, added stakes in two of China’s top autonomous driving firms during the third quarter of this year.
According to its latest 13F filings, the state-owned fund purchased roughly 1.4 million shares of WeRide and 14,500 shares of Pony.ai, with the combined investment valued at approximately US$13.7 million. Temasek is no stranger to the sector, having previously backed global players such as Sweden’s Einride, which focuses on electric and self-driving freight solutions, and Israeli AI mobility firm Autobrains.
16. China Targets AI-Powered Price Manipulation in New Antitrust Guidelines
China’s market regulator has moved to tackle the hidden risks of algorithm-driven price manipulation with newly proposed anti-monopoly guidelines for online shopping, food delivery and travel platforms.
A draft of the “Anti-Monopoly Compliance Guidelines for Internet Platforms”, published by the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR). The document identified eight “new risks”, including collusion among platforms through coordinated algorithms to fix pricing and commission fees, dominant players forcing merchants to sign exclusive contracts, and practices like excessive subsidies or unjustified refusals to allow merchants to operate stores.
17. Chinese Vendors on Shein, Temu Face Tax Changes at Home And Abroad
Chinese merchants who sell to overseas markets via popular sites like Shein and Temu are struggling with escalating tax and compliance burdens from both their main export market, the European Union, and the domestic tax authority.
The latest pressure came from the EU, which on Thursday agreed to abolish a rule that allowed goods worth less than €150 (US$174) to enter the region without customs duties. The new rule will apply once an EU customs data hub is ready, scheduled for 2028. However, the bloc said it was working towards a “simple, temporary solution” to levy customs duties on low-value goods as soon as next year.
Wrapping Up
The vast and diverse nature of the Chinese Social Media space makes it incredibly challenging to keep a tab on the rapid developments taking place. However, China’s Digital Digest brings you all the latest updates from there to keep you abreast of all the evolving trends.
To delve deeper into the findings of our latest report, click here.
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