Chinese tech firms and state media have spotlighted humanoid robots, which have grown in popularity since the Unitree G1 appeared to run, jump, dance and perform martial arts-like movements in a recent demonstration.

Both the United States and China are leaders in humanoid robot technology. But industry analysts believe that the United States is superior in AI technology, which is responsible for the robot’s “brain,” while Chinese technology companies have flourished in the hardware manufacturing capabilities of the robot’s “body.”

Click here for the full story in Mandarin.
…

The United States may become the second country after Australia to ban China’s DeepSeek artificial intelligence on government devices.

U.S. Representatives Josh Gottheimer and Darin LaHood introduced a bipartisan bill proposing the ban.

In their letter to 47 U.S. governors and the mayor of Washington, the congressmen warned that DeepSeek could pose security risks to sensitive government data and cybersecurity and Americans’ privacy, NBC News reported on March 3.

China denies the allegations. However, concerns highlighted by the U.S. lawmakers and state officials are not without merit, experts say.

The Chinese government has reportedly also used AI models like DeepSeek for mass surveillance, including the collection of biometric data and social media listening models that report to China’s security services and the military, as well as for information attacks on U.S. and Chinese dissidents abroad.

At least three leading Chinese surveillance and security companies — TopSec, QAX and NetEase — announced the integration of DeepSeek to enhance their services. 

All three companies provide services to the Chinese government, and some made it clear that DeepSeek will improve their cyber censorship and surveillance capabilities. This includes AI-driven biometric data capturing, face recognition and surveillance technologies such as “smart cities,” the Skynet Project, and the Xueliang Project, which can monitor all aspects of an individual’s public life, Wenhao Ma of VOA’s China Division reported.

In January, Canadian cybersecurity firm Feroot Security uncovered a code imbedded in DeepSeek’s login processes that shares user information with Chinese state-owned communication company China Mobile, AP reported.

The Associated Press described the code as a “heavily obfuscated computer script that when deciphered shows connections to computer infrastructure owned by China Mobile.”

The U.S. banned China Mobile in 2019 following intelligence reports that it serves as the Chinese military’s spy arm.

China-based actors have been using ChatGPT along with DeepSeek models to generate phishing email and disinformation attacks on the U.S. “on behalf of unspecified clients in China,” OpenAI said in its February report.

OpenAI identified and blocked a cluster of China-originated accounts involved in malicious activities, such as Qianyue Overseas Public Opinion AI Assistant, reportedly designed to ingest and analyze posts and comments related to Chinese politics and human rights from platforms such as X, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Telegram and Reddit.

The purpose of the operation was reportedly “to feed the resulting insights to the Chinese authorities” such as “Chinese embassies abroad, and to intelligence agents monitoring protests in countries including the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom,” OpenAI said.

A set of ChatGPT accounts that OpenAI banned in February had been involved in Chinese influence operations focused on generating short comments in English and long-form Spanish-language articles critical of the United States published in local and national media outlets across Latin America and Spain.

One of the Chinese companies planting the articles in the Spanish-language outlets was Jilin Yousen Culture Communication Co., a subsidiary of the government-tied Beijing United Publishing House.

VOA reviewed nine of the Chinese AI-generated articles published in Spanish-language media between October and November 2024 as identified by OpenAI.

Two — in Mexico’s El Universal and Peru’s El Popular — criticized the United States’ use of sanctions targeting foreign governments and individuals.

The El Universal op-ed described the U.S. sanctions on Iran’s oil industry for Tehran’s backing of terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah as exposing the U.S.’ “impotence” in dealing with global politics and the “rapid decline” of its “moral standing.”

Similarly, El Popular painted U.S. sanctions on a Hamas affiliate as “insane” and an “attack on the rights of Palestinian people.”

An article in Peru’s La Republica presented the U.S. as the biggest beneficiary of the Russian war in Ukraine, replicating the Kremlin’s key narrative. It criticized the U.S. for providing military aid to Kyiv, framing the American support as an escalation of the war.

China, however, has been a key provider of military technologies and weapons to Russia, which Moscow uses in daily attacks on Ukrainian civilians.

Another China-planted piece in La Republica described U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff policy as “undermining U.S. global leadership position.”

Three pieces in Peru’s Wapa, El Popular and El Plural exploited the issues of homelessness, child nutrition and crime in the U.S. — all presented as extremely acute and dangerous.

For example, the child nutrition piece claimed that most children in the U.S. “go hungry on weekends and holidays” due to the government’s neglect of children’s food security.

While the topics of these articles vary from human rights and social issues in the U.S. to foreign and domestic politics, they all paint a picture of a dysfunctional state with failing moral values and declining international influence, matching Beijing’s standard narrative.
…

WASHINGTON — Chip giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. announced on Monday plans to make an additional $100 billion investment in the United States and build five additional chips factories in the coming years.

TSMC CEO C.C. Wei announced the plan in a meeting at the White House with President Donald Trump.

“We must be able to build the chips and semiconductors that we need right here,” Trump said. “It’s a matter of national security for us.”

TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, is a leading supplier to major U.S. hardware manufacturers.

The $100 billion outlay, which would boost domestic production and make the United States less reliant on semiconductors made in Asia, is in addition to a major prior investment announcement. TSMC agreed in April to expand its planned U.S. investment by $25 billion to $65 billion and to add a third Arizona factory by 2030.

With his Nov. 5 election victory largely driven by voters’ economic concerns, Trump has stepped up efforts to bolster investments in domestic industries to create jobs.

The TSMC announcement is the latest in a string of such developments. In February, Apple said it would invest $500 billion in the next four years. Emirati billionaire Hussain Sajwani and SoftBank also have promised multibillion-dollar investments in the U.S.

TSMC said on Monday it looks “forward to discussing our shared vision for innovation and growth in the semiconductor industry, as well as exploring ways to bolster the technology sector along with our customers.”

The U.S. Commerce Department under then President Joe Biden finalized a $6.6 billion government subsidy in November for TSMC’s U.S. unit for semiconductor production in Phoenix, Arizona.

Biden signed the CHIPS and Science Act legislation in 2022 to provide $52.7 billion in subsidies for American semiconductor production and research.

Taiwan’s dominant position as a maker of chips used in technology from cellphones and cars to fighter jets has sparked concerns of over-reliance on the island, especially as China ramps up pressure to assert its sovereignty claims.

China claims Taiwan as its territory, but the democratically elected government in Taipei rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims.

Under Biden, the Commerce Department convinced all five leading-edge semiconductor firms to locate factories in the U.S. as part of the program to address national security risks from imported chips.

Trump’s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told lawmakers last month that the program was “an excellent down payment” to rebuild the sector, but he has declined to commit grants that have already been approved by the department, saying he wanted to “read them and analyze them and understand them.”

A TSMC spokesperson said last month the company had received $1.5 billion in CHIPS Act money before the new administration came in as per the milestone terms of its agreement.

TSMC last year agreed to produce the world’s most advanced 2-nanometer technology at its second Arizona factory expected to begin production in 2028. TSMC also agreed to use its most advanced chip manufacturing technology called “A16” in Arizona.

TSMC has already begun producing advanced 4-nanometer chips for U.S. customers in Arizona.

The TSMC award included up to $5 billion in low-cost government loans.

 
…

WASHINGTON — More than 50 years passed between the last Apollo mission and the United States’ return to the lunar surface, when the first private lander touched down last February 2024.

Now, starting Sunday, two more missions are set to follow within a single week, marking a bold push by NASA and its industry partners to make moon landings a routine part of space exploration.

First up is Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1, nicknamed “Ghost Riders in the Sky.”

After launching in January on a 45-day journey, it is targeting touchdown near Mons Latreille, a volcanic feature in Mare Crisium on the moon’s northeastern near side, at 3:34 a.m. U.S. Eastern time. Along the way, it captured stunning footage of the moon, coming as close as 100 kilometers above the surface.

The golden lander, about the size of a hippopotamus, carries 10 instruments, including one to analyze lunar soil, another to test radiation-tolerant computing and a GPS-based navigation system.

Designed to operate for a full lunar day (14 Earth days), Blue Ghost is expected to capture high-definition imagery of a total eclipse on March 14, when Earth blocks the Sun from the Moon’s horizon.

On March 16, it will record a lunar sunset, offering insights into how dust levitates above the surface under solar influence — creating the mysterious lunar horizon glow first documented by Apollo astronaut Eugene Cernan.

Hopping drone

Blue Ghost’s arrival will be followed on March 6 by Intuitive Machines’ IM-2 mission, featuring its lander, Athena.

Last year, Intuitive Machines made history as the first private company to achieve a soft landing on the moon, although the moment was tempered by a mishap.

Coming down too fast, one of the lander’s feet caught on the lunar surface, tipping it over and causing it to rest sideways — limiting its ability to generate solar power and cutting the mission short.

This time, the company says it has made key improvements to the hexagonal-shaped lander, which has a taller, slimmer profile than Blue Ghost and is around the height of an adult giraffe.

Athena launched Wednesday aboard a SpaceX rocket, taking a more direct route toward Mons Mouton — the southernmost lunar landing site ever attempted.

It carries an ambitious set of payloads, including a unique hopping drone designed to explore the moon’s underground passages carved by ancient lava flows, a drill capable of digging 3 feet beneath the surface in search of ice and three rovers.

The largest, about the size of a beagle, will connect to the lander and hopper using a Nokia cellular network in a first-of-its-kind demonstration.

But “Grace,” the hopping drone — named after computing pioneer Grace Hopper — could well steal the show if it succeeds in showing it can navigate the moon’s treacherous terrain in ways no rover can.

NASA’s private moon fleet

Landing on the moon presents unique challenges due to the absence of an atmosphere, making parachutes ineffective. Instead, spacecraft must rely on precisely controlled thruster burns to slow their descent while navigating hazardous terrain.

Until Intuitive Machines’ first successful mission, only five national space agencies had accomplished this feat: the Soviet Union, the United States, China, India and Japan, in that order.

Now, the United States is working to make private lunar missions routine through NASA’s $2.6 billion Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, a public-private initiative designed to deliver hardware to the surface at a fraction of traditional mission costs.

These missions come at a pivotal moment for NASA amid speculation that it may scale back or even cancel its Artemis lunar program in favor of prioritizing Mars exploration — a key goal of President Donald Trump and his close advisor, SpaceX founder Elon Musk.
…