The academic degree committee under the State Council, China’s cabinet, has voted through a proposal to establish an integrated circuit (IC) university program, which will be designated a first-level discipline, in a move which industry observers said represents the country’s latest effort to nurture homegrown talent in the semiconductor industry amid a US-led crackdown on China’s tech rise.
The degree’s establishment will be officially announced after it is approved by the State Council.
The microelectronics and solid electronics university program, which involves semiconductor courses, is currently designated a second-class discipline.
Analysts said the establishment and first-class designation of the IC program will allow more universities to open colleges to train IC students, so as to make up for a drain in China’s talent pool. Also, IC-related subjects will have access to more resources and funding.
A ceremony marking the completion of the BeiDou-3 Navigation Satellite System BDS-3 was held at the Great Hall of the People. Check out a brief history of China’s global navigation system decades in the making.
China aims to make the application of the BeiDou Satellite Navigation System (BDS) the best among all other navigation systems, and be more inclusive to provide value-added services including short messaging, satellite based augmentation and international search-and-rescue services, the spokesperson of BDS and director general of China Satellite Navigation Office Ran Chengqi said Monday.
So far, BDS has been applied in industries such as transportation, public security, disaster relief, farming and urban governance, as well as being integrated into China’s key basic infrastructure construction including electricity, finance and telecom, Ran said at a press briefing Monday in Beijing.
In particular, BDS-based high-precision applications played a positive role in China’s fights against COVID-19 and the recent flooding in southern China. BDS has been applied in China-Europe freight train transportation, the construction and operation of high-speed trains between Beijing and Zhangjiakou, North China’s Hebei Province as well as civil aviation, Ran said.
“We will further promote the integration of BDS with newly emerging technologies, such as 5G, mobile communication, big data and the mobile internet, which will create new economic growth points,” Ran said.
Chinese leaders launched the full global service of the BeiDou-3 on Friday. BDS is China’s largest space-based system and one of four global navigation networks, alongside the US’ GPS, Russia’s GLONASS and the European Union’s Galileo.
BeiDou is able to tell others where the user is located, a strong advantage compared with GPS, Huang Haihui, vice president of the UniStrong Science & Technology Co, told the Global Times Monday.
This application is particularly useful in search and rescue missions that can return a feedback to the people calling for help, Huang cited the example of obtaining the location of oceangoing vessels when they are in distress.
“This is China’s own system meaning it’s independently controllable, so there is no need to worry about the navigation usage in some special areas such as national defense,” he noted.
Ran said that more than 500 types of equipment components have been made in China and the domestic production rate of the BDS-3’s key components is 100 percent.
BDS’ global positioning accuracy is better than 10 meters, with a timing accuracy better than 20 nanoseconds, and its performance in the Asia-Pacific region is even better.
Both satellite distribution and the number of BeiDou satellites gives it an advantage in accuracy, stability, reliability and usability, Huang said, adding that wider applications for BeiDou could be in precision farming and autonomous driving at port wharfs.
The output of China’s satellite navigation and location-based services industry has been growing more than 20 percent annually on average, reaching 345 billion yuan ($49.47 billion) in 2019, and is expected to exceed 400 billion yuan in 2020, Ran said.
BDS and navigation-relate shares surged on Monday, with UniStrong and BDStar Navigation gaining by the daily 10 percent limit.
Researchers at the Australian National University (ANU) recently said that they had achieved “a new efficiency record” for hydrogen cells that can convert water into hydrogen simply using sunlight.
Co-author Shen Heping, who develops perovskite cells, shows a part of the cell in the lab of Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra, Australia, July 15, 2020. Researchers at the ANU recently said that they had achieved “a new efficiency record” for hydrogen cells that can convert water into hydrogen simply using sunlight.
The approach outlined in the ANU study used inexpensive semiconductor materials and resulted in a 17.6 percent solar-to-hydrogen efficiency, according to the researchers.
Thailand’s communications conglomerate True Corp signed a 5G commercial contract with China’s ZTE to use the latter’s full range of 5G products and services to help roll out a 5G network in Thailand. True Corp holds 30% of Thailand’s mobile market.
https://bws2020.carrier.huawei.com/en/index.html Global 5G deployment is beginning to wrap up, and with the installation of more than 1.5 million 5G base stations expected by the end of this year, the next focus should be on industry applications, said Huawei Rotating Chairman Guo Ping on Monday during the opening day of the online Better World Summit held by the Chinese tech firm .
“As global 5G deployment begins to wrap up, we need to strengthen our focus on industry applications. This will help us unleash the full potential of 5G,” Guo said.
As of this June, 81 telecom carriers have rolled out commercial 5G networks. The countries and regions covered by these networks account for 72 percent of the world’s GDP, including leading economies in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. Globally, there are already more than 90 million 5G users. Over 700,000 5G base stations have been deployed, and it is expected to see more than 1.5 million by the end of this year, data unveiled by the firm showed.
The signal from Huawei is clear – telecom carriers who have selected Huawei equipment will be the first to reap the benefits of 5G, a Beijing-based industry insider surnamed Jiang and a close follower of Huawei told the Global Times on Monday.
Guo said the firm has “a broad set of capabilities spanning 5G, computing, cloud, AI, and industry applications. By leveraging these strengths, we can provide scenario-based solutions that unlock the full potential of 5G and help both our customers and partners achieve greater business success.”
“Nevertheless, those who are still weighing whether to use its equipment for 5G will significantly lag behind and will not benefit from the chance to lead the industry,” Jiang said.
The remarks were also viewed by industry insiders as a response to Huawei’s recent dilemma in Europe, where the UK has banned the firm from its 5G network deployment, while other economies in the region have also been weighing the decision, leading to uncertainties about the firm’s fate in Europe.
In the past 30-plus years, the Chinese firm has deployed over 1,500 networks in more than 170 countries and regions, serving over 3 billion people worldwide. It has also provided smart devices to 600 million consumers and delivered services to 228 Fortune Global 500 companies.
Mr Guo Ping also described nine scenarios for emerging technologies as outlined in the coronavirus outbreak across China, starting from the onset of the pandemic and plateau in cases to the nation’s post-peak recovery.
Such scenarios included quickly building hospital 5G networks, offering remote medical consultations, drug R&D, pandemic prevention and control, medical imaging and analysis and restarting governments and businesses, among others.
China’s Huoshenshan Hospital was built in a matter of days and has over 300 beds, but doctor shortages posed ‘headaches’ to medical care, he added. China Telecom had built an operational 5G network in 24 hours, allowing doctors to perform 15-minute ultrasounds for patients in Wuhan and others with a high degree of accuracy.
China’s First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University used such technologies to provide telemedicine services to over 1,400 institutions across China, Zambia, Morocco and others in electro cardiography, pathology and radiology, he said.
According to figures, over 40,000 consultations and 500,000 diagnoses were performed at the world’s largest hospital by capacity.
Balancing short-term and long-term goals: Precise deployment for maximum value
Guo said, “Given the current economic environment, carriers need to focus on both short-term and long-term goals. More precise deployment is how they can maximize the value of their networks.” Huawei has three suggestions for this.
First, carriers should prioritize user experience and spend money where it’s needed most to maximize the value of existing networks.
Second, carriers should make the most of existing 4G and FTTx networks, and integrate them with new 5G networks through holistic coordination and precise planning.
Third, 5G deployment plans should prioritize hotspots and key industry applications.
China sent a new high-resolution mapping satellite into space on Saturday from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in the northern province of Shanxi.
The Ziyuan III 03 资源三号 satellite was launched by a Long March-4B rocket at 11:13 a.m. Beijing time, according to the center. It was the 341st flight mission by the Long March rocket series.
Also on board the rocket were two satellites used for dark matter detection and commercial data acquisition respectively. They were developed by the Shanghai ASES Spaceflight Technology Co. Ltd.
Syrah Resouces, an Australian resources company, commissioned its first graphite purification plant in Louisiana, US, in mid-July. The graphite mined in Mozambique will be purified in the United States to produce anode materials for lithium electronic vehicle batteries, and will be supplied to chemical companies in the United States and Europe, among others. In addition, Australia’s Eco-Graphite plans to start operations in 2022 at a graphite purification plant in western Australia to make lithium-ion battery materials from graphite mined in Tanzania and supply to manufacturers such as Germany’s ThyssenKrupp. The company claims that its graphite purification costs are lower than those of Chinese companies, which could promote the industry to “get rid of its over-dependence on China”. At present, Chinese companies control more than 60% of the world’s natural graphite mining, in the field of graphite purification of anode materials for automotive batteries almost formed a monopoly.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
