CHINA PERSPECTIVE

Beijing isn't playing catch-up anymore -- it's claiming to set the pace. The South China Morning Post lays out the DeepSeek-V4 launch with the precision of a victory communique: the V4-Pro model boasts 1.6 trillion parameters, a one-million-token context window (up from 128,000 in the previous model), and cost efficiency described as 'world-leading.' The SCMP quotes Huatai Securities analysts: 'The release of V4 explicitly mentions compatibility with domestic chips. We can look forward to a significant improvement in domestic GPU capabilities.'

The announcement is immediately followed by Huawei declaring 'full support' of its Ascend chips and supernode systems for V4 inference. The SCMP notes that AI chipmaker Cambricon Technologies also rushed to announce compatibility. A complete Chinese ecosystem is snapping into place: DeepSeek model + Huawei Ascend 950 chips + domestic computing infrastructure.

In a separate article, the SCMP reveals Huawei is investing 85 billion yuan ($11.7 billion) in autonomous driving, with 18 billion for 2026 alone -- more than 'the combined expense of all other major solution providers,' according to automotive division CEO Jin Yuzhi. The Qiankun ADS platform has surpassed 10 billion autonomous kilometers across 1.7 million vehicles. The message is unmistakable: China is no longer doing AI R&D -- it's deploying.