Gavekal Technologies

An unverified claim that over half of China’s domestic tokens are used for video and micro drama generation has sparked a heated online debate. Critics contrast China’s supposed use of scarce compute resources for entertainment with an alleged US focus on coding and productivity. While the data remain unconfirmed, the debate reveals the potential disconnect between Beijing’s ambitions for economy-wide AI transformation and the commercial realities of Chinese AI companies.

The US data center boom is facing a power crunch. So far, delays and cancellations due to electricity shortages have been sporadic but by some point in 2028, they could force a significant slowdown in data center construction. It will be important for the US to figure out how to better use batteries and distributed renewables generation to make power demand and supply more flexible. China is already ahead in this effort.