Poe Zhao
@poezhao0605
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Decoding China's tech landscape for global investors & builders. AI • Robotics • EVs • Semiconductors. 12+ years covering China's tech evolution.
Beijing
Joined April 2025
Just published a new piece on ByteDance’s Doubao Phone Assistant and what it reveals about the new interface war in China. An AI agent that taps screens like a human. A marginal phone used as an engineering sample. Super apps reacting within seventy two hours. The essay
hellochinatech.com
When APIs are closed, only forbidden paths remain. ByteDance chose one.
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Two striking numbers reveal China's brain-computer interface paradox: - China produced only 168 BCI PhDs from 2003 to 2025. That's barely enough to staff a few research teams, let alone build an industry. - Yet Chinese scholars now represent 50% of all researchers worldwide
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Just published a new piece on ByteDance’s Doubao Phone Assistant and what it reveals about the new interface war in China. An AI agent that taps screens like a human. A marginal phone used as an engineering sample. Super apps reacting within seventy two hours. The essay
hellochinatech.com
When APIs are closed, only forbidden paths remain. ByteDance chose one.
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I’m seeing more and more of these “robot convenience stores” in Beijing. They look impressive from outside. A humanoid robot appears to run the shop. Very futuristic. Then you look closer. There’s always someone inside. Sometimes helping the robot. Sometimes helping customers.
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Full breakdown of the unit economics and what it means for ByteDance’s IPO strategy:
New FlashPoint: ByteDance’s cloud unit is deliberately choosing lower revenue. Volcano Engine could make 10x more selling GPU rentals. Instead it’s betting on a market that generated less than $140M in China last year. The counterintuitive math actually makes sense. Here’s why:
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ByteDance launched an AI phone assistant with ZTE this week. I analyzed that move separately. But what’s more telling is what’s happening at Volcano Engine, ByteDance’s cloud unit. It just ranked fifth globally in Gartner’s AI development platform assessment. The interesting
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🤷
@MKBHD The big issue is branding. Many have horrible names Dongfeng Aeolus BYD Yangwang U9 Geely Geome Xingyuan Baojun Yep Xpeng G6 Wuling Bingo Not exactly a Diablo, Mustang, Bronco, Skyline etc
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Just published a new piece on ByteDance’s Doubao Phone Assistant and what it reveals about the new interface war in China. An AI agent that taps screens like a human. A marginal phone used as an engineering sample. Super apps reacting within seventy two hours. The essay
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ByteDance’s new statement highlights the real constraint on GUI agents in China. The rule that users must manually complete every high-stakes verification step is not about technical safety. It is the enforcement of platform sovereignty. Financial intent is the hard boundary.
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The real ByteDance agent question is simple. Can an AI layer capture user intent without controlling the platform underneath? In this piece I trace the whole chain from INJECT_EVENTS and Nubia’s role as a near contract manufacturer to WeChat logouts, Taobao CAPTCHA walls and
hellochinatech.com
When APIs are closed, only forbidden paths remain. ByteDance chose one.
ByteDance's AI agent phone launched three days ago. WeChat now blocks it. The "Doubao Assistant" phone (a collaboration between ByteDance and ZTE) can no longer log into WeChat or perform any WeChat-related tasks. Users see error messages about "abnormal login environment."
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Noticed Tencent rebranded its AI model. Hunyuan → Tencent HY. Much cleaner for global markets.
Tencent HY 2.0 is officially released. We are rolling out a major performance upgrade to our foundation model, now available via Tencent Cloud API. Built on a Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) architecture (406B total, 32B active parameters) and featuring a 256K context window, HY 2.0
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If you follow my work, you know I focus on a single goal: explaining how China’s tech industry really works beneath the surface. This new piece is part of that effort. If you want the full analysis every week, including the frameworks, the data and the uncomfortable questions,
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That’s a much bigger battle than just getting Doubao to work with WeChat.
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China is now the earliest test case for intent first computing. Google is preparing Aluminium OS. Apple is wiring Apple Intelligence into app actions. OpenAI is working on an AI centric device. ByteDance just showed what the collision with existing platforms looks like in
Just published a new piece on ByteDance’s Doubao Phone Assistant and what it reveals about the new interface war in China. An AI agent that taps screens like a human. A marginal phone used as an engineering sample. Super apps reacting within seventy two hours. The essay
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Meituan fired back the same evening. It’s rolling out 30 million weekend coupons worth over 100 million RMB. The focus is on hot pot and noodle soups, categories that test delivery speed and quality. The gloves are off. More in my analysis next week on the Alibaba vs Meituan
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The euphoria misses the point. This IPO happened because VC funding dried up, not because the business model works.
'China's Nvidia' Moore Threads surges over 400% on trading debut after $1.1 billion listing
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Just published a new piece on ByteDance’s Doubao Phone Assistant and what it reveals about the new interface war in China. An AI agent that taps screens like a human. A marginal phone used as an engineering sample. Super apps reacting within seventy two hours. The essay
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Background ⬇️
ByteDance's AI agent phone launched three days ago. WeChat now blocks it. The "Doubao Assistant" phone (a collaboration between ByteDance and ZTE) can no longer log into WeChat or perform any WeChat-related tasks. Users see error messages about "abnormal login environment."
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Alibaba announced https://t.co/m46ZqNQzOh is rebranding to “Taobao Shangou.” The food delivery app will fully integrate into Taobao’s ecosystem. This is Alibaba doubling down on instant retail. Meituan, which dominates this market, now faces serious competition. I’ll publish
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