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By FAN FEIFEI in two years [email protected] Didi Chuxing, China’s largest ridehailing com Low consumer inflation limits chances pany, has officially launched Didi Labs in of China tightening monetary policy Mountain View, Califor nia, which will be focused By XIN ZHIMING and remainsstable,saidthebureau. on artificial intelligence WANG YANFEI China’s producer prices based security and intelli surged at the fastest pace since gent driving technologies. China’s consumer price 2008 to 7.8 percent, up from 6.9 The lab will be led by index, a key gauge of retail percent in January, thanks to Gong Fengmin, vicepresi inflation, rose 0.8 percent last the low base last February and dent of Didi research insti month, the slowest growth in recent rises in commodity pri tute. Dozens of leading two years, due to the distor ces, according to a research data scientists and tion caused by the timing of note from China International researchers have joined the Chinese Lunar New Year. Capital Corporation. the team, including Char Analysts said the low con In the coming two months, lie Miller, a key member of sumer inflation reduces the CPI may remain low due to rival firm Uber Technolo possibility of China tightening high comparison bases, said gies Inc’s selfdriving its monetary policy and leaves Liu Dongliang, a senior ana team, according to Didi. room for policymakers to lyst at China Merchants Secu A woman looks at vegetable prices at a supermarket in Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu province. SU YANG / FOR CHINA DAILY Didi said its current pro focus on risk prevention, ana rities. Producer prices may jects cover cloudbased lysts said. stabilize and even fall in the security, deep learning, Ample supply of vegetables coming months due to a possi sumer price index may rise from 2.03 trillion yuan in Jan China's CPI and PPI trends humanmachine interac and sagging demand for meat ble weakening in commodity mildly after February, produc uary, according to the People’s CPI PPI tion, computer vision and and other consumption items prices, he said. er prices may remain at high Bank of China, the central 7.8 imaging, as well as intelli 8 6.9 after the Lunar New Year holi “The low CPI reading in Feb levels in the coming months bank, on Thursday. 7 gent driving technologies. 5.5 day led to a “marked drop” in ruary reduces pressure on the and even hit new highs given Chinese banks usually 6 “Building on rich data 5 food prices in February, said a central bank to take measures rising prices in the midstream extend more loans in the first 3.3 and fastevolving AI ana 4 2.3 2.3 2.3 2.0 1.9 1.8 1.3 1.9 2.1 statement from the National to combat inflation and the and downstream industries. half of the year to compete for 3 lytics, we will be working Bureau of Statistics. Moreover, possibility of China’s monetary In another development, market shares and prevent 2 0.8 with cities and towns to the high base of calculation policy being tightened further China’s new loans fell sharply regulators from limiting lend 1 1.2 2.3 2.1 2.5 build intelligent transpor 0 last February,in which the Chi declines,” he said, adding that in February from nearrecord ing in the second half if they -1 0.1 tation ecosystems for the nese New Year took place, con monetary policymakers will levels in January but were still are deemed to have lent too -2 -0.8 future,” said Didi CEO -3 -1.7 tributed to the low reading last focus on deleveraging and pre higher than general market much for the economy. -4.3 -2.8 -2.6 Cheng Wei. -4 -4.9 -3.4 month, the statement said. vention of financial risks as expectations. Banks made 1.17 -5 Core CPI, which excludes consumer inflation stabilizes. trillion yuan ($169 billion) in Contact the writers at xin 2016 F MAMJ JASO ND 2017 J F energy and food prices, CICC said while the con new loans in February, down [email protected] Source: National Bureau of Statistics LIU LUNAN / CHINA DAILY 20 million Investment Didi online carhailing services’ daily rides in Mobile internet more than 400 cities Qualcomm ups ante powers app industry Cheng said the launch of Didi Labs is a land with fresh funds for mark in creating this By OUYANG SHIJIA would be boosted by China global nexus of innova ouyangshijia@ and then spread to other parts tion. The lab will work in chinadaily.com.cn of the world. tandem with the broader Guizhou venture “Now Chinese publishers’ Didi research network to China’s booming mobile earnings are growing faster advance its global strate By MA SI in Beijing China Daily in Beijing on internet is playing an increas than the average in the globe.” gy, apply research find and YANG JUN Wednesday that the company ingly key role in supporting According to App Annie, ings to products and had received another 1 billion the growth of its mobile app China gained the top spot for services, and help cities US chip giant Qualcomm yuan, the second phase of a industry, according to the lat iOS App Store revenue in develop smart transpor Inc has upped the ante in its capital injection, from its two A visitor experiences a virtual reality headset powered by a est annual report released on 2016 and the country’s iOS tation infrastructure. joint venture in the Guizhou shareholders. Qualcomm Inc Snapdragon 835 processor at the 2017 Consumer Thursday by App Annie, the revenue exceeded $2 billion It also expects to rapid province, pouring another 1 Qualcomm owns a 45 per Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Jan 6. BLOOMBERG USbased mobile analytics in the fourth quarter last ly expand its USbased billion yuan ($144 million), cent stake in Huaxintong, company. year. team of scientists and together with the local govern with the Guizhou provincial center in Beijing last year. The tures when foreign companies According to the company’s Xue Yongfeng, an analyst at engineers over the course ment, into Guizhou Huaxin government accounting for joint venture is part of a broad brought outdated technology Top 52 App Publishers for 2016 Beijingbased internet con of the year. tong Semiconductor the balance. effort by Qualcomm, which to China, Huaxintong will tai list, tech giant Tencent Hold sultancy Analysys, said that Bob Zhang, Didi’s CTO, Technology. Wang said the new deal had dominates the smartphone lormake chips for the China ings Ltd bypassed Finnish because of the maturity and called for top minds in AI The move brought the total not changed the shareholder chip sector, to compete with market on the basis of Qual mobile gaming company growth of the mobile market, and the intelligent driving investment in Huaxintong, structure. He did not disclose Intel Corp in server chips. comm’s latest technology. Supercell Oy to become the more Chinese people were research to join the com which is based in Guizhou’s how the new cash would be Qualcomm President Derek He said over half of Huax top publisher by revenue in now prepared to pay for more pany and to advance capital Guiyang, to 2.85 billion used. Aberle said in an earlier inter intong’s employees are from the world. Supercell, which different types of content than transformation in the yuan. The joint venture was The move comes after view with China Daily that other leading semiconductor topped the list for 2014 and ever before. global transportation established in 2016 by Qual Huaxintong opened a Huaxintong expected to start producers and 70 percent of 2015, was knocked into second “Before, the majority of neti industry. comm and the Guizhou pro research center in Shanghai shipping its Chinacustom them are doctorate or master place in the latest rankings. zens in China only preferred to “In the next decade, Didi vincial government to make last year to step up research ized server chips around mid degree holders. Due to the rapid growth of pay for gaming,”Xue said. will play a leading role in server chips. and development on chip 2018. the gaming sector, Chinese “But with the booming Chi innovation in three ways: Wang Kai, CEO of Huaxin design. According to Huaxintong’s Contact the writers at internet company NetEase Inc nese market and the increase optimization of transpor tong, said in an interview with It also opened an operating Wang, unlike previous ven [email protected] moved up to third place on the in average incomes, they have tation infrastructure, 2016 list, passing USbased more choice to try other stuff, introduction of new ener Machine Zone Inc and Activi such as watching online vid gy vehicles and intelligent sion Blizzard Inc. eos.” driving systems, and a Province plans AIenabled computing center Among the list, 11 compa The list also showed that shift in the humanauto nies were headquartered in the AsiaPacific region proved motive relationship from China. New top Chinabased to be the stronghold for top ownership to shared By MA SI and YANG JUN nology Department. by 18 zeros) calculations per publishers on the list include publishers. Publishers from access,”Zhang said. “We don’t exclude the pos second, roughly 10 times fast Perfect World Co Ltd, Baidu China, Japan and South Wang Chenxi, a trans Guizhou province in south sibility of setting up a joint er than the current world Inc and Gbits Network Tech Korea took 30 of the total 52 port analyst for internet western China plans to build venture with foreign compa $1.85 fastest computer. nology Xiamen Co Ltd. spots. consultancy Analysys, an artificial intelligenceena nies to run the project,” he billion “But our approach is differ “As China’s mobile market The rankings are based on said: “It is an inevitable bled computing center, as the said in an interview with ent. Our computer center will grows increasingly, we will see revenue earned from paid trend that Didi taps into world’s largest radio tele China Daily. investment in Guizhou’s focus on improving deep more Chinese publishers downloads and inapp pur the selfdriving sector as scope, located in the province, The move comes after the JV with Qualcomm Inc learning ability rather than appear on the top publishers chases on the iOS App Store it has already accumulat is expected to start a test run local government persuaded processing speed,”Liao added. list than before,” said Dai Bin, and Google Play Store. ed enough personnel, in the second half of this year, the country’s top three tele Roger Sheng, research App Annie’s region director in App Annie said they do not capital and technolo a senior local official said. com carriers to store data in finishes testing. director at Gartner Inc, said China. include earnings from inapp gies.” The move is part of China’s the province. The radio telescope, locat Guizhou is in dire need of a Dai said in the future, more advertising or subscriptions The selfdriving tech broad plan to promote high The Guizhou provincial ed in Pingtang county, Guiz big computer center to mine innovation in the industry outside app store channels. nology will first be applied end manufacturing and lev government set up a 1.85 bil hou, has a reflector as large insights and value from its into commercial car area erage innovation to boost lion yuan joint venture with as 30 soccer pitches. It was data assets. Top 5 app publishers in 2016 such as logistics, cargo and economic growth, which are the United States chip giant completed in September “It remains to be seen public transportation, and highlighted in this year’s Qualcomm Inc in 2016, in a 2016. whether Guizhou will use its Publisher Rank Headquarter followed by private cars, Government Work Report. move to produce server Liao said data from FAST joint venture’s chips to power Tencent Holdings Ltd 1 China Wang said. “The computing machine, chips, which are of high would first be made available the computer center, because Last week, Didi which is estimated to cost no importance to the big data to scientists and then to the it takes time to tailormake Supercell Oy 2 Finland obtained its first local more than 1 billion yuan sector. public. new chips for that,” Sheng NetEase Inc 3 China online operating license ($145 million), will process Liao said it would take Guizhou’s plan comes said. from Tianjin municipality. data from the radio telescope two years before the 1.2 bil shortly after China said it has “But even it is AIenabled, a Machine Zone Inc 4 United States It offers online carhailing and other enterprises,” said lion yuan, 500meterdiam started to build a newgenera computer center needs to be services in over 400 cities Liao Fei, head of the Guizhou eter aperture spherical tion supercomputer that can backed by fast processing Activision Blizzard Inc 5 United States and completes more than Provincial Science and Tech radio telescope, or FAST, make a quintillion (1 followed speed.” Source: App Annie LIU LUNAN / CHINA DAILY 20 million rides daily.