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Al Etihad
a day ago
- Business
- Al Etihad
China allows limited exports of rare earths as shortages continue
7 June 2025 09:39 BEIJING (THE NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE)China's Ministry of Commerce has started issuing more export licenses for shipments of rare earth magnets in recent days, but the pace remains factories in the automotive sector and other industries in Europe and the United States, and a few in Japan, are running low on the makes 90% of the world's supply of these magnets, which are essential for cars, drones, factory robots, missiles and many other a 90-minute call Thursday with Chinese PresidentXi Jinping, US President Donald Trump wrote on social media that the two men had discussed rare earths. Trump mentioned that rare earths were a complex subject, but did not indicate whether anything had been decided about China's strict export licensing requirement, which Beijing imposed April wrote on social media Friday that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and US trade representative Jamieson Greer would hold further economic talks Monday in London with top Chinese Trump was asked later on Air Force One whether Xi had agreed to allow rare earth minerals and magnets to flow to the US, Trump replied, 'Yes, he did,' but did not statement Thursday about the call did not mention rare earths, however. Lin Jian, a spokesperson for China's foreign ministry, declined to answer a question about the minerals Friday at the ministry's daily briefing, saying that it was a matter for other Chinese Ministry of Commerce said Thursday before the two leaders spoke only that it would issue export licenses according to its new rules, introduced two months US and European chambers of commerce in China each said Friday that somewhat more export licenses had been issued in recent days. But both groups emphasised that more were needed, as the Ministry of Commerce faces a huge backlog of detailed applications for licenses. Rare earth metals, a group of 17 elements found near the bottom of the periodic table, have a wide range of industrial applications. China produces practically the entire world's supply of seven of the least common rare earths, including three that are crucial in making powerful, heat-resistant magnets.
Straits Times
27-04-2025
- Automotive
- Straits Times
China has an army of robots on its side in the tariff war
An assembly line at the Zeekr electric car assembly plant in Ningbo, on March 31. PHOTO: QILAI SHEN/THE NEW YORK TIMES China has an army of robots on its side in the tariff war – China's secret weapon in the trade war is an army of factory robots, powered by artificial intelligence, that have revolutionised manufacturing. Factories are being automated across China at a breakneck pace. With engineers and electricians tending to fleets of robots, these operations are bringing down the cost of manufacturing while improving quality. As a result, China's factories will be able to keep the price of many of its exports lower, giving it an advantage in fighting the trade war and President Donald Trump's high tariffs. China is also facing new trade barriers by the European Union and developing countries ranging from Brazil and India to Turkey and Thailand. Factories are now more automated in China than in the United States, Germany or Japan. China has more factory robots for every 10,000 manufacturing workers than any other country except South Korea or Singapore, according to the International Federation of Robotics. China's automation drive has been guided by government directives and backed with huge investment. And as robots replace workers, automation positions China to continue to dominate mass production even as its labour force ages and becomes less willing to take industrial jobs. Mr He Liang, founder and CEO of Yunmu Intelligent Manufacturing, one of China's top producers of humanoid robots, said China was striving next to turn robotics into an entire new sector of business. 'The expectation for humanoid robots is to create another electric car industry,' he said. 'So from this perspective, it is a national strategy.' Robots are replacing workers not just in car factories but even in China's many thousands of back-alley workshops. Mr Elon Li's curbside workshop in Guangzhou, the commercial hub of south-eastern China, has 11 workers who cut and weld metal to make inexpensive ovens and barbecue equipment. He is now preparing to pay US$40,000 (S$52,577) to a Chinese company for a robotic arm with a camera. The device uses artificial intelligence to observe how a worker welds the sides of an oven, and then duplicates the action with minimal human intervention. Only four years ago, the same system was available only from foreign robot companies and cost nearly US$140,000. 'Before, I never would have imagined investing in automation,' Mr Li said, adding that a human employee 'can only work for eight hours a day, but a machine can work 24 hours'. Bigger companies bet far more on automation. In Ningbo, a huge factory for Zeekr, a Chinese electric carmaker, had 500 robots when it opened four years ago. Now there are 820, and many more are planned. Cheerfully trilling Kenny G tunes to warn any people of their approach, robot carts haul aluminium ingots to an automated lift, which lifts the blocks of metal to a furnace at the top of a 12m tall Chinese-made machine. Once molten, the aluminium is cast into the shapes of various car body panels and other components. More robot carts, and the occasional human driving a forklift, take the components to a warehouse. Yet more robots take the panels to the assembly line, where hundreds of robotic arms, working in teams of up to 16, do a complex dance to weld them together into car bodies. The welding area is a so-called dark factory, meaning that the robots can operate without workers and with the lights off. China's factories still employ legions of workers. Even with the automation, they are needed to check quality and install some parts that require manual dexterity, like wiring harnesses. There are things cameras and computers cannot do on their own. Before cars are painted, workers still run gloved hands over them and sand smooth any tiny imperfections. Yet some of the later steps of quality control are also being automated with the help of artificial intelligence. Near the end of Zeekr's assembly line, a dozen high-resolution cameras take photos of each car. Computers compare the images to an extensive database of correctly assembled cars and alert factory staff if a discrepancy is found. The task takes seconds to complete. 'Most of our colleagues' jobs involve sitting in front of a computer monitor,' said Zeekr worker Pinky Wu. Car factories in the United States also use automation, but much of the equipment comes from China. Most of the world's car assembly plants built in the past 20 years were in China, and an automation industry grew up around them. Chinese companies also bought overseas suppliers of advanced robotics, like Kuka of Germany, and moved much of their operations to China. When Volkswagen opened an electric car factory a year ago in Hefei, it had only one robot from Germany and 1,074 robots made in Shanghai. China's rapid advance in factory robotics has been propelled from the top down. Beijing's 'Made in China 2025' initiative, which began a decade ago, set out 10 industries in which China sought to be globally competitive. Robotics was one of them. In a show of the automation push, the Beijing municipal government held a half-marathon on Saturday for 12,000 runners and 20 humanoid robots. Only six robots finished the race, and the fastest of them took nearly three times as long as the fastest runners. But the event helped draw attention to robots. In March, Premier Li Qiang, China's second-highest official, said in his annual report to the legislature that the country's plans this year would include an effort to 'vigorously develop' intelligent robots. The country's top economic planning agency announced a US$137 billion national venture capital fund for robotics, artificial intelligence and other advanced technologies. China's government-controlled banks have increased lending to industrial borrowers over the past four years by a staggering US$1.9 trillion. That has paid for the construction of factories as well as the replacement of equipment at existing ones. China's universities produce about 350,000 mechanical engineering graduates per year, as well as electricians, welders and other trained technicians. By comparison, American universities graduate about 45,000 mechanical engineers each year. Mr Jonathan Hurst, the chief robot officer and a co-founder of Agility Robotics, a leading American robot manufacturer, said finding skilled employees had been one of his biggest challenges. As a graduate student in the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Mr Hurst said, he was one of two mechanical engineers. China's rapid embrace of automation worries some Chinese workers. Mr Geng Yuanjie, 27, drives a forklift at the Zeekr factory, where he has worked for the past two years. He said there were considerably fewer robots at the Volkswagen factory where he previously worked. Surrounded now by robots, he has few co-workers to talk to during his 12-hour shifts. 'I can feel the trend towards automation,' Mr Geng said as he watched a robot cart pull a rack of car parts past his forklift. He said that his high school education might not be enough for him to qualify for classes in programming robots, and that he worried he might lose his job someday to a robot. 'It is not just my concern – everyone worries about it,' Mr Geng said. NYTIMES Li You contributed research. Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Al Etihad
23-04-2025
- Sport
- Al Etihad
Kenyan runner will try to become first woman to break a 4-minute mile
23 Apr 2025 21:59 (THE NEW YORK TIMES NEW SERVICE)A star runner from Kenya, Faith Kipyegon, is set to try to become the first woman to run a mile in under four minutes this summer, after a study suggested that she could do so under the right 31, set the world record in the women's mile, running it in 4 minutes 7.64 seconds in 2023. More than 70 years after Roger Bannister, a British medical student, became the first person to break the four-minute barrier, it remains the next frontier for women's middle-distance attempt is scheduled for June 26 in Paris, Nike, which sponsors Kipyegon, said February, a study had predicted that Kipyegon, a three-time Olympic champion in 1,500 meters, known as the metric mile, could run a mile as fast as 3:59.37 by reducing drag with better drafting off 4 minutes would require her to run 2 seconds faster per lap on the four laps around the track, compared with her previous ranging from wind and pacing to shoe technology and mental training will all play a significant study predicting that Kipyegon could do it, published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, posited that her best chance would involve drafting, or the use of pacesetters running in formation around her to help reduce wind resistance. The study suggested that one female pacer run 1.3 meters ahead of her and another the same distance did not reveal its plans for pace-setting or the use of racing spikes, whose enhanced foam cushioning and carbon-fiber plates have helped make sub-4-minute miles more common in men's company said the attempt would be made in a controlled environment at Stade Charléty, a stadium in the 13th arrondissement. Kipyegon set the 1,500-meter world record of 3:49.04 at a meet there in 2024. A mile is a little over 1,600 created similar experimental conditions on a course in Vienna in 2019, when Kenyan runner Eliud Kipchoge became the first person to run the 26.2 miles of a marathon in under two if she achieved her goal, Kipyegon might not set an official world record. For World Athletics, the global governing body for track and field, to ratify a sub-4-minute women's mile, rules about pace-setting have to be to the study, Kipyegon would have her best chance at breaking the mark if her pacers were substituted after the first half-mile. That would not conform to pacing rules. Kipchoge's sub-2-hour marathon was not considered an official record as he used rotating official record, however, might not be Kipyegon's priority. "I want this attempt to say to women, 'You can dream and make your dreams valid," she said in a statement.
