China National Building Material Group FZE

31/08/2026

Shenzhou XXIII crew conduct first spacewalk
The Shenzhou XXIII crew successfully completed their first extravehicular activity on Friday, with astronaut Zhu Yangzhu making his second spacewalk three years after his first and Zhang Zhiyuan his first, according to the China Manned Space Agency.

Zhu and Zhang, coordinating closely with fellow crew member Lai Ka-ying, completed maintenance work on the Tiangong space station's solar array wings and installed space debris protection equipment, with support from the station's robotic arm and ground-based scientific personnel.

The extravehicular activity lasted about 5.5 hours. At 1:59 pm, the two astronauts safely returned to the Tianhe core module, marking the successful completion of the activity.

The activity was the Shenzhou XXIII crew's first spacewalk and the second time Chinese astronauts have carried out extravehicular maintenance on the station's solar array wings. The work effectively ensured the safety and stability of the space station's power supply, the CMSA said.

Zhu, Zhang and Lai arrived at the Tiangong space station on May 25 aboard the Shenzhou XXIII spacecraft that was launched late on May 24.

Since entering the space station on May 25, the Shenzhou XXIII crew have completed tasks including in-orbit handover and extravehicular activities involving application payloads. They have also conducted in-orbit training, including rendezvous and docking and medical rescue, as well as full-system pressure emergency drills, according to the CMSA.

The astronauts have also been carrying out routine maintenance and care of the space station platform, as well as life and health support, while steadily advancing experimental tasks in space life sciences and human research, microgravity physics and new space technologies.

The three astronauts have been in orbit for more than three months. They will continue planned scientific and technological experiments, payload transfer activities and science education programs, the CMSA said.

19/08/2026

Robot noodle restaurant begins trial run in Beijing's Fengtai district

A robot noodle restaurant in Beijing began a trial run on Friday, offering diners a glimpse of an automated kitchen that can turn flour and water into a finished bowl in just over three minutes.

Located in Fengtai district, the restaurant is billed by its operator as the capital's first fully commercialized robot noodle restaurant. The trial is mainly open to company employees, with a wider public opening expected in late August.

Once a customer scans a QR code and places an order, an integrated automated system makes and cooks the noodles and adds sauce, broth, and toppings. A robotic arm then transfers the bowl to a delivery robot, which takes it to the table. Staff are still needed to refill ingredients, prepare drinks, and clear used tableware.

The menu currently offers mushroom zhajiang noodles, tomato beef brisket noodles, and braised beef noodles, priced from 16 yuan ($2.37) to 19 yuan. There are plans for more offers.

The equipment was designed and developed by Beijing Yuli Technology and is undergoing pilot testing ahead of mass production. The company is also testing humanoid robots for carrying items and collecting used dishes.

A robot noodle restaurant in Beijing began a trial run on Friday, offering diners a glimpse of an automated kitchen that can turn flour and water into a finished bowl in just over three minutes.

19/08/2026

Xinhua Headlines: How flutters of great little birds weave together Asia-Pacific community

* Stretching from Alaska and the Russian Far East to Southeast Asia and Australia, the East Asian-Australasian Flyway (EAAF) is considered one of the world's busiest flyways, with China at its midpoint serving as an irreplaceable rest haven and a core hub for cross-border conservation.

* The Guangdong Neilingding Futian National Nature Reserve near Shenzhen Bay sits amid one of China's most densely urbanized areas. Its mangroves and tidal flats provide an important wintering and stopover site for migratory birds traveling along the EAAF.

* Wetlands are dynamic ecosystems where water meets land, ranging from mangroves and rivers to lakes, floodplains and coasts. Among the planet's major ecosystems, they provide vital habitat for countless bird species.

* "Over the past decade, China's ecological and environmental policies have continued to improve, particularly in the field of wetland conservation, and China has become an outstanding model for the region."

BEIJING, Aug. 16 (Xinhua) -- Each year, millions of migratory birds embark on grueling transcontinental journeys along the East Asian-Australasian Flyway (EAAF), braving storms, food shortages and human-made threats as they travel between breeding and wintering grounds.

Stretching from Alaska and the Russian Far East to Southeast Asia and Australia, the EAAF is considered one of the world's busiest flyways, with China at its midpoint serving as an irreplaceable rest haven and a core hub for cross-border conservation.

03/08/2026

Thriving wild Amur tiger underpins protection efforts

A tiger is seen at the Siberian Tiger Park in Harbin, Northeast China's Heilongjiang province, July 29, 2026. [Photo/Xinhua]
A wild Amur tiger known by many conservationists as the "Hero Tigress" has become a vivid symbol of China's progress in tiger conservation after giving birth to 13 cubs in four litters by 2025, an unusually strong record of reproduction and successful cub-rearing in the wild.

Her story began with a cross-border journey. In late autumn 2019, when she was just 2 years old, the tigress left her birthplace in Russia's Land of the Leopard National Park and crossed into the forests of Yangpao township in Hunchun, Jilin province, through a border corridor, according to a One Planet Foundation media release issued on Wednesday to mark the 16th Global Tiger Day.

After competing for territory, she settled in a forest area with rich vegetation and abundant prey, including sika deer and wild boars. The area has a forest coverage rate of 96.6 percent and is protected through regular patrols and around-the-clock intelligent monitoring, providing a stable habitat for wild tigers.

In spring 2020, the tigress gave birth to her first litter of two cubs. She then produced two consecutive litters of three cubs each in the following years. Her latest litter of five cubs was born in a forest cave in June 2025. Infrared cameras first captured the mother and her five cubs in late 2025 and again on Feb 16, confirming that all five had survived the harsh winter and remained healthy and active.

Zhou Fei, chief program officer of WWF-China, said the footage of the tigress and her cubs reflected China's landmark achievements in wildlife conservation and offered hope for the recovery of endangered species amid accelerating global biodiversity loss.

Her story, while remarkable, is far from an isolated case.

Monitoring data released by the National Forestry and Grassland Administration showed that wild Amur tiger and Amur leopard populations have continued to recover over the past decade. In the Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park, the number of wild Amur tigers increased from 27 in 2017 to 72, while the wild Amur leopard population rose from 42 to 115.

Amur tiger, Siberian tiger and Northeast China tiger all refer to the same tiger subspecies, with the different names reflecting historical or geographic contexts.

China has accelerated the development of a protected area system with national parks as the cornerstone, implemented endangered species rescue programs, and strengthened wildlife monitoring and rescue systems, the administration said.

Since the Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park was officially established five years ago, authorities have advanced ecological conservation, scientific monitoring, law enforcement, livelihood protection and cross-border cooperation.

The park has completed under-forest replanting across 40,000 hectares, carried out artificial forest transformation and pest control on more than 12,600 hectares, and opened five wildlife migration corridors to reconnect fragmented habitats.

It has also established an integrated monitoring system combining space-, aerial- and ground-based technologies. The system can identify more than 30 species of wild animals, with recognition accuracy for Amur tigers and Amur leopards exceeding 90 percent.

China has also established regular cooperation with Russia's Land of the Leopard National Park, conducting joint population surveys, cross-border patrols and information sharing.

During the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-30), China will further restore ecological corridors and habitats for wild Amur tigers and Amur leopards, while strengthening protection of endangered wildlife and plants, the administration said.

03/08/2026

CAST's 28th annual conference unites thousands to advance scientific innovation
The 28th annual conference of the China Association for Science and Technology wrapped up a month of programming in Beijing on Friday, bringing together thousands of researchers to explore the frontiers of science and technology across disciplines.

Qu Dacheng, deputy director of CAST's Department of Scientific and Technological Innovation, said the conference adhered to a principle of letting academic societies take the lead, with scholars as the main participants and scholarship as the core mission.

More than 1,000 sessions were held, with 95 national societies mobilized alongside five national laboratories, 272 research institutions, 174 universities, 176 technology companies, and 43 academic journals, Qu added.

Wang Feiyue, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Automation and supervisor of the Chinese Association of Automation, chaired the academic committee for a forum on integrating perception, decision-making, and control, which he praised for "breaking single-discipline thinking".

Key forums also included one on heat-resistant lightweight structures and thermal protection for reusable space vehicles, organized by the Chinese Society for Composite Materials. The forum coincided with China's Long March 10B rocket completing the world's first sea-based net recovery of a reusable launch vehicle and connected university research teams with aerospace manufacturers, resulting in several joint research agreements.

The Chinese Society for Cognitive Science organized a forum on brain-computer interfaces and molecular imaging, proposing a research direction for cognitive brain-computer interfaces to move beyond motor-control applications toward recognizing and modulating attention, memory, and emotional states.

Zhou Xin, the society's secretary-general, said current bottlenecks in brain-computer interfaces "lie in the identification and regulation of internal brain states", calling for deeper integration across cognitive science, neuroscience, clinical medicine, and engineering to push the technology toward the next generation of human-machine interaction.

This year, more than 600 participants from young talent programs attended. CAST President Wang Guangqian met with more than 300 young scientists, urging them to contribute to China's drive for high-level scientific and technological self-reliance.

Wang Feiyue said the most impressive aspect of the conference was the active participation of young researchers. "The more young people involved, the more hope there is for the future," he said.

03/08/2026

Feature: Lab meets real world at China's robot "vocational school"
HANGZHOU, Aug. 1 (Xinhua) -- At a "school" in Hangzhou, east China's Zhejiang Province, "teachers" hold remote controls, sensors record every move, and "students" drill the same task again and again until they get it right.

Those "students" are actually robots. More than 140 of them are currently training at the National Pilot Base for Embodied AI Applications in over 40 job-oriented scenarios, which include smart kitchens, warehouses, farms and a dimly lit mock mine tunnel.

Chinese robots have wowed audiences with backflips, boxing and dance routines. The real test now is whether they can hold down regular jobs. A long-standing headache for the industry is that robots performing well in simulation often stumble when faced with the messiness of real-world settings.

To bridge that gap, this base sitting between laboratory research and wider deployment can provide shared settings where technologies can be tested, refined and validated before full-scale rollout.

Inaugurated on May 16, the national-level facility dedicated to moving embodied artificial intelligence (AI) -- machines that sense, move and act in the physical world -- from laboratories into daily use is also dubbed a "national vocational training ground" for robots.

The plaque, in fact, arrived after the students. On May 16, when the base opened for its trial operation, nearly 40 embodied-AI companies and more than 10 universities and research institutes were already on site for development and training work.

The base runs a dual-track approach combining real-scenario training with high-fidelity virtual simulation. In physical scenarios, technicians teleoperate robots through tasks over and over, with every successful move recorded by sensors as "raw teaching material" for model training.

A lightweight alternative needs no robot at all: an operator simply puts on data gloves and a motion-capture suit to harvest movement data.

In a simulated smart kitchen, Hangzhou Big Data Cloud AI Technology Co., Ltd. has been teaching robots a full restaurant routine since last November: taking orders, fetching ingredients, stir-frying a dish in three to four minutes, then plating it and collecting used dishes.

Yang Jiandang, co-founder of the company, said developing a customized catering application from scratch could require several million yuan in research and development. Since the base already provides some of the underlying facilities and technical capabilities, his team can begin with a lower-cost feasibility test.

The cost matters. "In the past, developing a single application scenario could cost a company more than 10 million yuan (about 1.5 million U.S. dollars) in training data alone," said Zhang Haiwei, founder of the motion-capture firm Chingmu. "Now companies based here get one-stop access to the resources they need."

Chingmu, which moved in during the trial phase, has seen orders roughly doubled from a year earlier, with its value reaching some 50 million yuan in the first half of 2026.

Other scenarios are filling up. At DexRobot's dexterous-manipulation zone, an exoskeleton platform maps human motion onto robots across 65 degrees of freedom -- 18 in the arms, 42 in the hands and five in the waist -- with millimeter-level precision. The company said one of its robotic hands completed 1 million full-load cycles in a durability test, marking a key step in getting these components ready for long-term use.

Logistics firm Transfar and robot maker Unitree jointly run a warehouse scenario where wheeled humanoid robots pick, scan and carry goods of varying shapes. Elsewhere, smart forklifts stack cargo with positioning accuracy up to 1 mm, and harvesting robots pick ripe fruit around the clock.

What makes the "school" so attractive to these companies? Zhou Chen, DexRobot's CEO, likened their predicament to equipping a warhorse in a classic Chinese folk ballad. "You buy the saddle from one vendor, the harness from another, the reins from a third, but end up with a pile of parts and no idea how to assemble them. That's exactly why we need a platform, and this pilot base brings everything together."

"The base is like a library for robotics," he said. "You come here because everything you need is on the shelves."

The clustering pays off in speed. Chingmu and dexterous-hand developer DexRobot, located within the same building, have established a joint laboratory.

"The moment they iterate a new product, we can put it to use. If something in yesterday's data needs re-collecting, we respond the same day," Zhang said during an interview.

"Upstairs and downstairs are upstream and downstream. Our next-door neighbor is our partner," said Zhou, adding that the joint lab gives companies a low-stakes space to test the waters on a small scale. With so many firms clustered in one place, they can help make preliminary assessment and slash the decision-making cost.

Beyond the base, Hangzhou already offers a glimpse of what a robot's "job" can look like. Since May 1, a fully operational squadron of 15 traffic-management robots has been on duty at key intersections and tourist areas, including the West Lake scenic area.

Each robot can work continuously for eight to nine hours, taking on routine traffic guidance and public-service tasks alongside human officers. The robots deliver around 3,500 voice reminders and handle over 500 public interactions each day. They have logged over 10,000 hours of operation, supporting events such as the West Lake marathon and the college entrance exam.

With technical standards for data collection, communications and hardware interfaces still evolving in the robotics industry, the base is working with industry partners on practical rules intended to make technologies and data easier to test and connect.

Li Xingteng, deputy general manager of Hangzhou Embodied Intelligence Pilot Base Technology Co., Ltd., the base's operator, said the platform aims to turn companies' specialized strengths into integrated solutions by linking firms across the robotics chain.

Institutional support is expanding, too. In June, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission launched a 2026 initiative to promote real-scenario training and regular deployment of humanoid robots and other embodied-AI products. China's first local regulation on the industry also took effect in Hangzhou on May 1.

The base is one node in a wider push. Hangzhou is now home to more than 700 robotics-related companies, and its embodied-AI cluster generated an output of 106.8 billion yuan (about 15 billion U.S. dollars) in 2025, official data showed.

Li said mature embodied-AI solutions trained at the base would eventually be deployed in experimental communities, where problems could be identified and addressed through real-world use.

For the robots at this "school," the scenarios are only meant to be their first class. The world outside is the next step in their education. ■

28/07/2026

Backgrounder: Timeless appeal of China's ancient "porcelain capital" Jingdezhen
NANCHANG, July 25 (Xinhua) -- The Jingdezhen Handicraft Porcelain Industry Sites were inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage List on Saturday during the 48th session of the World Heritage Committee in Busan, the Republic of Korea.

It is the first time that China has nominated an industrial heritage site for World Heritage status, and it is also the first World Heritage site themed around porcelain. This inscription brings the total number of World Heritage sites in China to 61.

Located in east China's Jiangxi Province, the inscribed sites represent the handcrafted porcelain industry system that developed in Jingdezhen from the 10th to the 19th centuries.

Nestled in a hilly area of northeastern Jiangxi, Jingdezhen is endowed with abundant reserves of kaolin, also known as China clay, and other raw materials essential for porcelain production. The city also enjoys convenient waterway access, as the Changjiang River flows through it and links Jingdezhen to Poyang Lake, the country's largest freshwater lake, and further to the Yangtze River, China's longest waterway.

More than 700 years ago, artisans in Jingdezhen pioneered a formula that mixed kaolin with other raw materials in precise proportions, enabling porcelain clay to withstand kiln temperatures exceeding 1,300 degrees Celsius without deformation. Rather than guarding their techniques as secrets, they chose to actively spread the porcelain-making skills.

Once a modest town, Jingdezhen has long been renowned for its porcelain, which is as thin as paper and as smooth as jade. In 1004 AD, an emperor of the Song Dynasty (960-1279) was so impressed by the local craftsmanship that he bestowed his reign title, Jingde, upon the town. From the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) onward, local craftsmen mastered the globally celebrated blue-and-white porcelain, which would dominate China's ceramic exports for centuries.

The 20th century saw rapid industrialization in local ceramic production, particularly after the establishment of 10 large state-operated porcelain factories. Equipped with advanced machinery and coal-fired kilns that replaced wood-fired ones, these factories once produced nearly half of China's household ceramics.

However, the state factories were closed in the late 1990s amid the rise of the market economy. Thousands of private workshops emerged, but they also brought chaotic competition. Mass layoffs followed, and workers' dormitories fell into disrepair, with some deteriorating into shantytowns.

As officials debated how to revitalize the city, opinions were divided over whether to reclaim the ruins of the defunct factories. Ultimately, those advocating for preservation prevailed over those pushing for demolition to make way for real estate.

In 2012, restoration work began to repair the dilapidated factories while preserving their original appearance. Rather than focusing solely on tourism, local authorities set their sights on attracting so-called Jingpiao -- a community of young artists and artisans who choose to live and pursue their dreams in this porcelain capital.

Today, Jingdezhen's ceramic industry chain employs more than 100,000 people. As a still-thriving "porcelain capital," it is home to over 3,200 inheritors of intangible cultural heritage in ceramic craftsmanship. The city has also been named a City of Crafts and Folk Art under the UNESCO Creative Cities Network.

As early as 2015, the Taoxichuan cultural and creative district in Jingdezhen launched the "Migratory Bird Program," an international artist residency initiative. The program has reached out to art institutions in more than 50 countries and regions, attracting 3,600 artists from around the world.

With a population of over 1.6 million, Jingdezhen recorded a net population inflow of 136,000 over the past decade. Among those who have started long-term businesses in the city, more than half come from outside Jiangxi Province, including many from overseas. ■

28/07/2026

AI reshaping how language is being taught
Experts call for pivot: memorization must give way to critical thinking
Speaking at the 2026 Global English Education China Assembly, held from Friday to Sunday at Beijing Foreign Studies University in Beijing, leading English language educators stressed that in the age of artificial intelligence, foreign language education must pivot from rote memorization and mechanical grammar exercises toward cultivating critical thinking, cultural empathy and self-directed learning.

Additionally, they said students should engage in genuine dialogue with texts, critically evaluate AI-generated content and take ownership of their own learning.

Chen Zehang, a professor at Beijing Normal University's School of Foreign Languages and Literature, said the fundamental value of reading lies in genuine dialogue with a text — questioning, challenging, imagining and empathizing.

"AI can help students understand what a text says, but it cannot help them experience the real meaning of reading," she said. "We are not spending time on reading to memorize words or translate sentences. We are reading to build minds that can question, infer and connect — and that is exactly what AI cannot do."

As AI increasingly handles grammar and other surface-level language tasks, teachers' roles must also evolve, Chen said. Rather than serving primarily as language instructors, teachers should become designers of thinking experiences and facilitators of transferable reading strategies.

For example, instead of asking students to identify grammatical mistakes in AI-generated content, teachers can encourage them to evaluate its accuracy, fairness and appropriateness, she said.

"Teachers are irreplaceable guides to meaning, judgment and curiosity," Chen added.

Yang Luxin, dean of Beijing Foreign Studies University's School of English and International Studies, said AI can also support learning when designed with clear educational objectives.

She has been piloting task-specific AI agents in writing classes, allowing students to receive personalized, text-specific feedback while drafting and continue revising over multiple rounds of interaction.

"The advantage is not that the AI has better professional judgment than the teacher," Yang said. "It is that every student can receive individualized feedback while still drafting."

"In a class of 19 to 27 students, I could not sustain that kind of immediate dialogue with everyone at once," she added.

To prevent students from simply copying AI-generated answers, Yang's team designed the agents with explicit pedagogical limits. They are instructed to diagnose problems before offering corrections, focus only on the current learning objective and ask guiding questions rather than rewrite an entire passage.

Students are required to complete their first draft independently before consulting the AI, decide for themselves what revisions to make and submit a record explaining how they used the AI during the writing process.

Student feedback has been generally positive, with many reporting reduced writing anxiety, greater confidence and stronger motivation.

"We present the AI not as a 'robot teacher' replacing the human teacher, but as a patient writing partner available during drafting and after class," Yang said. "The teacher remains the designer and final professional authority."

Cheng Liying, dean of the School of Education at City University of Macau, said learning a foreign language opens a window — or a door — to understanding different ways of seeing the world.

"The most important thing is that humans are curious and should not sit at the bottom of a well," she said, referring to the Chinese idiom describing people with a narrow outlook.

Cheng said her school's educational philosophy places nurturing at its core.

"We require our postgraduate students to respect others, take responsibility and show resilience," she said. While AI can be a helpful learning companion and mentor, she stressed that it "cannot care for you".

Addressing concerns that memorization and grammar instruction may become obsolete in the AI era, Cheng said mastering the fundamentals remains indispensable.

"If people do not understand basic concepts, they cannot recognize or process information beyond that level," she said. "Having AI does not mean we stop learning basics. The fundamentals still need to be learned; AI can just help us learn them faster."

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20/07/2026

During the WAIC 2026, companies including Digit Robotics and Yunmu Intelligent Manufacturing showcased the latest technological advances in ultra-bionic humanoid robots. From nuanced facial micro-expressions to seamless real-time interaction, their ultra-high fidelity keeps blurring the boundary between real humans and AI robots. Can you still tell them apart at a glance?

During the WAIC 2026, companies including Digit Robotics and Yunmu Intelligent Manufacturing showcased the latest technological advances in ultra-bionic humanoid robots. From nuanced facial micro-expressions to seamless real-time interaction, their ultra-high fidelity keeps blurring the boundary bet...

20/07/2026

JINAN, July 17 (Xinhua) -- The 36th Qingdao International Beer Festival opened on Friday evening in the coastal city of Qingdao, east China's Shandong Province, kicking off a 30-day celebration that blends brewing tradition with tech advances and cultural performances.

Running until Aug. 15, the festival boasts nine beer tents offering more than 2,300 varieties from around the world, including premium craft brews and fruit-flavored beers.

Hosted at Qingdao's Xihai'an (West Coast) New Area, the festival features over 2,000 activities ranging from beer tastings and concerts to trade events and cultural exhibitions.

Notably, the festival is increasingly about experiences as much as drinking. A newly introduced "future beer factory" tent uses robots to greet visitors and perform interactive shows, reflecting China's growing enthusiasm for integrating tech advances into the consumer experience.

A series of international exchange activities to promote cooperation in the global beer industry will also be held.

Qingdao is home to the Tsingtao Brewery, the base of a time-honored beer brand in China. Inaugurated in 1991, the Qingdao International Beer Festival has grown into one of the world's most famous beer festivals. ■

Int'l beer festival underway in east China's Qingdao-