Krypton Evening News | Taobao Becomes the Exclusive E-commerce Interactive Platform for the 2025 Snake Spring Festival Gala; Jingxi Group: The Fourth-generation Magnetorheological Technology Will Be Fully Localized in China; China Successfully Launches Three Satellites with One Rocket Again.
Big Companies:
MaFengWo Joins Hands with Guizhou to Hold AI Tourism Launch Conference
36Kr learned that the "AI Tour Guizhou · Intelligent Initiation of New Cultural Tourism - 2025 Guizhou AI Tourism Launch Conference" was held. The Guizhou Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism and MaFengWo jointly released the Guizhou Tourism AI intelligent application "AI Tour Guizhou". This application is for tourists. It can quickly sort out massive information through intelligent interactive Q&A to provide decision-making references; it can obtain detailed information about the surrounding area in real time and deal with emergencies; multi-language translation and other functions can provide more efficient and convenient tourism services for foreign tourists visiting Guizhou. For management departments, the intelligent agent can accurately outline the tourist portrait with big data analysis, providing key data support for policy formulation, resource allocation and market prediction, comprehensively improving the efficiency and service quality of tourism management, and achieving the dual optimization of tourist experience and industrial operation.
36Kr learned that Zhihu's "Internet Disruptors - 2025 Ten Questions about the Internet" online discussion event was held recently. Ten industry leaders including Wang Ning, the founder of Pop Mart, Wang Puzhong, the CEO of Meituan's Core Local Business, Wei Qing, the Chief Technology Officer of Microsoft China, Julien Chaumond, the co-founder of Hugging Face, and cultural scholar Ma Jiahui, put forward ten questions covering the Internet, artificial intelligence, and consumer retail on Zhihu. From the Internet transition period of 2012 to 2018, to the current 2025 with great changes in AI, Zhihu has launched the "Ten Questions about the Internet" event three times.
According to the official news of the Spring Festival Gala, Taobao has become the exclusive e-commerce interactive platform for the 2025 Snake Year Spring Festival Gala. This is also the fourth time that the Spring Festival Gala has joined hands with the national e-commerce platform Taobao. On January 17, Taobao officially announced the Spring Festival interactive gameplay: Make a wish to get a red envelope and share 2.5 billion. From the 21st, netizens across the country can open the Taobao app and search for "Find a Good Luck" to directly access the event page. Make a New Year's wish and share 2.5 billion red envelopes together, with a maximum of 1,888 yuan. In addition, there is also a chance to realize the wish and win physical prizes including cars, mobile phones, concert tickets, etc.
Jingxi Group: The Fourth Generation Magnetorheological Technology Will Be Fully Localized in China
36Kr learned that on January 15, Jingxi Group held the localization press conference of MagneRide® magnetorheological suspension and released the "Declaration of the First Year of Magnetorheology". Jingxi Group announced the full localization of the fourth-generation magnetorheological technology and put forward key goals: First, Jingxi Group will fully realize 100% localization of magnetorheological parts and manufacturing capabilities; second, mass production will be achieved in the first quarter of 2025, and it will be the first to empower the Chinese pure electric platform; third, the price of the magnetorheological suspension is lower than the solenoid valve suspension price.
Volkswagen Considers Purchasing Cooperation with Rivian
According to Spiegel on January 17, Volkswagen CEO Oliver Blume said in an interview with the media that Volkswagen is considering expanding its cooperation with Rivian beyond software and may consider launching a purchasing cooperation. Volkswagen is considering sharing modules with Rivian and bundling purchases. (Jiemian)
Investment and Financing:
"Maijie Life Sciences" Completes Tens of Millions of Yuan in Series A+ Financing
36Kr learned that recently, "Maijie Life Sciences" successfully completed the tens of millions of yuan Series A+ financing exclusively invested by Yuanbio Ventures. This round of financing is the company's second financing in the past nearly 2 months, and the company's cumulative financing amount in the previous two rounds is nearly 100 million yuan. This round of financing will further supplement the company's working capital and be used for the clinical advancement of the company's current medical beauty products, as well as the sales promotion after the listing of orthopedic innovative products.
"Yuanshixin" Completes Series A Financing of Hundreds of Millions of Yuan
36Kr learned that recently, "Yuanshixin" successfully completed Series A financing of hundreds of millions of yuan. This round of financing is led by Kaiyuan Securities and Xi'an Investment Holdings, and jointly invested by Jiangyi Ventures, Xiangfeng Investment, GRC Fuhua Capital, Jingfa Assets and other institutions, providing the necessary financial support for the mass production of Yuanshixin's automotive-grade chips.
Today's Views:
Dai Xi, Director of the Planning and Development Bureau of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council, said at a press conference of the Information Office of the State Council on January 17 that in 2025, it will continue to promote central enterprises to take the lead and take the initiative. It adheres to the equal emphasis on "expansion" and "effectiveness", calculates the strategic account as well as the financial account, and pays more attention to the benefits and value of investment, as well as growing together with partners, taking the lead in improving market expectations. Specifically, it is mainly to exert more efforts in industrial renewal, promote the implementation of the doubling plan for strategic emerging industry investment, continue to plan in new industries and new tracks, concentrate resources to increase investment, accelerate cultivation and strengthen coordination; exert more efforts in scientific and technological innovation, focus on scientific and technological attributes, technical value and emerging fields, promote the implementation of a number of key projects to strengthen the industrial chain and supplement the chain, insist on investing in new, early, small and hard technology, and cultivate a number of technology enterprises with core competitiveness; exert more efforts in equipment renewal, adhere to demonstration-driven and take the lead in promoting, take improving the standards of technology, energy consumption and emissions as the traction, lead the whole industry to form a scale effect, and drive the growth of social investment. (Securities Times)
36Kr learned that Yao Shangkun, the chairman of Guoxiong Capital Co., Ltd., said externally that 2025 will be the first year of AI intelligent agents, and AI intelligent agents will gradually become a key part of enterprise operations. AI intelligent agents show strong reasoning, planning, and memory capabilities, as well as the ability to make independent decisions, learn and adapt to work. With the development of this trend, more companies focusing on the research and development of intelligent agents will appear. It is expected that more than 50 unicorn enterprises will appear in the United States, and China will also quickly enter the era of intelligent agents. Entrepreneurs will develop intelligent agent applications with a global perspective and innovation.
Other News Worth Paying Attention to:
The China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) released the 55th "Statistical Report on the Development of the Internet in China" on January 17. The "Report" shows that as of December 2024, the scale of Chinese Internet users reached 1.108 billion, and the Internet penetration rate rose to 78.6%. (CCTV News)
In 2024, the National Absorption of Foreign Capital is 826.25 Billion Yuan
36Kr learned that according to the Ministry of Commerce, in 2024, 59,080 new foreign-invested enterprises were established nationwide, an increase of 9.9% year-on-year; the actual use of foreign capital was 826.25 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 27.1%. From the perspective of industries, the actual use of foreign capital in the manufacturing industry was 221.21 billion yuan, and the actual use of foreign capital in the service industry was 584.56 billion yuan. The actual use of foreign capital in high-tech manufacturing was 96.29 billion yuan, accounting for 11.7% of the national actual use of foreign capital. The actual use of foreign capital in the medical equipment and instrument manufacturing industry, professional technical service industry, and computer and office equipment manufacturing industry increased by 98.7%, 40.8% and 21.9% respectively. From the perspective of the source of investment, the actual investment in China from Spain, Singapore, Germany and Switzerland increased by 130.8%, 10.8%, 2.2% and 1% respectively (including investment data through free ports).
In 2024, the Total Assets of Central Enterprises Exceeded 90 Trillion Yuan
Information released by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council on January 17 shows that in 2024, the total assets of central enterprises exceeded 90 trillion yuan, an increase of 5.9% year-on-year; the annual added value was 10.6 trillion yuan, the total profit was 2.6 trillion yuan, and the taxes and fees paid were 2.6 trillion yuan, all achieving high-quality and stable growth. The data shows that in 2024, the labor productivity of all employees of central enterprises continued to improve, reaching 812,000 yuan per person; the annual R & D investment was 1.1 trillion yuan, exceeding 1 trillion yuan for three consecutive years; the completed fixed asset investment (including real estate) was 5.3 trillion yuan, an increase of 3.9% year-on-year, and the completed investment in strategic emerging industries was 2.7 trillion yuan, an increase of 21.8% year-on-year. (Xinhua News Agency)
China Successfully Launches Three Satellites with One Rocket Again
At 12:07 on January 17, 2025 Beijing time, China used the Long March 2D carrier rocket at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center to successfully launch the Pakistani PRSC-EO1 satellite. The satellite successfully entered the predetermined orbit, and the launch mission was a complete success. This mission also carried and launched the Tianlu-1 satellite and the Lantan-1 satellite. This mission is the 556th flight of the Long March series of carrier rockets. (CCTV News)