ByteDance Drops DreamActor AI 🎭 Tencent Buys Into Ubisoft 🎮 China Builds 1nm Chip 💎

2025-04-07 | subscribe | homepage

Welcome back to this week’s edition of the China Insights Weekly Newsletter!

Here are some of the key highlights from this week’s edition:

• Alibaba’s Qwen2.5-Omni tops Hugging Face’s global AI leaderboard

• China hits $10T in overseas financial assets for the first time

• Factory activity surges, showing strongest momentum in over a year

• EHang gets green light to launch unmanned air taxi service in China

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🚀 Headlines

Alibaba’s Qwen2.5-Omni tops Hugging Face’s open-source AI model list, ByteDance has released image-to-video AI tool DreamActor-M1 (link, link)

On April 2, Hugging Face, the world’s largest AI open-source community, updated its large-model rankings, placing Alibaba’s recently released Qwen2.5-Omni at the top. The end-to-end multimodal model outperformed DeepSeek-V3-0324 and SpatialLM-Llama-1B, which ranked second and third, respectively. Alibaba has now open-sourced more than 200 AI models globally. The Qwen series alone has generated over 100,000 derivative models, surpassing Meta’s Llama series to become the world’s largest open-source model family.

Chinese tech giant ByteDance has introduced DreamActor-M1, an AI tool that converts still images into lifelike animated videos. This innovative tool allows users to upload a photo of a person and a guide video or audio. The AI then generates a realistic video where the person in the photo moves, talks, or dances. The technology uses a combination of face tracking, 3D modeling, and a diffusion transformer to create smooth, realistic animations. DreamActor-M1 stands out for its ability to handle both talking head and full-body animations. While not yet perfect with rolling cameras, DreamActor-M1 represents significant progress in AI animation and has the potential to disrupt the global AI and infotainment industry.

Tencent dominates global app revenue rankings again, invests in France’s Ubisoft to access major gaming IPs (link)

Sensor Tower's 2024 Top 50 Mobile Publishers report highlights a USD 150 Billion consumer spend milestone (+13%) from the previous year. Tencent continued to lead the global ranking. Its international revenue comes largely from mobile games. Along with its portfolio of major game titles, it is the owner of many game studios including US-based Riot Games, creator of the League of Legends franchise, and Finish company Supercell, creator of Clash of Clans. ByteDance saw explosive growth (+38.2%) at 2nd, and Google and Microsoft ranked 3rd and 4th.

Tencent has invested 1.16 billion euros (USD 1.25 billion) in a new Ubisoft subsidiary, acquiring a 25% stake in the company valued at 4 billion euros (USD 4.3 billion). This strategic move aims to bolster French gaming giant Ubisoft's financial position. The subsidiary will manage major IPs such as Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, and Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six, with six studios joining it. Ubisoft will grant exclusive global IP rights to the subsidiary and receive royalties. The transaction is expected to close by the end of 2025, marking a significant step in Ubisoft's financial restructuring and long-term growth strategy.

China’s global financial power grows as external assets hit record (link)

China’s global financial footprint expanded last year, as its net external financial assets surged to a record USD 3.3 trillion as of year-end. That represented a 15.6% year-on-year increase, according to the report released by the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE). China remains a net creditor to the world. As of September, according to data from the International Monetary Fund, China retained its position as the world’s third-largest country by net external financial assets and as the top-ranked emerging economy. Germany and Japan took the top two spots, holding about USD 3.7 trillion and USD 3.6 trillion respectively. This positioning underscores China’s growing financial influence on the global stage and its evolving role from a manufacturing-driven exporter to a global capital provider. The country’s year-end total external financial assets, which include outward direct investment (ODI) and portfolio investment, crossed the USD 10 trillion mark for the first time, the SAFE report showed, reflecting its growing role in international markets.

China’s factory activity hits 1-year high in March (link)

China's official manufacturing PMI (large firms) rose to 50.5 in March, marking the fastest expansion in 13 months and signaling the effectiveness of Beijing's stimulus measures. Previously Caixin Manufacturing PMI (small & medium firms) rose to 51.2 in March, the highest level since November. The production sub-index climbed to 52.6, while new orders reached 51.8, indicating improved supply and demand. However, the employment index fell to 48.2, highlighting labor market weakness. Non-manufacturing activity, including services and construction, also strengthened to a three-month high of 50.8, though its employment sub-index dropped to 45.8. Industrial output and fixed asset investment grew more than expected, but consumer inflation fell into negative territory for the first time in a year. The rise in PMI reflects improving supply and demand, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises. While 60% of surveyed firms cited insufficient demand as a key concern, optimism in business expectations remained near 54% for the sixth consecutive month.