DeepSeek plans to build a one-gigawatt data center in Inner Mongolia to expand AI presence

ByteDance has restructured its B-end AI business, integrating the Feishu product team into Doubao under Zhao Ci's leadership, while consolidating the Global Go-to-Market (GTM) strategy into Volcano Engine, effectively ending Feishu's independent status as a business unit.

The reshuffle within ByteDance's B-end AI business was initiated by an internal email on July 30th. Previously, Feishu was one of the most significant business units alongside Douyin, TikTok, and Volcano Engine. Now, its product team has joined Doubao under Zhao Ci, and Feishu's GTM has merged with Volcano Engine, forming a creative services platform led by Tan Dai.

As large models became the core of the business, Feishu's independent priority diminished, prompting ByteDance to reorganize around artificial intelligence. This move aligns with a global trend: on July 20th, Tencent merged QClaw with WorkBuddy, and on July 27th, Alibaba launched Qianwen Office, integrating three products based on Tongyi linked to DingTalk.

Feishu, created in 2016 for internal collaboration within ByteDance and opened to the public in 2019, initially built teams focused on the Feishu approach. It actively followed AI development: smart partners appeared in 2023, commercialization for key clients in 2024, and deeper integration with Doubao in 2025. In early 2026, OpenClaw spurred a wave of agents, making Feishu the primary tool for deploying domestic agents.

However, the situation changed six months later: the second quarter 2026 report showed that Tencent's WorkBuddy reached 20.97 million PC visits in June, becoming the first in the AI office application segment. The main product logic shifted from efficient interaction to intelligent interaction, and the entry point moved from messengers and documents to AI agents. While Feishu handled scenario integration, all AI functions relied on Doubao models, and the willingness to pay for messenger plus documents decreased.

Doubao demonstrated an upward trajectory under Zhao Ci. By March 2026, it had 345 million monthly active users, becoming the first among domestic AI applications, with daily active users exceeding 150 million. By June 2026, the number of daily token calls surpassed 180 trillion, more than 1500 times higher than when it launched in May 2024. On June 24th, Doubao began offering professional subscriptions at prices of 68, 200, and 500 RMB per month for office tasks, and the corporate version with Feishu integration began trials, including native document and meeting integration, as well as knowledge base question answering with full data isolation.

This integration effectively transforms Feishu's product team into a division of Doubao's office scenarios, transferring a decade of office experience to the Doubao system. The GTM consolidation holds greater strategic value: previously, Feishu and Volcano Engine sold to the same enterprises through two independent systems, leading to customer overlap and resource loss. Now, ByteDance's ToB offers a unified interface combining cloud services, models, and office software in one solution. Liang Zhubo emphasized at the FORCE conference in June that AI represents an industrial transformation comparable to PC, Web, and Mobile. This restructuring marks ByteDance's most decisive bet on AI as a unified outlet for agent capabilities.

By 2026, smartphones are set to enter the 10,000 mAh battery era thanks to the implementation of silicon-carbon technologies. Major Chinese manufacturers, including OPPO, Honor, and vivo, are actively participating in this race as increasing power consumption driven by artificial intelligence features stimulates breakthroughs in energy density.

Battery capacity in smartphones has increased from 5,000 mAh in 2024 to 6,000–7,000 mAh in flagship models by 2026. Meanwhile, mid-range phones are reaching capacities of 8,000–10,000 mAh, and developers are already creating models with capacities exceeding 14,000 mAh. On July 30, OPPO unveiled the A7 Pro Max model with a 10,000 mAh battery, joining Honor, vivo, and realme in the club of devices with such capacity; Huawei and Xiaomi are expected to follow.

This transition marks the arrival of 10,000 mAh in 2026, made possible by the advancement of silicon-carbon anode technology. The theoretical capacity of graphite anodes is 372 mAh/g, whereas silicon reaches a figure of 4,200 mAh/g, more than ten times higher. As early as 2025, some devices demonstrated silicon content at 25% with a density exceeding 380 Wh/kg, thus refuting the notion that a larger battery necessarily means a thicker body.

The main factors driving demand include the increasing energy consumption of 5G networks, high refresh rate displays, and complex image processing algorithms, as well as the stringent requirements of delivery workers and outdoor personnel. Data from Counterpoint shows that the share of smartphones with batteries over 6,000 mAh grew from 9% to 35% in one year. Artificial intelligence intensifies this pressure: Tian Chen, Head of R&D at OPPO, noted that a 4-billion parameter onboard model running continuously for two hours can drain a 6,000 mAh battery, and thermal losses and power loss under high load necessitate a constant increase in capacity.

As terminal power supply becomes a bottleneck, large batteries are becoming an inevitable response to AI needs. OPPO's third generation of silicon-carbon technology transforms irregular silicon blocks into highly regular spheres for even load distribution. These spheres have 67% more nanopores compared to competitors, and the silicon particles are reduced to 1.2 nm. Measured data indicates 38% higher compressive strength and 20% less self-expansion, leading to a 3.5% increase in energy density and an addition of 500 charge cycles. Furthermore, OPPO has developed an intelligent profiling algorithm that controls charging based on temperature, pressure, full cycle, and long-term storage, forming usage habit models over 30 days. Spherical silicon-carbon is the strong body, and the algorithm is the training plan. Sunwoda's Director of Research, An Jian, described OPPO's requirements as the qualities of a 'hexagonal warrior without weak points.'

Capacity scaling continues: the next stage is considered 12,000 mAh, which carries a low risk of mass production, while 15,000 mAh is viewed as a key milestone. OPPO and Sunwoda have preliminarily studied the limits for 12,000 mAh. An Jian highlighted the bottleneck in the silicon mixing ratio at 40–50%, while the long-term final form of the battery (10–20 years) will be solid-state electrolyte, steel casing, layered structure, and pure lithium anode. OPPO uses a multi-supplier model, with ATL, Sunwoda, and Zhuhai CosMX as primary silicon-carbon suppliers. ATL holds the largest share, being the first company to begin mass application of silicon-carbon anodes, while Sunwoda is gaining ground through joint customization. OPPO possesses nearly ten years of silicon-carbon research experience and over 100 patents on anodes, and its spherical approach has contributed to the industry-wide adoption of this technology.

ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT), a Chinese memory manufacturer whose market capitalization exceeded 3.6 trillion yuan within a week of listing, has reached a significant milestone in LPDDR6 development. According to sources, the development validation stage is nearing completion, bringing the product closer to mass production.

The standard LPDDR implementation process involves four stages: single crystal verification, development validation, small batch qualification, and official mass production. Development validation includes testing for compatibility, system stability, performance, power consumption, and mechanical reliability. Since validation is in its final phase, the commercialization of LPDDR6 has completed half its journey.

CXMT's first LPDDR6 product is designed with a data clock frequency of 12,800 Mbps, a base frequency of 10,667 Mbps, a die density of 16 Gb, and a chip capacity of 16 GB, utilizing POP 1295-ball packaging. Previously, at the end of 2023, CXMT released an LPDDR5 series featuring 12 Gb crystals and 12 GB POP chips with frequencies of 6,400 Mbps. In 2025, LPDDR5X was introduced with 12 Gb and 16 Gb densities, reaching 10,667 Mbps, representing a 66% improvement over LPDDR5 while reducing power consumption by 30%.

Over three years, CXMT has progressed through two generations of DRAM from LPDDR5 to the selection of LPDDR6 for key customers, supported by R&D investments of 9.593 billion yuan in 2025, which is 51.28% higher than the previous year. Total investments from 2023 to 2025 exceeded 20.6 billion yuan, and 6,972 patents were filed by the end of 2025.

SK Hynix is the international leader in the LPDDR6 race, having announced in March the completion of development validation for the world's first 16 Gb LPDDR6 DRAM on a 10-nanometer class sixth-generation process, planning mass production in the second half of 2026. Samsung and Micron have shown greater restraint in investing in LPDDR6, redirecting production capacity to higher-margin server DRAM and HBM, which opens a growth window for CXMT.

According to Omdia data, CXMT holds a 7.67% share of the global DRAM market, while Nomura forecasts around 10% with potential growth to 18% by the end of 2028, calling CXMT's DRAM the 'crown pearl of China' with a target price of 116 yuan. CXMT expects revenue in the first half of 2026 to be between 110–120 billion yuan, a 612.53–677.31% increase compared to last year, with net profit reaching 50–57 billion yuan, an increase of 2244–2544%.

CXMT's LPDDR products are already integrated into the supply chains of companies such as Xiaomi, Transsion, Honor, OPPO, and vivo. Apple is actively seeking to include CXMT in diversifying its suppliers: in June, the Financial Times reported that Apple requested approval to purchase DRAM from CXMT and contacted the U.S. Department of Commerce. In July, it became known that Apple began internal testing of CXMT chips for products intended for sale in China.

During Apple's financial quarter call on July 30th, Tim Cook stated that the company is evaluating all options, emphasizing that having more DRAM suppliers would benefit supply security and potentially pricing. However, progress in LPDDR6 is more significant than Apple's inclusion, as approaching mass production means domestic memory is closing the gap with foreign leaders, which could change the established model of dominance by foreign giants in advanced memory iterations and transform the structure of the global DRAM market.