China has 100,000 citizens' DNA records that can be accessed using their face in WeChat, the northern part of the country beats a green energy record, and Baidu’s AI lab in Silicon Valley surpasses Harvard and MIT in tumor recognition accuracy. This Week In China Tech stays on top of the most important tech stories coming out of the second fastest growing economy in the world. Here's the top picks for China's most interesting tech stories this week.
DNA For 100K Users Accessible Via WeChat
This week, the Shenzhen Huada Forensic Science and Technology Company announced they are storing DNA from over 100,000 individuals from across China. The company, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Huada Group which was established in 1999, is the world’s leading genomics research and development institution.
The new DNA database has lots of important applications like helping to identify lost or abandoned children, locating missing persons, identification after natural disasters and lifelong record creation (article in Chinese). The facility is located at the Shenzhen National Gene Bank and users who choose to have their DNA stored there can easily access those records at any point on their smartphone by using WeChat. This may not seem secure, but the original records are kept behind multiple layers of security and users can only make queries of their records using facial recognition, which is one of the more secure ways for people to protect their data today.
To date, the DNA records are available to nine prefectures, accessible to only the user and in the emergency cases previously mentioned. With advances like this, China could lead the world in genetic research and make DNA a common platform for innovation across the country, even though it's still a contentious issue in other parts of the world.
China’s Baidu Beats U.S. In AI-Powered Tumor Recognition
Technology has often been predicted to help us identify illnesses long before we become sick. While that future is not here yet, Baidu’s Silicon Valley Artificial Intelligence (AI) Lab has made a big step in the right direction (article in Chinese). Baidu’s AI Lab has successfully developed algorithms that assist pathologists in identifying tumors more accurately than other methods today, including research from Harvard and MIT. This is a big moment for Chinese researchers.
Baidu’s algorithm helps analyze tissues taken from tumors that are difficult to analyze, even for experienced pathologists. The solution applies deep learning technology to help the algorithm search for tiny tumor cells faster and with higher accuracy than what had been possible before. This solution could play a critical role in future patient and cancer diagnosis, as accurately diagnosing tumors early on is critical in creating lifesaving treatment plans.
The algorithm from Baidu’s AI Lab shows great promise, but it still needs to be trained on even larger datasets.
China’s Qinghai Province Achieves New Clean Energy Milestone
If you aren’t up to date with the state of green energy production globally, here’s a quick recap. The world needs to use more renewable energy sources, and while America took an early lead, it is now struggling to implement meaningful policies or regulations that would encourage a wider adoption of green energy on a nationwide basis. China, on the other hand, has made it a national policy to move from fossil fuels, such as coal and other finite resources, as their main power source to green energy which has no supply limitations. The policy is called "The Revolutionary Strategy of Energy Production and Consumption (2016-2030)" and was released by the National Development and Reform Commission in April 2017.
Last year, China set a record for supplying clean energy for a full seven days to the Qinghai province. Located in the resource-rich Tibetan Plateau, Qinghai has an abundant green energy production capability, like its Long and Yellow Rivers that produce hydroelectric power. Last week, the seven-day record was broken and the new record for running on fully renewable energy is now nine days. Although nine days may seem like a far cry from a full 365 days, it's still serves as proof that the commission is taking renewable energy to the next level. The commission has initiated a 5 billion-ton limit on the amount of coal energy that can be consumed by 2020 as a way to force innovation in the renewable direction (article in Chinese).
The current scale of the electric grid in the Qinghai province is approximately 26.4 million kilowatt hours. The average daily power requirements are 189 million kilowatt hours, so they’re well on their way to achieving their goal of a fully renewable energy system by 2030.
That's it for this week in China Tech. If you have any stories you think we should cover next week, feel free to message me and make sure to check back for more stories coming from China next week!
