Photo credit: Yuexiang Liu / Institute of High Energy Physics
Deep beneath the granite hills of Guangdong, China, a big experiment has just started. The Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory, or JUNO, began taking data on August 26, 2025 after more than 10 years of planning and construction.
Above the rolling hills of China’s Guangxi Province, near the peaceful village of Mianhua, is a secret heaven for those brave enough to climb high. Mianhua Library, one of the world’s weirdest places to read, isn’t hidden in a downtown corner or on top of a tower. It’s built into the side of a steep cliff, inside a massive cave with bookshelves attached to the rock walls and wooden walkways.
A new kind of shopping experience opened in Beijing’s E-Town district and it’s unlike any mall you’ve ever been to. The Robot Mall, which spans four stories and 4,000 square meters, is China’s first retail area dedicated to humanoid and consumer robots. It houses over 100 robots from 40 different firms, including local heavyweights Ubtech Robotics as well as Unitree Robotics, and aims to integrate robotics into everyday life.
The Jiangling SC-01, born from Tianjin Gongjiang Pai Auto Technology and produced under the JMEV brand, is a sleek electric sports car. At around $31,600 (229,800 CNY), this two-seater coupe gives you pure driving fun without the price tag of Western rivals.
A tiny marvel, barely bigger than a fingernail, has buzzed out of China’s National University of Defense Technology (NUDT) in Hunan. Showcased on CCTV 7, China’s military channel, this mosquito-sized drone is an engineering stunner, blending biology and robotics into a near-invisible spy tool. At just 0.6 to 2 centimeters long and a featherlight 0.3 grams, it’s built to slip through cracks, cling to walls, and eavesdrop in ways bigger drones can’t.
Photo credit: SCMP
Shanghai’s Zhangyuan neighborhood, a 140-year-old maze of tight alleys and Shikumen-style homes, just pulled off an engineering stunt for the ages. The Huayanli complex—7,500 tons of century-old buildings—was hoisted and shuffled across the city by 432 tiny robots, each small enough to fit in your hand, in a jaw-dropping technological dance.
Forget your smartphone or smartwatch and need to make a contactless payment? Well, there’s Alipay’s PL1, which lets you pay using your palm print. This device comes from Ant Group, an affiliate of Alibaba, and is part of Alipay’s push to expand biometric payment options beyond QR codes and facial recognition.
China hopes to soon build a space-based solar power station positioned in a geostationary orbit about 22,370 miles above Earth. This station will span roughly 0.6 miles wide when completed, and aims to harness solar energy without having to deal with weather, night-time darkness, or atmospheric interference.
Photo credit: The__Goof
This Red Dead Redemption-inspired bar, called ‘Valentine’, looks to be straight from the video game. It’s located in Hangzhou’s West Lake district, a scenic area known for its beauty, and apparently now for gaming tributes.
