☕️ Good morning, friends,

We’re green with envy at all Singapore passport holders. With their passports, they can travel visa-free to Burkina Faso and Benin.

That’s earned them 1st place on the Official Passport Index ranking; we Germans are in 3rd.

The Chinese passport has made incredible leaps over the past 10 years. Check it out!

Before the weekend, we welcome all new subscribers from BASF! Someone sure cranked up the referral hype. ;)

🤝 P.S. Last chance for developers: Tencent’s major AI competition runs for a few more days.

BENCHMARKS

NUMBERS

180 tons

That’s the material delivered in China by 16 drones in just three days, boosting efficiency tenfold over traditional means.

17 million USD

That’s how much money an American woman made with “laptop farms,” where North Korean workers collected wages under stolen identities. The fraud secretly financed North Korea’s weapons program.

17%

That's how much Marina Bay Sands' net revenue in Singapore jumped to a record, fueled by Asia's surging travel demand.

TOP BIT

🤖 TikTok Parent ByteDance Bets on Robotic AI

TikTok owner ByteDance has unveiled the vision–language–action model GR 3, which teaches its prototype robot ByteMini everyday‐language commands and enables it to independently hang laundry or clear a table.
At the same time, the company is recruiting dozens of new specialists for robotics and “embodied AI.”

The Details

🤖 GR 3 System: The model links vision, language, and action. It understands size specifications and positions, then immediately executes them.

🚚 Mass Production: Over 1,000 mobile logistics robots are already operating in ByteDance warehouses, autonomously transporting packages and collecting valuable training data.

💼 New Job Surge: The seed division is creating roles for robotics algorithms and hardware development. Multiple job postings hint at an upcoming universal‐robot product.

🇺🇸 Regulatory Hedge: As TikTok faces a forced‐sale threat in the US, ByteDance is developing a separate US app and expanding its AI expertise primarily in China.

Why It Matters

• Technology Diversification: ByteDance is evolving from a video network into a comprehensive AI hardware provider.
  

• Regulatory Lifeline: A robust robotics business in China could offset potential losses if TikTok is divested in the US.
  

• Competitive Pressure: Advances in embodied AI intensify the race with Tesla, Alibaba, and Meta for the future standard in household and service robotics.

Background

ByteDance funds its robotics arm largely from Douyin and TikTok revenues, emphasizing tight integration of software and hardware. GR 3 combines vast multimodal datasets with recorded grasping motions so machines can semantically interpret real-world scenes rather than rely on floor markers.

Logistics centers serve as ideal testing grounds to amass sensor data and rapidly refine models. Every new deployment builds experience toward a future consumer robot that can learn autonomously and handle diverse tasks.

📊 All Data & Details: SCMP, LatePost

OUR PARTNER

🎯 Ready for the toughest AI challenge of the year?

You’ve got the skills. Tencent brings the stage.

The Tencent Advertising Algorithm Competition (TAAC) is back – and looking for the brightest minds in the game. This year’s theme, “Generative AI, Future RecSys”, isn’t about tweaking old models. It’s about reimagining the future of recommendation systems.

🧠 Your mission:

• Build a generative recommendation model based on users’ multimodal behavior – text, image, and interaction.

• Go beyond traditional frameworks and show what GenAI is really capable of.

🏆 What’s in it for you:

• RMB 3.6 million prize pool

• Guaranteed Tencent job offers for all Top 10 teams

• Internships & iPads for strong performers

📅 Register now – deadline: July 31
👉 Questions? Email [email protected]

HEAD OF THE DAY

🇨🇳 Zhang Yiming

🤖 From Outsider Engineer to TikTok Mastermind: Zhang Yiming founded ByteDance in 2012, launched the AI‐driven news app Toutiao and the global hit Douyin (TikTok), and by 2025 has amassed an estimated $65.5 billion fortune—making him China’s richest person. Born in Longyan, Fujian in 1983 and a Nankai University computer-engineering graduate, he cut his teeth at startups and Microsoft before persuading skeptical VCs to back his recommendation-engine vision. He stepped down as CEO in 2021 but still wields over 50 % of ByteDance’s voting rights.

Fun Fact: To stay close to his product, Zhang banned senior managers from calling him “boss” and once made them post their own TikToks—doing push-ups if their videos didn’t hit a target number of likes.

👉 Lesson learned: Pair deep technical chops with relentless user-obsession—use data and AI not just to build models, but to shape culture and products that stick.

MARKET BIT

💰 JD.com to Acquire MediaMarkt & Saturn

Details

📈 Cash Offer: JD.com is considering a voluntary takeover bid of €4.60 per common share in cash. That implies an enterprise value of around €1.6 billion—about 10 % above the last trading price.

🏬 Store Power: MediaMarkt | Saturn operates roughly 1,000 stores across 13 countries, with last year’s revenues at €22.4 billion. JD.com would instantly gain one of Europe’s largest electronics retail platforms, including its online shop.

👪 Key Shareholders as Kingmakers: The Kellerhals founding family holds 29.2 % of shares, Haniel 16.7 %, and other anchor investors about 18 %. Without their approval, the deal is effectively dead, potentially forcing JD.com into concessions.

🚚 Logistics Leverage: JD.com plans to turbocharge its China-style same-day services by using Ceconomy’s European store, warehouse, and last-mile network. Synergies would emerge primarily in e-commerce backend and supply chains across the EU.

Why It Matters

• China’s Reach into European Retail: A successful deal would give JD.com market presence in 13 countries overnight and ramp up competitive pressure on Amazon & Co.
  

• Digital Boost for Ceconomy: Fresh capital and JD technology could modernize MediaMarkt | Saturn’s sluggish online business—or accelerate store closures.
  

• Politics & Scrutiny: A Chinese e-commerce giant acquiring a European retail flagship will draw regulators and security policymakers into debates over data, supply chains, and jobs.

👉🏻 Full Story: Reuters, Bloomberg, n-tv

TOP READS

🚨 EU-China Summit Tensions: EU leaders demand real solutions on trade imbalance from Xi Jinping and a clear focus on climate action. Disputes over China’s Russia ties and massive trade gap persist. Full story.

🏦 Alipay and Tenpay Under Scrutiny: China’s central bank puts top payment giants under direct anti-money laundering watch. Alipay and Tenpay, leading the third-party payments market, now face stricter rules alongside 27 financial firms. Goal: curb money laundering and tighten oversight of billions in transactions. Full story.

💼 Oatly plans China carveout: Swedish oat milk maker considers selling its China business for about 200 million dollars. Market uncertainty and tariff risks drive the move. Full story.

OPTIONAL READS

India: E-bike and e-rickshaw battery swap sites boom with 1,500 stations boosting electrification pace. More on this.

Sri Lanka: The highest court directs a Singaporean firm to pay 1 billion USD for marine pollution disaster. More on this.

Japan: Officers test body cameras in a pilot project to verify their on-duty actions. More on this.

FORTUNE COOKIE

🌴 Greetings from Bali!

We’re truly grateful that we can combine the beautiful with the useful. Thanks to the groundbreaking invention called the internet, we can work from anywhere.

This week, we’re in Bali, working hard, exercising, and eating well.

Next week, we’ll be in Hong Kong and already have many community meetings lined up.

Our mission at asiabits is to bring people together—online and offline. That’s why we’ll travel to different cities at least once a month to meet you. Here’s our tentative plan:

📅 July: Hong Kong
📅 August: Tokyo
📅 September: Berlin

We’ll also host community events designed to strengthen your networks and foster exchange. We’ll keep you posted!

☀️ Have a great weekend!

FEEDBACK

See you tomorrow in your inbox, 

Thomas, Michael & the Team of asiabits