China has obtained the big screen software used by NATO and the United States for war room mapping. Luciad, a defense contractor based in Leuven, Belgium, is selling the Chinese government high performance software used for situational awareness by the military commands of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), according to the South China Morning Post. The package includes LuciadLightspeed, a program that can process real-time data, including that from fast-moving objects, with speed and accuracy. Situational awareness is the ability to know what is happening in a target environment and use that intelligence to defeat the enemy. In warfare, the situation is so fluid it can change in seconds.

Planners use data from sources such as drone feeds, satellite imagery, radar, sensor plots, weather forecasts and platoon status. Traditional software can introduce errors as large as 500 meters in the positioning of moving targets from different data streams. Luciad’s software can analyze data and generate seamless visuals at a speed of 100 calculations a second, 75 times faster than its closest competitor, with accuracy to within 3 cm and on a global scale, according to American graphics technology company Nvidia. This allows planners to visualize and analyze changes in enemy positions or assess target information in real time and adjust mission parameters accordingly, according to Nvidia.

The same software is used by the United States Special Operations Command at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida, where covert missions for the U.S. government. Under Chinese law, a foreign vendor supplying software to the Chinese government must disclose every line of source code to authorities for a security check. It was unclear whether Luciad has complied with that requirement. The company did not respond to requests for comment, the South China Morning Post reports.

Luciad was established by Dr Lode Missiaen, a senior scientist who had worked at the Nato Consultation, Command and Control Agency in The Hague, the Netherlands, in the 1990s. He left NATO and founded Luciad in 1999 to develop commercial software which was adopted by NATO in 2008. The company was bought last year by Hexagon, a technology group based in Sweden, which has established ties with the Chinese military and defense industry.

China’s large number of fintech companies has helped the country to take the lead worldwide in developing the industry, according to the Global Fintech Hub Report released during the Money 20/20 China conference. Five of the top 10 global fintech hubs are in China, and Chinese cities comprise seven out of the top 30, the report showed. It was jointly released by the Academy of Internet Finance at Zhejiang University, the Center for Alternative Finance at the University of Cambridge, and the Zhejiang Association of Internet Finance. Ben Shenglin, Dean of the Academy of Internet Finance at Zhejiang University, said consumer demand, technology advances, policies and the regulatory environment are the key drivers for the development of the country’s fintech industry.

Beijing was crowned as top of the list among all the 70 surveyed global cities. A total of 58 Beijing-based fintech companies have seen their respective cumulative financing top USD50 million, more than all the other cities. Lead by JD Finance, Du Xiaoman Financial and Qudian, the combined financing of the 58 companies has reached over USD21 billion. Shanghai came in at No 5 on the list, the second-highest among Chinese cities, with 26 fintech companies based in the city reporting respective accumulative financing of over USD50 million. As a global financial center, the added value of the financial industry contributed 17% to Shanghai’s GDP last year.

Hangzhou in Zhejiang province – the home of Alibaba and its financial arm Ant Financial – stood just one position below Shanghai on the list. Although only 13 fintech companies in the city have seen their respective accumulative financing reaching over USD50 million, their total financing value has topped USD23.9 billion, the highest worldwide. Furthermore, Hangzhou leads the world in terms of fintech consumer experience, with about 91.5% of the city’s population using fintech products and services. Ye Jinwu, Founder and Chairman of Hangzhou-based fintech company Ying Ying Group, said that Hangzhou still lags behind first-tier Chinese cities, such as Beijing and Shanghai, in terms of the size of its fintech industry. But, the city has demonstrated unparalleled vibrancy in terms of business activity and entrepreneurship, and the sufficient talent supply in the city is an important reason for the large number of fintech startups in Hangzhou, he said.

Advertisers and marketers are increasingly focusing on digital media as online searches and microblogs have assumed immense potential in terms of access to the consumer mind, and are now more effective compared to print and broadcast media. Within the digital space in China, the mobile channel is something that brands simply cannot do without, experts said. Over 95% of the online population use mobile devices to access the internet, according to the China Statistical Report on Internet Development, which was published in August.

The rise of e-commerce has brightened the allure of the digital medium, said Iris Chin, General Manager of media agency MediaCom China. The country is a hub for digital innovation, thanks to the contributions of Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent (BAT) and a bunch of new players. In the last three years, the percentage of mobile ads in terms of overall internet spending jumped ten-fold to over 60%, according to consultancy iResearch. It forecast the number will eventually grow to 80% by the end of next year. People spend 76 minutes per day on Tencent’s iconic messenger WeChat on average, the company said last year, while time spent on fast rising rival short video app Douyin reached about 60 minutes, according to its parent Bytedance. “It’s no wonder companies are spending big on digital given that marketing dollars follow consumer behavior,” Chin said.

Fixation with mobile means that consumers in China are now utilizing apps to make purchase decisions, said Jacky Tang, General Manager of Neo Communications, a Shanghai-based agency dedicated to digital marketing solutions. “To navigate through the highly complex and segmented digital landscape, the safe bet is to start with WeChat and Weibo, which we deem as the ‘twin pillars’ of China’s social media,” Tang said. Probably China’s most popular mobile app, WeChat has become a default way of life for the Chinese to pay bills, access news, book taxi rides or even make a doctor’s appointment. The troves of data generated through this all-in-one killer app has given Tencent a leg up in the digital marketing landscape, the China Daily reports. Domenica di Lieto, CEO of Emerging Communications, recommended companies start by building up an audience on Chinese microblogging site Weibo before pouring money into a WeChat marketing campaign. “We say that Weibo is an acquisition platform and WeChat is a retention platform,” she said.

China is poised to overtake Germany and the UK as the world’s largest offshore wind power producer by 2022, but it needs foreign know-how to cut costs and boost competitiveness, according to the CEO of the Global Wind Energy Council. “We think the best way for China to achieve that is to have foreign participation to enable the transfer of best practices in the European market,” said Chief Executive Ben Blackwell.

Cost reduction is crucial to the nascent industry’s growth because from January 1, all large-scale wind farm development rights allocation in China will be subject to power price competitive bidding, with the power price commanding a 40% weighting in a developer’s competitiveness assessment. This will effectively end subsidies to developers via higher guaranteed power prices that have been in place for a decade. Blackwell said Chinese developers could learn from their European peers, especially in the more technologically challenging deep water areas and avoid the “steep learning curve and mistakes” they made along the way. The Council is backed by 1,500 equipment manufacturers, project developers, parts suppliers, financiers, power distributors and research members from over 80 nations.

Global offshore wind power generation capacity could grow to 129 gigawatt (GW) in 2030 from 17.6 GW last year – an average rate of 16%, and China would overtake the UK’s cumulative installation by 2022, Bloomberg New Energy Finance has forecast. China’s offshore capacity stood at 2.8 GW last year, trailing Germany’s 5.4 GW and the UK’s 6.8 GW, according to the Council. In the overall market covering both on and offshore, China’s 188 GW was more than double the 89 GW of the United States, the No 2 market, the South China Morning Post reports.

So far, China’s wind power market is dominated by state-backed energy giants, and few foreign firms have won project development rights in the highly capital-intensive and cost competitive market. But a round table discussion during last month’s China Wind Power exhibition and conference in Beijing signaled an interest in the idea of the Chinese industry tapping into foreign expertise to speed up development. Foreign firms are not barred from China’s wind power industry, but they face challenges in obtaining project site information and local financing, and forming joint ventures with Chinese firms is the preferred market entry approach, said Qiao Liming, the Council’s China Director.

Xpeng Motors, the electric car start-up backed by Alibaba Group Holding, said it will roll out its first mass-produced model next month as more Chinese firms step up to challenge Tesla for the hearts and minds of local drivers. The move comes 17 months after the Guangzhou-based carmaker received its safety certification from the industry watchdog and 10 months since it unveiled the electric car model at the CES show in Las Vegas. “It’s a challenge for any new EV manufacturer to ramp up production and meet delivery targets,” Xpeng Chairman and Chief Executive He Xiaopeng said on the sidelines of the Guangzhou auto show, adding that quality has been the priority over speed to market. “It is not a race. There’s no short cut. It’s about gaining consumer confidence in our products and services and building a solid reputation for the EV sector in China,” he said.

Xpeng, or Xiaopeng in Chinese, is one of dozens of electric car start-ups that have emerged in recent years after the government started issuing special manufacturing permits to companies outside traditional auto industry players. Venturing into territory dominated by foreign carmakers like GM, Toyota Motor and Volkswagen, the Chinese start-ups are investing billions of dollars in advanced technologies ranging from autonomous driving and voice control to other bespoke smart features, hoping to upend foreign firms and take on Tesla, which is close to building a factory in Shanghai, its first factory outside the U.S.

China has been revving up efforts to promote the sector and will enforce a “dual credit” scheme starting from January. Under the new policy, local and foreign carmakers have to meet minimum production requirements for new-energy vehicles. Credits can be bought or sold to meet government targets and those falling short will face penalties, including fines and even factory shut downs. Despite not having its first production vehicle ready till now, Xpeng has raised over CNY10 billion since its establishment in 2014, attracting Alibaba, Foxconn Technology Group, and Hillhouse Capital among its investors, the South China Morning Post reports.

Xpeng’s fully electric, five-seat compact SUV is priced between CNY200,000 to CNY280,000 before government subsidies. In comparison, Tesla’s Model X starts from CNY887,600. WM Motor and NIO, two other Chinese EV competitors backed by Tencent Holdings and Baidu respectively, rolled out their new models earlier this year.