Shenzhou-20 return mission postponed

THE return of China’s Shenzhou-20 crewed spaceship, originally scheduled for Wednesday, will be postponed due to a suspected impact from tiny space debris, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) announced.

The impact analysis and risk assessment are under way, the CMSA said. The decision to delay the return aims to ensure the astronauts’ safety and mission success, the agency said.

New deal on

sodium-ion batteries

CHINA Petroleum and Chemical Corporation, also known as Sinopec, has signed an agreement with South Korea’s LG Chem to jointly develop key materials for sodium-ion batteries, a low-cost alternative to lithium batteries, targeting the energy storage system and low-speed electric vehicle markets in China and worldwide.

The two firms will work together on the development of core components such as cathodes and anodes, accelerate commercialization, expand the sodium-ion battery business model, and extend cooperation into renewable energy and high-value-added materials.

Upgraded AI model

ALIBABA has unveiled Qwen3-Max-Thinking, an upgraded AI model that achieved perfect scores in the 2025 American Invitational Mathematics Examination (AIME) and the Harvard-MIT Mathematics Tournament (HMMT).

Alibaba said this is the first time a Chinese AI reasoning model has reached 100% accuracy in these contests, which are considered among the most difficult benchmarks for AI problem-solving and reasoning abilities.

Qwen3-Max-Thinking was built using Qwen3-Max, Alibaba’s largest AI model, which has over 1 trillion parameters and was unveiled in late September.