Is AI-powered search profitable and sustainable? Scaling up commercial generative AI comes with high energy and environmental costs, adding to social concerns. Half-measures on the issue could damage market reception.

Slowing growth forces Beijing to capitulate to Big Tech: Facing the weakest growth in decades, China seeks cooperation with the EU and will loosen its iron grip on tech monoliths to spur the economy.

A jarring deceleration in ad spending growth has shaken the advertising industry in many parts of the world. However, this softness is not universal, and it is likely to be short-lived.

Throttling processors risks slowing innovation: Semiconductors are a battleground in the tech cold war between the US and China, and now manufacturers are scaling down performance to comply with chip bans.

Billions pouring into quantum computing: Rising beyond nascent stages, quantum tech is turning heads in government and business. As funding accelerates, society is likely unprepared for security and ethical challenges.

China’s total media ad spending and digital ad spending will both grow at their lowest rates since we began tracking them in 2012, but the ad industry is nonetheless set for an eventful year in the world’s second-largest market.

China’s tech giants are racing to own the technology of the metaverse: Tencent, Baidu, Oppo, and Huawei are beating US counterparts to the AR/VR patent punch.

The vision of augmented reality (AR) headsets replacing smartphones could become a reality sooner than expected in China. Advances in hardware and new AR commerce use cases are paving the way.

Rounding up news from the last days of 2021: The news cycle didn’t stop over the holidays. These are some of the most notable stories from the last two weeks.

Sustainability is increasingly top of mind for consumers in China. Many are making lifestyle changes to address the issue, spurred by the country’s many environmental catastrophes, as well as the government’s recent pledge to reduce emissions. And more than ever, shoppers expect brands to offer products and services with eco-friendliness in mind—and for the right price.

China is often seen as the wild west of privacy protection, where unscrupulous companies collect and trade personal data as regulators and consumers stand idly by. The Chinese government has been trying to change that, most recently by drafting a privacy law akin to the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). While the implications for businesses are still murky, it’s clear that China is determined to tackle this issue its own way, at its own pace.

In 2020, China was the only major economy to produce economic growth. It’s not surprising, then, that it was also the only major national market to see an increase in total media ad spending. Girded by this economic strength, China’s digital ad market hardly missed a beat.

The digital divide has widened, particularly over the past year, and left seniors worldwide in the lurch. This issue takes on added urgency in China, where gender imbalance, delayed marriage, and a declining birthrate only exacerbate the rapid aging of its population. In November, the government urged tech companies to cater to the elderly, and China’s digital giants are now tapping into the so-called silver market.

Despite a downgrade to our forecast, digital ad spending in China will still grow 5.0% this year. But there will be a power swap among the major platforms, as Tencent displaces Baidu and becomes the No. 2 publisher. And Alibaba will remain No. 1, but with lowered expectations.

Amid unprecedented recessionary headwinds caused by the coronavirus pandemic, China’s total ad spending will downshift considerably, but remain in positive territory at 0.4% growth. This will make it the only national market we cover to see net growth this year. Digital ad spending in China, meanwhile, will grow by 5.0%.

This report explores our latest forecast for time spent with media in China, and how the coronavirus pandemic will impact our forecast for 2020 and beyond.

In 2019, 94.5% of internet users in China will be social network users. That amounts to just 59.0% of the country’s population. This report covers the trends shaping the market, as well as our first-ever user forecast for the popular short-video platform Douyin and updated estimates for WeChat and Sina Weibo.

Programmatic advertising will account for 71.0% of the digital display ad market in China this year. Mobile programmatic growth, as well as gains in private marketplaces and programmatic direct play a role. This report features our latest programmatic display forecast for China and explores these and other factors shaping the market through 2021.

eMarketer senior analyst Jasmine Enberg joins principal analyst Nicole Perrin to discuss whether major US tech firms are taking a page from the BAT (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent) playbook. Are Americans entering the age of the domestic super app? What would that mean for brands?