The 2024 China National Endurance Horse Riding Championship came to an end on Sunday in Damao United Banner, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, with winners being crowned in the different events.
The championship, the highest-level endurance riding event in China with more than 200 participants, includes a 120km individual competition, a 100km individual competition, a 100km team competition, and 40km and 80km qualifying competitions.
In order to protect the health of the horses on the grueling course, the competition is divided into stages. After each stage, the physical condition of the horses is tested immediately and if the horse's heart rate exceeds 64 beats per minute, the rider will be eliminated.
"All the horses at the highest level in China have come, and the seven members of the national team who will participate in the 2024 FEI Endurance World Championship in France in September have also participated in the event. Through this competition, we are strengthening our physical fitness and adapting to competition atmosphere," said Jia Huilin, a member of the national team.
During the competition, exhibitions of world famous horses, show jumping performances, and equestrian barrel racing were also held to keep the audience entertained.
National endurance riding championship puts horses through their paces in Inner Mongolia
The U.S. Department of Commerce has issued new guidance declaring that the use of Huawei's Ascend AI chips "anywhere in the world" may violate U.S. export control regulations.
The statement, released by the department's Bureau of Industry and Security on Tuesday, explicitly warns of the potential consequences of enabling U.S.-origin "AI chips to be used in training or inference for Chinese AI models."
In response to the statement, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce vowed on Thursday to take resolute measures to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese enterprises.
While the move aligns with Washington's broader strategy to curb China's access to advanced semiconductor technologies, it also underscores a deeper anxiety: the fear of losing its global leadership in artificial intelligence.
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang said that China is "not behind" the U.S. in artificial intelligence and called the race in AI development a "long-term, infinite race," as he spoke to reporters at a tech conference in Washington, D.C., last month.
During a recent congressional hearing, U.S. tech leaders, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and executives from Microsoft and chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices, testified on Capitol Hill to urge lawmakers to streamline policy for AI-related projects and fundraising in order to race against China in AI development.
The latest guideline follows a period of regulatory volatility. After walking back the previously announced "AI Diffusion Rule" from the Biden administration, the U.S. has now pivoted toward this more aggressive interpretation – a shift that highlights the inherent difficulties in enforcing such extraterritorial bans.
Convincing sovereign nations to follow U.S. law, particularly when it limits their own tech development, poses significant diplomatic and operational challenges.
"The Trump administration will pursue a bold, inclusive strategy to American AI technology with trusted foreign countries around the world," Tuesday's statement says.
Implementing a global enforcement regime would likely require bilateral negotiations with dozens of countries – a time-consuming and politically fraught process that risks diminishing returns.
In practice, these efforts may only reinforce China's determination to achieve technological self-sufficiency. Huawei's trajectory stands as a case in point.
Since coming under U.S. sanctions in 2019, the company has made notable advances in AI and chip development. Most recently, the company invited select Chinese tech companies to test its most powerful processor yet, the Ascend 910D, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing sources familiar with the matter. The chip is expected to rival – or even surpass – Nvidia's H100 in performance.
If such innovation continues to emerge under pressure, Washington may need to ask itself: Is the goal to contain China or to compel it to innovate faster?
New US guidance on Huawei chip usage reveals deeper fears, tougher realities
