China’s CATL touts landmark order in ‘DeepSeek moment’ for sodium-ion batteries
Deal for massive grid storage system shows that CATL has ‘overcome all the challenges in mass-producing sodium-ion batteries’, company says
“The deal could be interpreted as a ‘DeepSeek moment’ for the global ESS battery industry, since wide use of sodium in production could greatly reduce costs and improve manufacturing efficiency,” said Davis Zhang, a senior executive at Suzhou Hazardtex, a supplier of specialised batteries. “Commercialisation of sodium-ion batteries will benefit the EV and ESS industries.”
Artificial intelligence start-up DeepSeek drew the world’s attention to China’s AI prowess in early 2025 when it released a breakthrough large language model developed at a lower cost than Western counterparts.
“This agreement signals that CATL has overcome all the challenges in mass-producing sodium-ion batteries,” the company said in a statement. “We now have the capability for large-scale delivery.”