For a country known for spending inordinate sums on colossal infrastructure projects such as the world’s longest high-speed railway network, the world’s largest sea-bridge linking Hong Kong and Macau, and the largest power station in the world at the Three Gorges Dam, having another ambitious builder join the fray could be deemed as, well, boring. Nevertheless, interest has been piqued after Tesla and SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk announced that he will bring his underground tunnelling operation, Boring Company, to China later this month. According to a tweet from Musk, he will announce plans to launch a China unit of Boring during his attendance at this month’s World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai. Responding to a question on Twitter as to whether Boring would get involved in underwater tunnels, Musk replied “yes” without elaborating. Founded in 2016, Boring was created by Musk to solve “soul-destroying traffic” problems by using tunnels. While the venture is yet to complete any commercial project, it is building a loop system connecting two ends of the Las Vegas Convention Centre and has proposed US projects in Los Angeles, Chicago and a connection between Baltimore and Washington DC. Are Chinese electric car start-ups doomed after Tesla’s big price cuts? Boring’s first international foray comes as Tesla builds its first manufacturing plant outside the US in Shanghai - Gigafactory 3 - after receiving approval from Chinese authorities to be the first electric vehicle factory wholly owned by a foreign company under new regulations. Construction began in January 2019. The US$5 billion plant is expected to start production by the year end, targeting an initial annual capacity of 150,000 Model 3 cars. China’s face-scan tech now stretches to trash cans and public housing The celebrity entrepreneur continues to press ahead with his China plans despite a raging tech and trade war between the world’s largest two economies. Musk has adopted a friendly stance to “China speed” – a term used by state media to hail the country’s fully-charged railway network and technology development – in his public appearances and social media posts. China’s drive towards advanced infrastructure is more than “100 times faster” than the US, Musk said in a tweet last year. He has also praised China’s “energy and vigour”, which is on an “unseen scale”, in other tweets. China is Tesla’s second largest market after the US. The California-based electric car maker reported an over 40 per cent year-on-year surge in sales generated in the country to nearly US$1.5 billion in the first six months of the year.