Asia's Tech News, Weekly: April 26th 2025
India datacenters, SEA VC Database, China's Thorium reactor, Plug and Play Japan Fund 1, TSMC Arizona pricing, Korea's GPU purchases, Foxconn & India's Uttar Pradesh, Malaysia-Cambodia QR payments...
• Taiwan's TSMC unveils new A14 tech for faster chips, assembling in packages that boost performance for artificial intelligence and other high-performance applications / full item
• India's Adani Group is reportedly to invest $10BN in hyperscale data centers, seeing large-scale opportunity in AI processing / full item
• Japan: Nippon Electric Glass announces plans to develop samples of larger glass substrates for semiconductor devices by as early as 2026, touting superior heat resistance / full item
• India: An intro to PierSight, using satellites for sea-level intelligence, monitoring illegal fishing, oil spills and more / full item
• Australia's social media age limit: "Australian children are easily circumventing inadequate and poorly enforced minimum age rules employed by well-known social media services..." / full item
"According to Chinese media outlet, mydrivers, Huawei's upcoming AI chip, the Ascend 920, could serve as a potential replacement for NVIDIA's H20..." / full item
• China has unveiled an experimental world-first 'meltdown proof' Thorium reactor, seen as a cleaner, and safer, alternative to Uranium-based reactors / full item
• South Korea: RLWRLD raised $14M with foundational AI model built specifically for robotics, combining LLMs with traditional robotics software / full item
• Samsung achieves stable 40%+ test yield for 4nm logic dies, enabling a key component of Samsung's 12-layer HBM4, optimized for high-performance computing / full item
• India: 'Digital Threat Report 2024' from SISA, focusing on cyber issues facing the banking and financial services industry / full item
• LG Energy has withdrawn from a Sg$11 billion Indonesia partnership to build a full EV battery supply chain, citing 'market conditions and investment environment' issues / full item
Video: QuikBot unveils Dubai Integrated Economic Zones Authority partnership for autonomous last-mile delivery platform-as-a-service (PaaS) - on YouTube
• Japan: Plug and Play Japan has established the investment limited partnership, 'Plug and Play Japan Fund I', to support global expansion of Japan's startups / full item
• China: Three Chinese astronauts arrived at Tiangong space station Thursday, taking over at the end of the current crew's 6-month deployment / full item
• Taiwan's TSMC has reportedly been mulling a price hike of up to 30% for 4nm chip production at its Arizona plant / full item
• South Korea's DSRV blockchain infrastructure company inks MOU with Japan's Next Finance Tech to pursue blockchain infra business across Asia, starting with Japan / full item
• India: Taiwan's Foxconn is considering acquisition of 300 acres in Uttar Pradesh for production facility, potentially in a first-time move into EV production / full item
"South Korea's government unveiled a plan last week to invest more than 1 trillion won ($1.3 billion) this year to secure 10,000 graphic processing units (GPUs)..." / full item
• Xendit online payment gateway provider rolls out 'Southeast Asia VC Database 2025' - register free for access / full item
• China: Southern Metropolis Daily, one of China's leading metro newspapers, has embraced AI for front-page design, signaling deeper disruption for the newspaper industry / full item
• Customers of Malaysia's Maybank travelling to Cambodia can now use the bank's MAE app for QR payments, scanning local Cambodian KHQR codes / full item
• ABA Bank, Cambodia's largest private financial institution, boosts partnership with Germany's SUSE for digital banking and inclusion / full item
• Samsung has reportedly told clients it will phase out DDR4 chips to focus on higher-end memory, citing fierce price competition from Chinese rival firms / full item
Video: 'The city of Beijing hosted a half marathon Saturday featuring humanoid robots together with amateur runners, describing the event as the first of its kind in the world.' / on YouTube
•' Can China repeat its EV success in humanoid robots?' / full item
• Samsung and ASML have reportedly dropped plans for EUV Research Center in Hwaseong, although with eyes now on new locations / full item
• China: 6 experimental Shiyan series satellites enter orbit via Long March 6A rocket intended for 'space environment detection and related technical tests' / full item
• Intel-TSMC JV rumours dispelled: "TSMC is not engaged in any discussion with other companies regarding any joint venture, technology licensing or technology" / full item
• "Humanoid workers and surveillance buggies: ‘embodied AI' is reshaping daily life in China" via The Guardian / full item
• China: Narwal, Tencent-backed household robotics maker, raised $100M to develop its first 'embodied-intelligence product for households' / full item
"Apple's main India suppliers Foxconn and Tata shipped nearly $2 billion worth of iPhones to the United States in March" in bid to bypass looming tariffs / full item
• China: Kuaishou short video firm unveils 'world's most powerful' AI video generator, Kling AI 2.0, in bid to rival OpenAI Sora and others / full item
• Download: 'State of Apps and API Security 2025 - How AI Is Shifting the Digital Terrain' from Akamai Technologies / full item
• China: RIVAI unveils next-gen high-performance RISC-V server chip, Lingyu, focusing in part on AI LLMs like DeepSeek / full item
• Download: 'Digital Dollars - Banks and Public Sector Drive Blockchain Adoption' from Citi / full item
• 'Chinese researchers can access half a million UK GP records': "Medical information will be available from UK Biobank, despite western intelligence agencies' security fears..." / full item
• Asia's Tech News Last Week: Australia quantum, geothermal Taiwan, Korea chips fund, Nio AI EVs, new TSMC chips, Philippines 7-Eleven bank, GITEX Asia conference... / full item
In wider-world technology news:
» A new method has been developed to extract hydrogen from natural gas fields by injecting steam, catalyst, and oxygen, delivering hydrogen and carbon monoxide / full item
» OpenAI is reportedly working on a social network, similar to X, with an internal prototype focused on ChatGPT image generation with a social feed / full item
» Techstars boosts startup funding with fall 2025 cohort set for $220K investment in each firm, $100K beyond previous awards and matching the Y Combinator model / full item
» 'Accelerate Asia Stablecoins with Interoperability' from Four Pillars / full item
» 'Europe Crypto Report 2025' from Coincub / full item
» 'Cyber Threats 2024: A Year in Retrospect' from PwC / full item
» Amazon is preparing to launch initial batch of Project Kuiper satellites into orbit, marking the first step by a US provider towards providing an alternative to SpaceX's Starlink service / full item
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And here's the link to the April 26th 2025 edition of Asia's Tech News, Weekly, published over on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/asias-tech-news-weekly-april-26th-2025-startup-news-asia-n0klc/