Asia's Tech News, Weekly: August 23rd 2025
China changes crypto course, Space Centre Australia, Qualcomm in Vietnam, Huawei's Malaysia AI push, $12BN for ASEAN Power Grid, Semicon Taiwan conference nears, Indo-Pacific Robotics event...
• Malaysia: Huawei positions to train Malaysia's future AI workforce, pledging to train 30,000 local professionals / full item
• Bank Indonesia and the People's Bank of China have launched trials for cross-border QR code payments, linking QR Code Indonesia Standard with China's payment systems / full item
• Semicon Taiwan 2025 conference is set for September 8-12 in Taipei, bringing together all things semiconductor and advanced packaging-related / full item
• Federated States of Micronesia celebrates successful landing of the East Micronesia Cable, set to deliver benefits to citizens of FSM, Kiribati, and Nauru / full item
• Thailand's government has approved a new 3-year national data strategy, establishing a dedicated National AI Committee to pursue the country's digital economy goals / full item
"China is considering permitting the use of stablecoins backed by the yuan for the first time, in what would mark a dramatic policy reversal and a fresh step to elevate the currency’s global role..." / full item
• Hong Kong: "Legislative Council passed the stablecoin law... August 1, making the city one of the first jurisdictions globally to establish a legally recognised regulatory framework for stablecoins." / full item
• Vietnam: VNPT-Qualcomm Excellence Center preps for launch, the country's first facility to operate under a design co-development model using Qualcomm's core technologies / full item
• "Malaysia hopes to introduce cross-border ride-hailing services with Singapore in a bid to enhance connectivity between the two countries..." / full item
• "The Indian government has approved four new semiconductor manufacturing projects under the India Semiconductor Mission, across three states with a total outlay of $550 million." / full item
• Asian Development Bank and the World Bank have committed more than $12 billion to accelerate the ASEAN Power Grid project, and renewable energy initiatives / full item
• "Space Centre Australia Pty Ltd (SCA) has secured a spaceport land lease, signing a multi-decade agreement with the local Traditional Landowners for approximately 300 km²..." / full item
• Malaysia: Digital Ministry introduces beta version of multi-service, multi-source MyGov app, developed fully in-house as part of building Malaysia’s own digital infrastructure / full item
• India: Pixxel-led consortium and partners selected by Indian National Space Promotion & Authorization Centre to design, build, own, and operate a national Earth observation constellation / full item
• Taiwan: Shinkong Synthetic Fibers Corp is to build northern Taiwan’s largest drone hub at Taoyuan Shinkong InnovHub, featuring manufacturing, R&D, test flights, and pilot certification / full item
• Thailand has launched the TouristDigiPay initiative, allowing foreign visitors to convert cryptocurrency into baht for everyday payments, hoping to aid recovery in tourist numbers / full item
"Although there has been between $30 and $40 billion in enterprise investment into generative AI, a recent MIT report shows that 95 percent of organizations are seeing zero return." / full item
• "Viettel Military Industry and Telecoms Group has officially broken ground on two landmark projects, the Viettel Research & Development Centre and the An Khanh Data Centre..." / full item
• Japan: Rakuten NFT ticket resale platform will introduce NFT tickets for the Rakuten Eagles baseball team and Vissel Kobe soccer team / full item
• Malaysia: Proton automaker's electric vehicle production plant is reportedly nearing completion, with mass production expected to commence in September / full item
• White House: '...perhaps deals could be expanded to other chip companies after Nvidia and AMD agreed to give the US government 15% of revenue from sales to China of certain advanced chips...' / full item
• Taiwan: 3DIC Advanced Manufacturing Alliance will launch during the SEMICON Taiwan conference, aiming to boost cross-industry collaboration, supply chain resilience and more / full item
• South Korea: Financial Intelligence Unit regulator has commenced reorganizing its anti-money laundering protocols ahead of 'institutionalization' of stablecoins / full item
• "The establishment of the ASEAN China AI Lab in Indonesia comes on the heels of the successful rollout of pioneering and global scale projects from the Malaysian lab, including..." / full item
• Malaysian telecomms firm, Axiata Group Berhad, inks MoU with Ministry of Post & Telecommunications of Cambodia, aiming to boost Cambodia’s cybersec landscape / full item
• China Mobile is to become the largest shareholder in Hong Kong broadband operator, HKBN, following regulator approval / full item
• Vietnam police bust a $2 million digital currency Ponzi-style scam / full item
"Google will provide a suite of artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud services to [US] federal agencies for 47 cents each, the General Services Administration (GSA) announced Thursday." / full item
• Asia's Tech News, last week: Indonesia AI fund, $1BN datacenter for Vietnam, Pakistan central bank goes CBDC, geothermal in Indonesia, China's Geespace launches satellites, Trump's NVIDIA deal, network LLM training in China... / full item
• Indo-Pacific Robotics, Autonomy, AI & Cyber Conference is set for Perth, Australia, October 7-9 / full item
• South Korea: 2025 OKTA Global Startup Competition preps to connect Korean innovators, overseas buyers, and top-tier venture capital networks in October / full item
• Indo-Pacific Insight Weekly, Aug 16th: Geopolitics, investment, economics, infrastructure, supply chains, and beyond. Newsletter and download on Substack
• "Agentic artificial intelligence (AI) web browsers that can act autonomously on users' behalf appear to be extremely gullible and unsafe to use... security researchers suggest." / full item
In wider-world technology news:
» Microsoft announces plan for full quantum-resistant cryptography transition by 2033 / full item
» "Portugal has just taken another crucial step towards strengthening its position in the European space sector, with the award of the first licence to operate a space launch centre..." / full item
» "SpinLaunch...is poised to revolutionize satellite deployment by using a giant centrifugal cannon to launch hundreds of microsatellites into low-Earth orbit..." / full item
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https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/asias-tech-news-weekly-august-23rd-2025-startup-news-asia-zj1kc/