Asia's Tech News, Weekly: December 7th 2024

Beidou's plan to 2035, Japan semiconductor for Taiwan, Starlink & smuggling, TSMC 2nm beyond Taiwan, Malaysian cybercrime, China-Bolivia lithium, crypto in Australia, Korea's $10bn chip loans...

• China: Beidou satellite-navigation roadmap to 2035 is unveiled, with test satellites for 2027 launch, and next-gen satellites expected to be in place in 2029 / full item

• Australia: University of South Australia engineers have combined star-based navigation with vision analysis tech for navigation where GPS is out or unreliable / full item

• Taiwan: Japan's Tokyo Electron, Asia's biggest semiconductor equipment supplier, launches $61.5M center in Tainan, looking to boost capacity to meet growing demand / full item

• Australia-India in-space servicing firm, Space Machines Co, inks agreement with UK's Lúnasa for space debris imaging systems, and satellite orbit and manoeuvring / full item

• Thailand Post partners Singapore's bolttech insurance-tech to enable customers to purchase coverage via QR codes on post office receipts or in person at any PO branch / full item

• South Korea: DeepX chips firm preps to receive wafers from Samsung Electronics' 5nm process, focusing on on-device AI semiconductors and following 87% yields / full item

---

"Indian police will seek details from... Starlink... to hunt down drug smugglers who used its satellite internet device to navigate deep seas and bring meth worth $4.25BN into Indian waters..." / full item

---

• China: A look at the Maextro S800 from Huawei and JAC Group, targeting the luxury EV market with prices to $210K, launching in 2025 with production target of 2000 units / full item

• New Zealand's Zenno Astronautics gains backing from Mitsubishi Electric ME Innovation Fund with superconducting tech for space and satellite control applications / full item

• Taiwan: TSMC has begun equipment installation at its 2-nanometer facility in Kaohsiung, preparing for trial production runs in H1 2025 / full item

• China: First Long March 12 rocket launches from new spaceport, Wenchang Commercial Space Launch Site / full item

• ADB and Mastercard Impact Fund ink MOU to provide financing for women-led or -owned MSMEs in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam / full item

• Online 'Bootstrap Your Brand' workshop is set for December 12th, delivered by BGain and covering 5 cost-effective marketing strategies for SMEs and tech startups / full item

The Pacific Pivot - An American Strategy for the Pacific Islands

• Taiwan: TSMC may be considering 2nm production outside of Taiwan in response to tariff changes / full item

• Australian Securities & Investment Commission issues consultation paper outlining new guidelines for the cryptocurrency industry, proposing new licensing requirements / full item

• China's HK-based SenseTime, best-known for facial recognition tech, restructures to add generative AI focus for both opportunities and in a bid to stay relevant as AI evolves / full item

• India: Telecoms regulator rolls out new rules to protect critical infrastructure networks; obligation to provide user data to authorities raises significant concerns, however / full item

• South Korea: Gov't to roll out $10BN in low-interest loans in 2025 to support the chips industry, with advanced complex under construction in bid to attract firms / full item

• Indian Ocean territory of Christmas Island will be connected by subsea cable to Darwin in Australia's far north in a Google-backed project / full item

---

"Malaysia has recorded a staggering RM1.224 billion loss due to online crime between January and October this year, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim announced..." / full item

---

• Bolivia inks $1BN deal with China's CBC, a CATL subsidiary, to build 2 lithium carbonate production plants, with separate Citic Guoan Group contract under negotiation / full item

• Australia's Austrade opens EOIs for AI, cybersecurity and blockchain firms for Philippines visit in February 2025, looking to boost collaboration and business growth / full item

• An overview of the Cambodia Digital Awards 2024, dovetailing with the Digital Skills Development Roadmap 2024-2035 to raise digital literacy and skills in the Kingdom / full item

• China: Former head of digital currency development is facing prosecution for cryptocurrency-based bribery / full item

• Japan's Neo-Yamakoshi Village in 'Digital Citizens Wanted - Japan village grows population with NFTs, Web3 tools' from Yuri Group - PDF / full item

• Dubai's Damac Group unveils plan to invest $3BN to build data centers across Southeast Asia, seeing the region as a future hub for AI and cloud services / full item

Singapore Venture Funding Landscape 2024 (pdf link)

• 140 of China's semiconductor industry firms added to US Chips Act ban, preventing receipt of exports of advanced chip-making equipment and direct chip purchases / full item

• Australia: "The VIC government will invest $150K each to create 50 new startups and pay their salary for the year as part of an entrepreneurship program run by Breakthrough Victoria." / full item

• Indonesia's Mimin secures $1.5M with GenAI-driven chat services in e-commerce, marketing and customer support / full item

• Vietnam: Bitget cryptocurrency exchange launches BitEXC, a trading platform for the Vietnam market, with security provisions for user assets including a $300M protection fund / full item

• Cambodia: Regulator blocks access to 16 crypto exchange websites over lack of formal licensing, although mobile apps remain available / full item

• Vietnam unveils plans for a $67BN, 1500km high-speed railway connecting Hanoi with Ho Chi Minh City, streamlining internal supply chains in pursuit of manufacturing growth / full item

---

"...Hwang delisted his shop from South Korea’s major delivery apps. His gross sales have dropped significantly [but] a worthwhile tradeoff given the high cost of working with the platforms." / full item

---

• Australia: Under new law, under-16s to be prohibited from accounts on some social platforms, with firms responsible for enforcement and facing non-compliance fines up to Au$50M / full item

• Philippines: Meet YUME, music-tech startup providing musicians with royalties management, publishing, streaming and more, with listeners rewarded for support / full item

• Australia: The Digital Currency Reserve rolls out new GLO product, leveraging tokenised real-world assets including gold / full item

• Tenstorrent AI chip firm competitor to NVIDIA reportedly gains backing from Amazon's Bezos in a $700M fundraise led by South Korea’s AFW Partners and Samsung Securities / full item

• Japan: Gov't to dissolve existing web3 Project Team, instead creating dedicated unit in Digital Society Promotion department, tho full responsibilities are not yet defined / full item

• Australia: MGA Thermal adds $200K to pre-B fundraise with thermal bricks energy storage technology, building on last year's container-based demo unit / full item

• "Xiaomi’s entry into the electric vehicle market is gaining speed, and its strategy for global expansion might hinge on one key integration: Apple’s ecosystem..." / full item

• South Korea's Ably becomes Korea's first 'unicorn' of 2024 with $71.4M investment from Alibaba with shopping apps focused on clothing / full item

• Australia: Pilbara Solar, a 50% Aboriginal-controlled startup business and social enterprise, gains Offer to Connect to deliver to Horizon Power's coastal network / full item

• Thailand: Korea Tourism Startup Center opens in Bangkok, an initiative by Korea Ministry of Culture, Sports & Tourism and Korea Tourism Organisation aiming to boost collaborations and market entry / full item

• Cambodia: Techo Startup Center and Wing Bank select 5 winning teams from cohort 4 of the Reverse Innovation Program, each focused on community pain points / full item

• New Zealand: An intro to Compostify, aiming to replace single-use plastics with bioplastic that decomposes naturally, initially targeting plant pots / full item

---

"The first 10G converged services launched in Beijing and Shanghai in August on a very limited scale. Pilots are also underway in more than 20 provinces and cities..." / full item

---

• Download: 'Assessing the state of Cambodia's startup ecosystem, 2024 report' from Startup Cambodia - PDF link / full item

• Download: 'AI + Data Predictions 2024' from Snowflake / full item

• Download: 'Top 10 FinTech & Payments Trends 2025' from Juniper Research / full item

• Download: 'The AI Maturity Matrix - Which Economies Are Ready For AI?' from BCG // "...some highly exposed economies are less prepared..." / full item

• Download: 'The Future of Banking' from Accenture // "...specialist providers...have enjoyed compound annual revenue growth of 76% between 2018 and 2020." – PDF / full item

---

"...what the data proves, this author says, is that automakers, dealers and charging companies have a lot more work to do if they want to keep any sort of electric momentum going." / full item

---

In wider-world technology news:

» Amazon Web Services unveils Data Transfer Terminal test plan to allow customers to plug in storage devices at physical locations to upload data to AWS cloud / full item

» US Federal Comm's Commission clears SpaceX for use of Starlink satellites to provide T-Mobile customers with direct-to-cell services, marking the first such approval / full item

» Fusion energy on the rise: "Just 1 gram of fuel as input can create the equivalent of eight tons of oil in fusion power. That’s an astonishing yield of 8 million to 1." / full item

» Reddit is now the 5th most popular social platform in the UK, overtaking X and LinkedIn / full item

» Meta is reportedly planning a globe-spanning subsea cable network at least 40,000km in length and likely to cost $10 billion / full item

» Meta seeks proposals from nuclear power developers for delivery of energy in the early 2030s, in part responding to projected AI energy demands / full item

» UN Agency for Digital Tech is partnering Int'l Telecommunication Union and Int'l Cable Protection Committee to create Int'l Advisory Body for Submarine Cable Resilience / full item

» RTFKT, the Nike-owned digital fashion & web3 studio, has announced plans to wind down operations, aiming to cease by the end of January 2025 / full item

---

'...we analysed over 35M public Facebook posts with [URLs] shared between 2017 and 2020, and discovered that such 'shares without clicks' constitute around 75% of forwarded links.' /

---

Asia-Pacific tech news: Other editions

• LinkedIn / Twitter / Facebook / Insta / Monthly / Web / Connect