Asia's Tech News, Weekly: February 15th 2025

Issue 134: China mega-constellations, AML & Asia Pac, Korean chips & Meta AI, TikTok's ban-dodge, $1BN PH-Thai fund, Aus Space Summit, TSMC & OpenAI, Taiwan supercomputer...

• China's Spacesail 'mega-constellation' operator inks MoU with Malaysia's Measat to expand its presence in wider SE Asia with satellite broadband, direct-to-device comms, and IoT solutions / full item

• Vietnam: Huawei and Green Power ink MoU for equipment for 100 MWp solar energy project, looking to deploy rooftop solar on a number of Vietnam's islands / full item

• India: Nibe Ltd space firm gains BlackSky partnership for satellite imagery, analytics, and hi-res optical sat in move toward a sovereign, remote-sensing constellation / full item

• Mastercard launches TRACE anti-money laundering service to combat financial crime in the Asia Pacific, with first implementation in the Philippines' Real-Time Payment network / full item

• South Korea's FuriosaAI chips firm is reportedly in talks with Meta as the social media giant looks to develop AI infrastructure / full item

• TikTok is to provide US Android users with access to downloadable kit packages, allowing users to instal the app, in a move to bypass US restrictions / full item

• 'More than half of Australian VCs said a startup they invested in failed in 2024' / full item

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"Taiwan’s first next-generation supercomputer for artificial intelligence (AI), which would be equipped with Nvidia’s H100 graphics processing units (GPU), is scheduled to begin working with a capacity of 16 petaFLOPS in May. The government is planning to gradually expand the computing power to 200 petaFLOPS..." / full item

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• Philippines' sovereign wealth fund, Maharlika Investment Corp'n, and Thai conglomerate, Charoen Pokphand Group, to launch $1BN PE fund for agri-food, digital, and green energy / full item

• China: First launch of the new Long March 8A rocket delivered satellite internet payloads for the Guowang - aka SatNet - 23,000-sat mega-constellation / full item

• Indonesia is to construct 3 solar power plants in East Java, West Java, and West Sumatra, with a combined capacity of 220MWp, with Sumatra facility a floating solar power plant / full item

• Australia: Gov't imposes additional sanctions on Russian individuals and organizations involved in 2022 cyberattack against Medibank Private / full item

• China National Space Administration and Pakistan's Space & Upper Atmosphere Research Commission ink MoU for Pakistan's first moon rover to fly on China's Chang'e-8 mission in 2028 / full item

• The Australian Space Summit & Exhibition 2025 is set for 27 & 28 May in Sydney, with nominations now open for the Australian Space Awards / full item

Council on Foreign Relations: Cyber Operations Tracker

• Taiwan's TSMC preps for OpenAI chip production using TSMC 3-nanometer process, with OpenAI targeting mass production in 2026 / full item

• Philippines: World's largest solar power plus battery storage project breaks ground in The Philippines, targeting solar capacity of 3500MW and battery storage capacity of 4500MWh / full item

• China: DeepSeek tech is to be integrated into Great Wall Motor automaker's connected vehicle systems, and into China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom offerings / full item

• Australia: TPG, owner of Vodafone and iiNet, bans workers from using DeepSeek, going as far as to recommend staff not use the application at home / full item

• India: Google and Oracle look to the IndiaAI project, seeing possible participation with Google's Tensor Processing Units and Oracle computing infrastructure / full item

• Australia: Beaten Zone Venture Partners, a specialist defence-tech VC firm, has secured over $10M in commitments, with sights on $60M close inside 18 months / full item

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China: "Yukang is a victim of a deep shift taking place in the global supply chain, as Apple loses market share in China and Foxconn shifts production away from China’s export hubs amid an intensifying US-China trade war."/ full item

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• India: Invest Karnataka 2025 preps to present the state as an investment destination for aerospace, renewable energy, electronics, semiconductors, and advanced manufacturing / full item

• Indonesia's East Ventures and South Korea's SV Investment partner for SE Asia-South Korea investment fund, targeting tech startups for Series A to B funding / full item

• China: Huawei rolls out surprising way to boost sales of latest smart watches in response to low consumer spending - registering them as devices claimable under medical insurance plans / full item

• YouGov survey finds 84% of Indonesian parents support government proposal to set minimum age for social media access to protect children / full item

• Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science & Tech and Intel partner to develop a quantum computer, with Intel providing its most advanced chips for the project / full item

• Cambodia: China's BYD EV giant is to establish an assembly plant in Sihanoukville Special Economic Zone by year-end, initially assembling electric, and hybrid electric-gasoline units / full item

Indo-Pacific Insight: Daily on LinkedIn - tech, risk, supply & trade, space, geopolitics

• New Zealand National Cyber Security Centre report outlines increasingly complex security threats faced from both criminals and nations, with 7122 security incidents in the year to July 2024 / full item

• Japan: ArkEdge Space observation satellite produced for Taiwan's space agency has captured high-quality Earth imagery from a spacecraft smaller than a suitcase / full item

• Vietnam: Project to establish a regional financial centre in Da Nang has been approved, aiming to position the city as a hub for financial tech, green finance and more / full item

• A brief intro to Pomelo, combining US consumer credit with international money transfers to The Philippines, in partnership with Mastercard and Coastal Community Bank / full item

• Australia: An intro to 10 of the highest funding rounds for female-led startups in Australia in 2024 / full item

• Japan's SoftBank invests in Cipher Mining crypto and data center firm, gaining option to acquire undeveloped 300MW data center site in Texas / full item

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Vietnam: "Tech startups raised over $120M in 2024 - but that's a 38.7% decrease compared to the $196M in 2023, reports Tracxn market intelligence platform..." / full item

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• Indonesia: An interview look at Indonesian telecom giant, Indosat, and its moves into AI, LLMs and technology / full item

• Malaysia: Payd earned wage access solutions startup raised $400K in seed extension round, looking to expand beyond Malaysia and Thailand / full item

• Hong Kong: An intro to Full Nature Farms, using data and AI to deliver a 30% reduction in water costs, a reduction in energy consumption, and improved crop yields / full item

• Japan: Toyota Financial Services is to partner Daiwa Securities and Mitsubishi UFJ Bank for issuance of blockchain-driven security token bonds in March / full item

• "Rise of cryptocurrency loans in Australia spark concerns about financial 'contagion'" / full item

• Philippines: Bacolod City launches ALPhA - Accelerate Leadership for Philippine Startup Advancement - Hub and incubator, funded by the Dep't of Science & Tech / full item

To Infininty, from Japan: iSpace / Yuri Group

• Australia: Melbourne Airport is to house one of the world's largest vertical farms, with Stacked Farm preparing a Au$150M facility for the airport, and adding to Gold Coast footprint / full item

• Taiwan: MediaTek chip designer remains optimistic inf the face of concerns over possible US tariffs / full item

• L'Oreal launches 2025 Big Bang Beauty Tech Innovation Program across South Asia-Pac, Middle East & North Africa region, including Singapore, with May 30th deadline for applications / full item

• Thailand: A2D Ventures VC and Urban Office Thailand coworking space firm partner to launch Venture Spark accelerator / full item

• Hong Kong: 'Not Your Token' half-day event is set for February 21st, looking at advancements and opportunities in digital retail with a focus on Web3 and AI technologies / full item

• 'The State of Australian Startup Funding 2024 Report' is now available - hit the link: / full item

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"The submission also indicates that Apple would refuse to cooperate with a request, saying the company would “never build a backdoor” and would rather withdraw “critical safety features” from the UK market." / full item

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In wider-world technology news:

» The UK government has demanded that Apple creates a backdoor in its encrypted cloud service, referring to Investigatory Powers Act that requires companies to assist law enforcement / full item

» 'Megatrending 2025' from The Pictet Group, an examination of the component parts of 7 key large trends / full item

» Elon Musk's Grok AI chatbot app is soon to be available for Android users, with pre-registration for testing available in Australia, Canada, India, The Philippines, and Saudi Arabia / full item

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