Asia's Tech News, Weekly: January 18th 2025

Taiwan satellites, Malaysian data centers, Vietnam-Laos QR payments, India space docking, Japan's 2nm chips for Broadcom, Hong Kong robotic surgery, Korea's robot workforce...

Jan 20, 2025

• Taiwan: PARUS-T1 micro-satellite, designed and produced by Taiwan Space Agency, launched via SpaceX Transporter-12 and successfully achieved orbit / full item

• Indonesia is preparing regulations to establish a minimum age for social media users, in a similar move to that recently taken in Australia / full item

• Malaysia's data center sector investment grew threefold in 2024 with $31.5BN committed in the first 10 months of 2024, up from $10.3BN over 2023 / full item

• An overview of the newly-proposed Johor-Singapore Special Economic Zone / full item

• Vietnam and Laos launch cross-border payments via QR code systems with major banks participating / full item

• India's UPI network 'processes more than 13BN real-time transactions monthly... 71% of all transactions in [India] and accounts for 36% of all consumer spending in the country...' / full item

• Australian Space Summit & Exhibition 2025 - Aus Space 25 - is set for May 27-28 in Sydney / full item

Southeast Asia's cyber headaches: "Malaysia emerged as the most targeted nation in Southeast Asia with 19,615,255 web-based threats... Indonesia was the second most affected, recording 3,204,294 threats." / full item

• India completes Space Docking Experiment, SpaDeX, docking 2 spacecraft in orbit around 475 kilometers above the Earth, becoming just the fourth country to achieve this / full item

• India's Ministry of Electronics & IT has reportedly proposed giving manufacturers of some electronics components near $3BN in new support, alongside reduced tariffs on some / full item

• Singapore: Government reportedly is looking into minimum-age laws for social media use, and is in talks with counterparts in Australia / full item

• In 2024, South Korea became the first country in the world to replace more than 10% of its industrial workforce with robots, according to a World Robotics survey / full item

• Japan: Toyota's 'living laboratory', Woven City, is now open for business, with formal launch coming later in 2025 / full item

• Shanghai and Beijing set sights on global brain-computer interface industry, rolling out ambitious action plans / full item

• China: Jielong-3 solid rocket launched from a mobile sea platform, placing 10 Centispace sats into orbit to boost signals from systems including Beidou and GPS / full item

• Australia: AO Ventures, Tennis Australia's sports-focused VC fund, makes first close at $49M, looking to back around 20 startups / full item

• Thailand: OPPO and RealMe smartphone manufacturers found to have included pre-installed loan apps on devices without Bank of Thailand approval / full item

• Philippines: Recent study suggests the digital lending market in the Philippines could exceed $1 billion in value in H2 2025 / full item

• Malaysia's 1337 Ventures unveils Alpha Startups Inno4Her, an 8-week femtech-focused accelerator aiming to validate ideas, find product-market fit, and scale businesses / full item

• Japan's Rapidus preps to provide 2nm chip samples to US semiconductors giant, Broadcom, with trial production set for April 2025, and mass production scheduled for 2027 / full item

"Based on public and private estimates of various aspects of the training, a six-month [AI model] training run can cost around half a billion dollars in computing costs alone." / full item

• Taiwan: An intro to 3D Architech, producing gel-based metal 3D printing tech delivering highly optimized parts with micron-level design control, participating in Taiwan's Garage+ program / full item

• Malaysia: Economy minister sees Malaysia producing its own chips and GPUs in 5-10 years, boosted by growing data center investments in the country / full item

• Australia: Kongsberg-Starsite partnership preps to build a 20-meter antenna in Western Australia, delivering a critical component in Moon mission support / full item

• Malaysia: Yondr Group data center operator secures over $900M for hyperscale data centre campus in Johor Bahru, with backers including the International Finance Corporation / full item

• Indonesia maintains iPhone 16 sales ban despite Apple agreement to build a $1BN manufacturing facility, basing decision on requirement that products must be at least 40% locally-made / full item

• Taiwan's MetAI gains $4M NVIDIA-led backing with AI-driven 'digital twin' tech, converting CAD files into 3D spaces in order to train robots and autonomous systems / full item

• Japan: ispace Resilience lunar lander launched with SpaceX from Kennedy Space Center, expected to reach the moon and attempt landing towards the end of May / full item

• Asosiasi Startup for Industry Indonesia (STARFINDO) inks MOU with global tech provider, Arrow Electronics, to lift Indonesian startup access to electronics and engineering expertise / full item

• South Korea's LG Energy battery maker inks 7-year battery supply deal with US EV starup, Aptera Motors, delivering cylindrical batteries for 2-seat, 3-wheeled solar EV / full item

• NVIDIA unveils Project Digits, a 'personal AI supercomputer' that runs the entire NVIDIA AI stack "It's a cloud computing platform that sits on your desk..." / full item

• Chinese officials are reportedly evaluating a potential option for Elon Musk to acquire the US operations of TikTok if the short-video app company fails to fend off proposed ban / full item

'Synergising Digitaltech and Climatetech to Enhance ASEAN Climate Action': "...the agricultural sector is the largest GHG emissions contributor in six out of the ten ASEAN Member States..." / full item

• Hong Kong: Cornerstone Robotics raised $70M with wide-angle robotic surgery solutions, and further development of Sentire endoscopic surgical system / full item

• India: Taiwan's MSI partners India's Syrma SGS for laptop manufacturing in move to bring premium MSI laptops closer to end-consumers / full item

• Telecom Egypt, the country's main telecom services operator, inks commercial agreement with China Mobile International to expand digital services / full item

• Vietnam's VinFast, EV manufacturer under Vingroup conglomerate, delivered over 20K electric cars in December 2024, 20% up from November / full item

• Vietnam and Mongolia prep for collaboration in AI development, adding to Vietnam's recent NVIDIA Cooperation Agreement / full item

The Asia Cable: Asia Daily / Silk Road Monthly

• "...Indonesia's collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS) is part of an effort to make the nation a center for digital transformation in ASEAN." / full item

• Türkiye telco, Turkcell, and China's Huawei completed a world-first 2.4Tbps field trial over 160 kilometers on a live transmission network / full item

• Thailand: Here's an introduction to VentureSpark, aiming to become one of Thailand's leading tech and startup accelerators / full item

• 'Can Nasdaq-Listed Grab’s Acquisition of Nham24 Spark Confidence in Cambodia’s Startup Ecosystem?' / full item

• Taiwan's TSMC has begun production of 4-nanometer chips in Arizona / full item

• South Korean chip exports to Taiwan, Vietnam, and the United States rose in 2024, with decline in sales to China / full item

"With significant investments and strategic policies, India appears poised to carve its niche in the global semiconductor landscape. But how realistic is the dream..." / full item

• Singapore: Asia Startup Summit 2025, AI Edition, is set for April, hosted by the French Chamber of Commerce / full item

• Australia: Telstra becomes the latest telco to make a major AI play with a global JV with Accenture, committing Au$100M annually over 7 years / full item

• Yamaha Motor and BMW have backed Phoenix Tailings, a US-based rare earths processing firm boasting minimal emissions, adding to diversification of supply chains / full item

• Japan: Former crypto exchange operator, Remixpoint, completes $3.2M purchase of Bitcoin, with plans for a further $16M spend, adding to holdings in Ethereum, Solana and others / full item

• Australia: Japan's Idemitsu Kosan is to trial an Australia plantation of non-edible oilseed to assess potential as feedstock for sustainable aviation fuel / full item

"...the cybercriminal campaign has managed to take over the accounts of at least 36 Google Chrome extensions that provide AI and VPN services..." / full item

In wider-world technology news:

» Nokia is to deploy the first cellular network on the Moon as part of Intuitive Machines mission, integrating hardware onto the IM-2 launch set for February / full item

» Journalism, media, and technology trends and predictions 2025, the results and analysis of a survey of 326 digital leaders from 51 countries and territories / full item

» 10 polyfunctional robotics startups and companies, focused on industries including healthcare, logistics, agriculture and beyond / full item

"The space economy could be worth close to $1 trillion in the next 10 years... in 2024, the space economy market was worth just under $600 billion..." /

» A $30 million campaign to free social media from billionaire control is now underway: "The campaign is led by executives from Mozilla, Social Web Foundation, and other tech nonprofits" / full item

» Saudi Arabia announces new critical minerals investment project valued at $100BN, with JV between state-owned Aramco oil giant and Ma'aden mining firm also in place / full item

» SpaceX 'rideshare' mission deployed more than 130 satellites, with payload featuring a range of imaging sats, a 'pharmaceutical reactor', and sats for NASA / full item

AI vs Search: "Not everyone is excited for the change. Publishers are completely freaked out. The shift has heightened fears of a “zero-click” future, where search referral traffic... vanishes from the scene." / full item