Asia's tech news, weekly: July 11th 2023
Australia & StarLink, Foxconn in Vietnam, digital ID in Thailand, Japan's cybersec moves, ASEAN & data access, alt-protein in New Zealand, India & battery-swapping...
• Vietnam: Dep't of Cybersec & High-Tech Crime Prevention to investigate Pi Network and Pi Coin, mining-incentivized crypto network running on mobile phones without need for mining kits
• Australia: Telstra, country's largest telco, partners Musk's Starlink, stepping into direct competition with gov't-owned NBN to provide services to rural Australia
• China: Tianlong-3 kerosene-liquid oxygen rocket with reusable first stage aims to be operational in 2024, capable of 17-ton payloads to low Earth orbit and focusing on 'megaconstellation' satellites
Australia: "During 2020-21, a quarter of reported cyber attacks...were targeted at critical infrastructure with...education, health, communications, electricity, water and transport most at risk"
• Vietnam: Taiwan's Foxconn approved to invest $246M in 2 projects in Quang Ninh, raising total in Vietnam to near $3BN and focusing on manufacture and assembly of telecom and EV parts
• China: Meituan purchases Light Year AI firm…from former director who resigned days ago. Light Year, founded in February…has no operating activities…but raised $230M at $1BN valuation
• India: Frigate gains $1.5M with B2B cloud platform allowing firms globally to turn digital designs into physical products without worrying about finding vendors, acting as supply chain middleman
• India: Battery Smart battery-swap network raised $33M with franchise model allowing small facilities and mom-and-pop garages to act as swap stations
• Thailand: Gov't launches ThaID mobile application for personal identity verification, built around facial recognition tech
• Joint $160M fund created, building on last year's 'MOU for Investment Cooperation and Startup Support between South Korea and Saudi Arabia'
China & semiconductor self-sufficiency: "...advanced lithography machine is a significant chokepoint in China’s chipmaking capability. In this area, domestic substitution is currently less than 1%."
• Australia: BlackRock global asset manager raises over $500M for Waratah Super Battery construction, aiming for key role in shift from coal power to renewables
• Cambodia: PM quits Facebook following ban for apparently threatening political opponents, but walks back from possible FB ban, instead expelling FB reps from the Kingdom
• Japan: SBI Holdings financial services major to help Taiwan's Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp establish a factory in move to revive Japanese chip industry
• Japan: Container terminal at the Port of Nagoya hit by Russian ransomware attack
• The main obstacle to a Taiwan communications security deal with SpaceX? Elon Musk's business practices.
• Indonesia: eFishery aquaculture firm raised $200M, aiming to implement services across 1 million aquaculture ponds in Indonesia by 2025 and expansion overseas
• Japan: Gov't to expand cyber defense unit more than four-fold under new National Security Strategy in bid to counter China and North Korea cyber-attack activities
Nikkei Asia: "Russia has for months been importing drones from Chinese companies explicitly for use in its invasion of Ukraine, despite denials from Beijing that such equipment is being deployed in the war..."
• Australia: Federal gov't to invest $3.4BN over the next decade to establish Advanced Strategic Capabilities Accelerator in urgent bid to boost Defence innovation in the tech space
• Japan and ASEAN to establish research center focused on free flow of data across borders in bid to counter China's data restrictions, to maintain business ability to analyze markets
• Australia & New Zealand: "Over half of ANZ organisations hit by ransomware...almost 4 in 5 organisations in ANZ expect to pay a ransom if they could recover data and business processes..."
• Thailand: Securities & Exchange Commission to ban cryptocurrency lending services, prohibiting platforms from offering any form of return on deposited crypto by customers, by end of July
• China's WeRide autonomous driving firm gains UAE's first national license for self-driving vehicles, allowing tests of Level 4 autonomous vehicles on public roads across the country
• Japan: Telexistence robotics firm backed by SoftBank with AI-powered robotic arms for retail and logistics, building on presence in 300 FamilyMart convenience stores across Japan
"Led by a Chinese [VC] fund [Weichong Semiconductor Group] set up a sister company with the stolen technology in China and began to produce our technology and market to our customers from China."
• Japan: Gov't unveils $6.3BN deal to buy and privatize JSR Corp semiconductor materials giant, taking control of world leader in chipmaking compounds
• Philippines: PayMongo payments firm partners Founders Launchpad and Draper Startup House for Founders Launchpad, selecting 6 tech startups for 12-week MVP program
• Australia: Cyber-attack on equestrian competition management site sees data of 10K individuals leaked online, following company's refusal to respond to extortion
• Japan: Sony backs Startale Labs with $3.5M, with sights on large-scale Web3 adoption using the company's multi-blockchain and infrastructure-focused capabilities
• Australia's VentureCrowd equity crowdfunding platform inks JV with Singapore's Lightworks Ventures for SE Asia expansion
• China cyber-threat actor found targeting Foreign Affairs ministries and embassies in Europe, part of a growing trend in targeting of European entities in the foreign policy space
Amazon, robotics & automation: "A wave of advanced machines is coming to the company’s facilities thanks to better AI and robots smart enough to work with—and without—humans."
• Australia: "...audit that found 3114 drones and other technology manufactured by DJI were in use by at least 38 agencies and departments."
• China's Ant Group announces surprise share buyback, valuing the fintech giant at $78.54BN, far below $315BN of abandoned 2020 IPO target, and following $984M regulatory fine
• Australia: Applications open for AgriFutures AgXelerate Program, seeking solutions for industry challenges from environmental sustainability to food production
• China: Alibaba unveils Tongyi Wanxiang in bid to compete with OpenAI's DALL-E and Midjourney, tho generative AI services have yet to gain regulatory approval
• French retailer Printemps Paris integrates China's Alipay+ for cross-border payments and marketing, opening e-wallets from South Korea, Hong Kong, China, Philippines, Malaysia & Thailand
• New Zealand: NewFish biotech nutrition startup gains partnerships to identify strains of microalgae most likely to work as new, sustainable alternative proteins
• China releases its first 'homegrown' open-source desktop operating system, OpenKylin - built on Linux
"You can find your way to banned semiconductors at, for example, various sprawling electronics markets in Shenzhen. Or you can go online — specifically to Douyin...or Xiaohongshu..."
In other news…
» NVIDIA chips major acquires OmniML, firm specialising in shrinking computationally-heavy AI models to work on edge computing systems on lower-end hardware
» UN Environment Program partners Massive Earth Foundation for LowCarbonEarth 2023 climate tech accelerator, seeking startups working on climate change and pollution solutions
» Canadian judge rules that sending a 'thumbs up' emoji alone constituted full acceptance of legal contract, ordering $82K in damages
ICYMI: "The [Italian] bank said the industry also needs to debunk 'the decentralization illusion'...most decentralized protocols are operated by core stakeholders who can often 'extract ownership benefits'..."
» Deepmedia inks $25M, 3-year contract with US Dep't of Defense to monitor deepfakes, focusing on English, Russian, Ukrainian and Mandarin languages, and with sights on Asia gov't and media clients
» Techstars startup accelerator to raise $150M for latest fund, Techstars Accelerator 2024, with sights on accelerator-stage and post-accelerator investments
» Lacoste, French fashion brand, expands non-fungible token ecosystem on Thursday with rewards and co-creation feature for UNDW3 community, building on recent launch of 11K NFTs
Crypto & ownership: "They are not physical 'things in possession' such as...houses. Nor are they 'things in action', ownable solely via legal contracts... They are created digitally rather than through physical or legal processes."