Asia's tech news, weekly: July 25th 2023
Asia's super-app woes, Australian laser-sat comms, China's satellite moves, Tesla & India, Korean space-tech, Singapore's semicon bid, Amazon vs Temu, AI impacts...
• Japan and United Arab Emirates to set framework to discuss possible UAE investment in semiconductor and battery plants in Japan, in medicine and space-tech, and fuels such as hydrogen and ammonia
• Australia: Gov't selects HawkEye 360 for remote-sensing satellites to aid with illegal fishing activity detection using radio-frequency sensors, in support of Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency
• China: Sovereign chip strategy steps towards RISC-V, open-source architecture, aiming for RISC-V as default domestically, with Alibaba et al interested and over 1BN startup funding to date
"Foreign equipment is increasingly hard to come by [in China] so local chipmakers...buy more units of less-productive local offerings... Efficiency and profits take a hit but...statisticians log a rise in industrial production..."
• Australia: Queensland gov't backs $8.5M Abbot Point Activation Initiative to advance planning, development and infrastructure for transforming coal port into hydrogen export 'super hub'
• The Philippines & AI: "...digital automation could make 1.1 million roles in the Philippines obsolete by 2028."
• China: Biren chip firm is considering Hong Kong IPO, seeking to capitalise on demand for its AI chips as an NVIDIA alternative due to chip exports ban impact
• West Australian researchers prep for build-out of TeraNet, laser-satellite data communications network capable of transmission 1000 times faster than radio
• South Korea: Production company, Wayne Hills, commence sci-fi movie production using generative AI to deliver script writing, video footage, audio, images and subtitles
• Indian Space Research Org'n, ISRO, successfully deployed Chandrayaan-3 and payloads into orbit, first stage of the country's third mission to the moon
• China: JDcom e-commerce giant launches ChatRhino large language model, looking to bring AI to bear on a range of industries
Asia's super-apps, post-COVID: "...Grab and Jakarta-listed GoTo have been forced into a retreat over the past 12 months, shedding thousands of jobs...share prices are more than 60% below their listing price."
• India: Tesla EV giant reportedly discussing investment proposal with Indian gov't for factory construction, aiming for annual production of around 1/2 million electric vehicles
• National Australia Bank blocks Au$270M in payments to 'high risk' crypto exchanges between March and July, citing risk of fraud
• New Zealand: An intro to a number of NZ's female founders and tech leaders
• Singapore-based Lazada e-commerce giant gains $845M from Alibaba, further deepening Alibaba's controlling stake in the company
• India: Gov't expects to issue framework document to define execution model for $730M National Quantum Mission in August
• Russian Quantum Centre looks to partner Indian academic and research institutes in bid to build quantum applications and hardware for public services, with sights on BRICS involvement
• China: Galactic Energy marks 6th launch with 2 satellites in orbit, delivering hyperspectral imagery in very low Earth orbits
"..the US and most of its allies have already banned...Huawei from building 5G infrastructure... the next frontier of the US-China war is most certainly the 'next-generation' vehicles."
• Singapore: Hydroleap green wastewater tech firm raised $4.4M Series A funding with chemical-free treatment solutions for a variety of industries
• Hong Kong arm of McDonald's launches McNuggets Land in the metaverse, via The Sandbox
• South Korea: An intro to Spacemap, predicting the orbits of satellites and space debris to prevent collisions, with estimates of 1M objects up to 10cm in size currently in orbit
• Singapore: Silicon Box opes $2BN, 73,000-square metre advanced semiconductor manufacturing facility to focus on 'chiplets' tech
• China: 'Temu sellers are cloning Amazon storefronts' - the ecommerce app faces lawsuits for copyright infringement after sellers allegedly copied products and stole photos and text from Amazon
• Australia: Hostplus industry superannuation fund assigns further $100M to existing $210M investment in IP Group Hostplus Innovation Fund, continuing focus on university 'spin out' firms
"...Intel Corp has brought its latest processor for...AI...applications to mainland China, where massive demand for...advanced chips has created a major under-the-counter trade for smuggled graphics processing units..."
• China: Zhipu AI, spun-out from Tsinghua University and pegged as a challenger to OpenAI, gains backing from Meituan food delivery giant
• Taiwan: Taipei Entrepreneurial Hub launches online pitch contest for health-tech startups and solutions
• South Korea: Musinsa fashion e-commerce marketplace raised $190M Series C, offering more than 8000 local and foreign fashion brands across 13 countries
• 500 Global Taiwan Startup Program with TTA 2023 unveils the 20 startups selected for the program, working on solutions in Web3, health-tech, fintech and more
• Australia: Canberra's 3-month GRIFFIN Accelerator 2023 is open for applications through to August 7th
• Taiwan: Next Big program from the Nat'l Dev Council and Startup Island Taiwan unveils 13 tech startups
• Malaysia: Tesla Model Y all-electric SUV to be available in Malaysia from July 20th
In other news…
» NASDAQ to drop plans to offer a cryptocurrency custody service, scheduled for Q2 launch, due to concerns around US regulatory environment
» The Associated Press inks 2-year deal with OpenAI, parent to ChatGPT, providing artificial intelligence access to selected news content and production tech
» "Musk acknowledged that xAI would utilise Twitter data for training its AI systems..."
» Telegram messaging platform issued $270M in bonds to fund growth towards break-even, with CEO purchasing near 1/4
"France’s commission for campaign accounts and political financing...said in a thread on [Twitter] that the blue check would be considered a form of 'sponsored advertising'..."
» Cash vs digital currency: "...cash is essentially money that your government owes you... The digits in your bank account, on the other hand, refer to what your bank owes you."
» Meta partners Microsoft for next generation of its AI large language model, Llama 2, launching it free for research and commercial use
» Jamaica’s central bank CBDC, Jam-Dex, one of only four fully-launched retail CBDCs globally
Cryptocurrency confusion: "Ripple coin - sometimes a security, sometimes not. It all depends on who’s buying XRP, apparently."
» Google unveils new AI tool, Genesis, aimed at journalists and able to 'take in information — details of current events, for example — and generate news content'
» "Globally, 76% of respondents said they believed generative AI would allow their company to cut costs and 63% predicted [they] would hire fewer external contractors..."
» "While news organizations need money to operate...in an era of declining advertising revenue, they need to rethink their approach to paywalls...studies show that consumers are experiencing fatigue with the whole concept."
