Asia's Tech News, Weekly: July 26th 2025
India-AWS AI network, Taobao in Thailand, internet ID in Australia, Taiwan's AI goals, Samsung & 2nm chips, Malaysia's $21M chips boost, Vietnam's HCM City EV targets...
• India's Tata Communications inks partnership with AWS to establish an AI-ready network of cloud computing data centers across India, looking to boost scaling capabilities / full item
• China: Amazon is closing its AI lab in Shanghai, joining other US tech firms including IBM and Microsoft in scaling back research in China, citing concerns over geopolitical tensions / full item
• Thailand: China's Taobao online shopping platform sees a 60% surge in users following the launch of a Thai language version of the app that also allows payment in baht / full item
• South Korea's FuriosaAI chip firm inks deal with LG AI Research for RNGD chips, with LG looking to use RNGD for its Exaone LLMs / full item
• Indonesia is to establish an AI center of excellence with support from NVIDIA, Cisco and domestic telco major, Indosat / full item
"Taiwan plans to launch its 'Ten Major AI Infrastructure Projects' initiative, aimed at generating more than ($510 billion) in economic value by 2040" in bid to become a global AI leader / full item
• China's leading NAND memory producer, YMTC, moves to build end-to-end production line with homegrown tools, negating US Entity List restrictions in the process / full item
• India's Skyroot Aerospace and Axiom Space partnered to boost space exploration activities, particularly focusing on low-Earth orbit / full item
• South Korea: Samsung Electronics is reportedly focusing on developing 2-nanometre chips to better compete with TSMC, and secure business from NVIDIA and Qualcomm / full item
• Malaysia may make digital ID mandatory rather than voluntary, in response to low levels of voluntary registrations / full item
• The US is preparing a 93.5% tariff on graphite from China, adding to investigations around supply and pricing of other critical minerals / full item
• "Face, age, and ID checks? Using the internet in Australia is about to fundamentally change" / full item
Video: 'China’s Dark Factories: So Automated, They Don't Need Lights', a July clip from the Wall Street Journal / on YouTube
• Malaysia's PETRONAS FutureTech 4.0 × AWS Startup Innovation Challenge awards Singapore-Japan ASUENE APAC the Grand Prize for next-gen decarbonization solutions / full item
• Vietnam-Korea Mega Us Expo 2025: "More than 200 Korean startups come to Ho Chi Minh City, connecting 2,000 technology trade sessions with Vietnam" / full item
• China's Guangxi province launches AI 'super league' competition to identify and develop ASEAN-facing startups / full item
• South Korea: Commercial banking giant, Shinhan Bank, has rolled out a range of cryptocurrency services on its SOL smartphone app / full item
• 'New Zealand gov't passed legislation... to regulate the use of ground-based space infrastructure following concerns about foreign actors using it to harm national security' / full item
• Malaysia: Government has launched a $21M Science Endowment matching fund to boost the advanced chip packaging industry, in line with the National Semiconductor Strategy / full item
"Taiwan and the US are discussing the potential for spaceport cooperation, which could shorten travel time between Taipei and Houston, Texas, to two-and-a-half hours..." / full item
• Vietnam hits digital infrastructure milestone with 5 international undersea cable systems operated and partially owned by a Vietnamese enterprise / full item
• Taiwan's TSMC is to speed construction of US chip plants, bringing completion forward by 'several quarters' in response to growing customer demand / full item
• Australia: "Soon, it won’t just be social media platforms asking to verify your age. Come December, age verification requirements will also extend to search engines..." / full item
• Malaysia: "In the first six months of 2025, Chinese EVs accounted for nearly 50 per cent of all new electric cars registered in Malaysia, with close to 8,400 units sold out of a total 17,251..." / full item
• Australia: China's Temu Local Seller Program is now open to any Australian-registered business with locally stocked inventory / full item
• US Federal Communications Commission is to adopt rules to bar companies from connecting undersea cables to the US that include Chinese technology or equipment / full item
• Australia: "Experts say the fallout from such attacks would be limited by giving people the legal right to force companies to delete unnecessary personal information." / full item
• Philippines: AI Revolution Summit 2025 is set for October, gathering 200+ senior professionals from technology, business, governance, healthcare, and academia / full item
• "Ho Chi Minh City is ramping up its electric vehicle (EV) transition with plans to build 19 major charging stations and 3,000 battery-swap and charging points across the city." / full item
• Australian Communications and Media Authority has made major changes to rules around the SMS ID Register in an effort to eliminate scam messages / full item
• "Chinese electric vehicle giant BYD plans to roll out its first car assembled in Pakistan by July or August 2026..." / full item
"While many countries face cybersecurity threats, Japan is vulnerable because its digital transformation has been slow. It ranked 31st in global digital competitiveness last year..." / full item
• "U.S. lawmakers are demanding JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America produce documents related to their roles in a Chinese battery giant’s initial public offering." / full item
• Multi-Trend Expo & Global Business People's HUB - Mega Us Expo - 2025 is set for Vietnam from August 14-16, a major trade and investment event boosting Vietnam-Korea ties / full item
• Cambodia: ARC Startup Accelerator Conference 2025 opens applications for Cambodian startups to pitch their ventures to investors and ecosystem leaders / full item
• Malaysia: Penang Digital Economy Summit is set for August 9th in George Town - details and links here / full item
"...Silicon Valley startup xLight has raised $40 million to develop a prototype of a next-generation laser that could disrupt the global semiconductor industry..." / full item
In wider-world technology news:
» Los Angeles' Reflect Orbital plans to launch thousands of satellites into space, equipped with mirrors that can reflect sunlight to Earth / full item
» Austrian advocacy group, noyb, has filed data privacy complaints against China's AliExpress, TikTok and WeChat, citing failure to comply with EU laws on user access to data held / full item
» NVIDIA CUDA platform now supports RISC-V open-standard chip instruction set, widening developer options / full item
» Germany's Cylib battery recycling startup claims breakthrough in partnership with Belgium's Syensqo, producing lithium hydroxide from used EV batteries, usable in new units / full item
» Luxembourg's Fit 4 Start accelerator is open for startup applications in health-tech, space-tech and innovation, offering support including access to petascale computing / full item
» Amazon inks acquisition deal with Bee, startup making an AI-enabled bracelet that listens to, and transcribes, conversations you have - even with yourself / full item
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And here's the link to the LinkedIn edition of Asia's Tech News, Weekly for the week to July 26th, for those who prefer the LinkedIn platform for newsletters and subscriptions:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/asias-tech-news-weekly-july-26th-2025-startup-news-asia-kskgc/