Asia's Tech News, Weekly: March 22nd 2025
Singapore-Vietnam tech partnerships, China's $6.9 billion tech fund, Google-Taiwan AI chips, India's hyperloop test track, Starlink in India, Vietnam's HCM City tech goals...
• Vietnam: 'Ho Chi Minh City aims to train at least 9000 highly skilled workers with university degrees or higher in the semiconductor industry by 2030' / full item
• China: Domestic extreme ultraviolet - EUV - lithography system, now testing at Huawei's Dongguan facility, may be a global game-changer in semiconductor production, and supply chains / full item
• Singapore and Vietnam to boost cooperation on subsea cables, finance, and energy as part of upgraded relations to a comprehensive strategic relationship / full item
• Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, partners Infibeam Avenues fintech firm to develop advanced, real-time deepfake detection systems / full item
• Indonesia: Oracle is in discussions with Indonesia's government around establishing a cloud services center in Nongsa Digital Park, Batam Island / full item
• Bank of China has established a $6.9BN fund to back technology startups, alongside Industrial & Commercial Bank of China launch of an $11BN technology and innovation fund / full item
"The AEC [Australian Electoral Commission] will use Starlink services as a backup telecommunications platform as part of our contract with Telstra for fixed line internet services..." / full item
• Taiwan: Google is reportedly to partner Taiwan's MediaTek for the next version of its AI chips, Tensor Processing Units, looking to further reduce reliance on NVIDIA / full item
• Cambodia's Smart Axiata telco and Huawei ink MoU to jointly develop B2B solutions and market opportunities focusing on digitalization of local industries / full item
• Malaysia: GDS Holdings, a Chinese data centre operator, is seeking $3.4BN-equivalent loan for data centre operations in Malaysia / full item
• Taiwan: South Korea's Hyundai Card and Japan's Line Pay partner for QR code payment capabilities for Taiwan users / full item
• China's Baidu-backed StarFive Technology chip design house gains backing from government-owned HK Investment Corp, as the city steps into the RISC-V space / full item
• Japan: NTT telecom giant confirmed that hackers accessed data of near 18,000 corporate customers in February cyberattack / full item
'Singapore’s billion-dollar IPs are ready to be commercialized. What now?' / on YouTube
• India: Ministry of Railways green-lights a 40km hyperloop test track to assess feasibility for eventual large-scale hyperloop implementation nationwide / full item
• China: iSpace commercial launch firm, aka Beijing Interstellar Glory Space Technology, secured new funding as it prepares for first launch of Hyperbola-3 reusable rocket / full item
• Malaysia: SkyeChip semiconductor designer is mulling IPO, potentially in H2 2025, building on the nation's chips industry growth and aiming to leverage major SoftBank licensing deal / full item
• China: Huawei has reportedly used shell companies to acquire over 2 million AI chip dies manufactured by TSMC, stockpiling enough high-bandwidth memory for more than a year of production / full item
• Online now: 'Indonesia Startup Report 2025' from Discovery/Shift / "Digital payments in 2024 recorded a total of 34.5 billion transactions, growing by 36.1% yoy..." / full item
• Taiwan: Plug and Play global startup incubator is to open a branch in Taoyuan, focusing particularly on opportunities in artificial-intelligence-of-things, smart mobility, and robotics / full item
India & Starlink: "The cost disparity is a key factor. Globally, Starlink's satellite internet plans range from $10 to $500 per month with an additional one-time hardware cost..." / full item
• India: SpaceX unveils deals with India's dominant telecom industry firms, Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel, with plans to roll out Starlink internet services across India / full item
• Rocket Lab launched a Japanese firm's synthetic aperture radar imaging satellite from its New Zealand facility, the first of 8 planned missions for iQPS / full item
• Japan: Tenstorrent, US semiconductor firm backed by Amazon's Bezos, is to launch an AI chip service in Japan charging users based on amount of data processed, reducing costs for developers / full item
• Cambodia: Smart Axiata inks MoU to participate in GSMA Open Gateway ecosystem initiative, deploying Linux-based APIs with two other telcos / full item
• China: Alibaba's wholesale marketplace expects all sellers on the platform to adopt its artificial intelligence tools by the end of 2025 / full item
• Samsung-Baidu collaboration on 2nm chips may now be on hold, with Donald Trump’s tightening semiconductor policies likely a contributing factor / full item
• Japan: SoftBank preps to remodel Osaka facility into a data centre for running artificial intelligence agents developed in collaboration with OpenAI, ChatGPT parent / full item
• China: State-backed Naura moves up in semiconductor equipment vendor rankings, taking 6th place by revenue in the world in 2024, up from 8th just one year earlier / full item
• Singapore-Australian PHNXX raised $1.13M seed funding with containerised energy solutions providing modular, scalable energy systems for remote and rural industrial communities / full item
• Australia: BetterX secures Au$2.3M pre-A with B2B platform enabling financial advisers to securely access, trade, and manage digital assets on behalf of their clients / full item
• Singapore: Circulate Capital environmental impact investor closes Circulate Capital Ocean Fund I-B, bringing the fund's assets under management to $73M, and firm's total AUM to $255M / full item
• India: HN Technovations and RNJ Pvt Ltd partner to provide clean water and relief services in disaster areas of Northeast India using drones / full item
Malaysia’s Silicon Valley challenges: "Despite becoming a major semiconductor player globally, Malaysia faces a talent crunch, funding problems and other supply chain gaps." / full item
• Hong Kong’s fintech market is projected to hit $606 billion by 2032, driven by blockchain, digital assets, AI and a proactive Web3 licensing regime. / full item
• 'Global tech industry braces for 'China shock' in mature chips' / full item
• Vietnam: More on HCM City's plans to become a leading technology hub in Southeast Asia / full item
• Hong Kong: Redotpay cryptocurrency payment platform secures $40M Series A / full item
• Vietnam: Filum AI customer experience management platform raised $1M with AI-driven services aiming to deliver business growth / full item
• Cambodia Blockchain Summit 2025 is set for March 30th in Phnom Penh / full item
• Hong Kong: Elevator Pitch International Competition - EPIC 2025 - is set to take place November 3-7, seeking mid- to late-stage startups in FinTech, Digital Health Tech, and Green Tech / full item
• Philippines: Digital Nomad Visa is proposed, aiming to allow foreign nationals to work remotely in the Philippines for one year, with a renewal option / full item
In wider-world technology news:
» Technology giants and major energy firms including Amazon, Google, Meta, Dow, and Occidental ink pledge supporting the goal of at least tripling global nuclear capacity by 2050 / full item
» 'The Troubling Truth About How AI Agents Act in a Crisis: A new study finds that foundation models are predisposed toward escalation.' / full item
» NVIDIA debuts Groot N1, described as a foundation model for humanoid robotics / full item
» Google has unveiled 2 new artificial intelligence models, Gemini Robotics and Gemini Robotics-ER, optimized to power autonomous machines / full item
» Spain approves bill imposing fines of up to $38M, or 7% of turnover, on companies using content generated by artificial intelligence without properly labelling it as such / full item
"In a blockbuster $32 billion deal, Google today announced plans to acquire cloud security startup Wiz, marking one of the most significant cybersecurity acquisitions in history." / full item
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And here's the link to the March 22nd 2025 edition of Asia's Tech News, Weekly, published over on LinkedIn for those who prefer LI to Substack:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/asias-tech-news-weekly-march-22nd-2025-startup-news-asia-wgdpc/