Asia's Tech News, Weekly: March 29th 2025
Starlink & India, China's space developments, Vietnam's first chip wafer facility, Taiwan gets Google TPUs, data centres in Thailand, BMW partners Huawei, Plug and Play sets up in Taoyuan...
• China: Xiaomi Corp launched a $5.3 billion share sale to fund EV expansion, offering 750 million shares at a discount after a stock price surge / full item
• India: Meesho e-commerce platform to IPO later this year, targeting near $1BN with successful business development in tier-4 and smaller rural towns / full item
• Japan: SoftBank preps to remodel Osaka facility into a data centre for running artificial intelligence agents developed in collaboration with OpenAI, ChatGPT's parent / full item
• China: Beijing Ziwei Yutong Technology Co Ltd, aka AZSpace, looks to conduct orbital manned flight tests in 2027 or 2028 / full item
• In February, India raised the budget for the Gaganyaan human spaceflight mission to $2.32 billion, based on expanded task set which includes production of the nation's space station / full item
Assessing the Cybersecurity Challenges of Smart Cities: "Due to its incorporation of mixed technologies, software, and hardware, a smart city would inevitably be exposed to multiple cyber attacks..." / full item
• South Korea's FuriosaAI artificial intelligence chip firm has rejected Meta’s $800M acquisition bid / full item
• Vietnam: Ho Chi Minh City announces plans to open a semiconductor plant by year-end, situated near Vietnam National University to boost opportunities for students and researchers / full item
• Former Google China head, Kai-Fu Lee, is pivoting his AI firm, 01AI, to use DeepSeek, with plans now to customize Deepseek models for corporate clients in finance, gaming and legal sectors / full item
• Vietnam: Government has approved the country's first chip wafer fabrication facility, investing approximately $500M / 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: 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
China's Shenzhou-19 astronauts complete their 3rd spacewalk / article & on YouTube
• Thailand: Singapore's DayOne data centre company is investing $1 billion into Thailand over 3 years for data centre development, with gov't looking to cap electricity costs / full item
• 'China launches new Tianlian data relay satellite to support human spaceflight' / full item
• One ASEAN Startup Award 2025 opens Call For Proposals, seeking innovations and solutions revolving around AI, and Zero Emissions / full item
• Germany's BMW partners Huawei to develop in-car smart ecosystem for models made in China / 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
• 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
Philippines: "Data from Packworks’ SariPH Pro app revealed that over 175K sari-sari stores actively transacted in 2024, marking a 32% jump from 133K stores the previous year..." / full item
• Australia: Year 11 & 12 students - "International Relations - Australia and the Indo-Pacific" microcredential course is available from Perth USAsia Centre at UWA / full course details
• Prudential Hong Kong partners Fill Easy for NFC-powered customer ID verification system, focusing on streamlining insurance applications by integrating with PRUSubmit / full item
• Japan's NASDAQ-listed Coincheck crypto exchange has launched a cryptocurrency custody service, to cater to high-value 'corporate and institutional' investors / full item
• Debating whether to attend the GITEX Asia 2025 tech conference in Singapore in April? Here's a deep-dive flip-book preview of the event / read here
• GITEX Asia 2025 is set for April 23-25 in Singapore - cybersec, quantum, AI, startups, investors and much more / full item
• China: BYD unveils new platform for EVs, claiming time-to-charge half that of Tesla, with plans to build a charging network across China / full item
• India: Elon Musk's X platform sues Indian government over content removal in new censorship fight / full item
India and 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
• China: Ministry of Finance 2025 central budget to allocate $55BN for science and tech, a 10% increase from 2024 constituting the 3rd-largest item behind defense and debt interest payments / full item
• Thailand: True Digital Park and Board of Investment of Thailand partner to attract foreign investors with a one-stop service to streamline business setup / full item
• Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, partners Infibeam Avenues fintech firm to develop advanced, real-time deepfake detection systems / full item
"...Cato CTRL threat intelligence researchers have warned they were able to jailbreak multiple LLMs, including ChatGPT-4o, DeepSeek-R1, DeepSeek-V3, and Microsoft Copilot..." / full item
• China: Domestic extreme ultraviolet - EUV - lithography system, now testing at Huawei's Dongguan facility, may when developed prove to be a global game-changer in semiconductor production, and supply chains / 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
• Indonesia: Oracle is in discussions with Indonesia's government around establishing a cloud services center in Nongsa Digital Park, Batam Island / 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
• Vietnam: Stride secures Series A funding with focus on rooftop solar for SMEs across Vietnam / 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: Huawei-owned HiSilicon gains Level 2 national certification for security reliability for Kirin X90, its never-before-seen System-on-Chip processor, deepening moves away from foreign tech reliance / 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
• Singapore and Vietnam to boost cooperation on subsea cables, finance, and energy as part of upgraded relations to a comprehensive strategic relationship / 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
• India: Ministry of Railways green-lights a 40km hyperloop test track to assess feasibility for eventual large-scale hyperloop implementation nationwide / full item
"The [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
• 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
• Hong Kong: Redotpay cryptocurrency payment platform secures $40M Series A / 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
"International data centre firms are continuing to invest in Thailand with applications valued at a minimum of 100 billion baht, mainly from existing players expanding their capacities..." / full item
• 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
• 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
• Malaysia's PETRONAS FutureTech accelerator is now open for applications for its 4th global batch, seeking Asia Pacific-relevant startups in energy, materials, industry and beyond / full item
AI in China: "Tencent last year more than tripled its capital expenditure to $10.7 billion, or 12% of its top line... plans to spend a similar 'low teens' percentage of revenue this year..." / 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
• 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
• "Chinese artificial intelligence start-ups are overhauling their business models as they fight to remain competitive following the widespread adoption of rival DeepSeek’s technology..." / full item
In wider-world technology news:
» NVIDIA debuts Groot N1, described as a foundation model for humanoid robotics / full item
» NVIDIA is to open a quantum computing research lab in Boston, collaborating with Harvard University and MIT, and with firms including Quantinuum and Quantum Machines / full item
» Scotland's Clyde Hydrogen achieves milestone with prototype system which produces hydrogen continuously from water / full item
» Google has unveiled 2 new artificial intelligence models, Gemini Robotics and Gemini Robotics-ER, optimized to power autonomous machines / full item
» 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
» 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
» Rolls-Royce seeks development partners for placing of its 10-foot nuclear micro-reactor on the lunar surface / 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 a link to the LinkedIn edition of Asia's Tech News, Weekly for the week to March 29th 2025:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/asias-tech-news-weekly-march-29th-2025-startup-news-asia-dxryc/?trackingId=wEVMoX%2FzTt2n6jy4f1QE3g%3D%3D