Asia's tech news, weekly: May 14th 2024

Taiwan satellites, Malaysia KL Innovation Network, Microsoft AI across SEA, Australian digital ID, China in medium Earth orbit, Alibaba in South Korea, Japanese-language LLM...

• Taiwan Space Agency to launch 6 low Earth orbit satellites from 2026, the first via SpaceX, as part of government bid to boost resilience of the nation's communications

• China's PIX Moving gains public road self-driving vehicle test and operation license in Turin, Italy, with unmanned minibus to soon provide short-range transport services

• Australia: Hysata has raised $111M to scale up its more-efficient method for producing hydrogen

• Malaysia: Microsoft adds to Indonesia and Thailand commitments with $2.2BN investment in Malaysian AI infrastructure and training for 200K Malaysians

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"...1 in 5 banks still find it hard to identify customers at any stage of the customer journey despite having global KYC [know your customer] protocols in place.”

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• Taiwan: "By the end of 2024, 700 hot spots will be established across the island to allow for satellite communications during emergency situations..."

• Singapore's MetaComp, a digital assets-focused financial tech group, partners Hong Kong's Harvest Global Investments to offer crypto spot ETFs to Singapore's investors

• India: Chandrayaan-4 moon sample mission preparations now underway with Indian Space Research Org'n working on plans for the follow-up to last year's Chandrayaan-3 lunar landing

• Researchers at Melbourne and Manchester universities unveil breakthrough technique for manufacture of highly-purified silicon, critical for quantum computers

State of India’s Digital Economy 2024

• Australia: An intro to RapidGraphite, transforming waste carbon into high-purity graphite, key component of lithium-ion batteries

• Hong Kong central bank forms Project Ensemble Architecture Community from industry and regulators to set tokenization standards, including around use of wholesale CBDCs

• Taiwan: Researchers developed a method to potentially reduce a quantum computer's size by 40%, incorporating TSMC 28nm tech for low-temperature operation

• New Zealand: AgriZeroNZ to invest $9.9M in US agri-biotech startup ArkeaBio work towards a 'methane vaccine', in bid to reduce global emissions

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"With an authoritarian government able to pick and choose how it applies safety rules, it’s likely easier for Tesla to test out the practicalities of controlling a car in real-world situations in China...”

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• Australia: Government earmarks Au$288M for national digital ID program

• Thailand: Microsoft inks agreements with gov't to build cloud and AI infrastructure in Thailand, and to deliver AI skilling to over 100,000 citizens

• Malaysian Research Accelerator for Tech & Innovation, MRANTI, launches KL Innovation Network of tech hubs in Klang Valley in bid to boost the domestic startup ecosystem

• China's Alibaba to invest $1.1BN in South Korea with $200M for logistics centre, $100M for SME onboarding - and $75M to address antitrust concerns

• India: Mindgrove Technologies semicon startup rolls out India's first commercial high-performance system-on-chip based on RISC-V open-standard architecture

• China launches first satellites for a medium Earth orbit broadband constellation, potentially capable of connecting to low Earth orbit megaconstellations in development

• Indonesia: Microsoft to invest $1.7 billion over 4 years in cloud and AI infrastructure in Indonesia, and also delivering AI-focused skills training for 840K citizens

• South Korea's K-Startup Center opens in Tokyo to help Korean firms expand via partnerships with Japanese firms, adding to KSC presence in Singapore, Vietnam, France and the US

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"The International Organization for Migration found that international transfers increased 650% from $128bn... to $831bn... between 2000 and 2022."

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• Everex payments firm reportedly presented at ASEAN central bank governor and finance meeting, demonstrating blockchain-based payments between Thailand and Myanmar

• India: More on Mindgrove Technologies, RISC-V firm producing system-on-chip units for mid-level devices

• UTokyo Innovation Platform's 1stRound deep-tech support program inks agreement with Germany's Cyber Valley for mutual startup support between Japan and Europe

• India: Lam Research, a US semicon major, to expand India presence for global semiconductor fabrication equipment supply chains

• Philippines: Switzerland's DFinity Foundation opens launchpad with Isla Camp to identify and grow Filipino Web3 startups with initial $15M operations grant

China’s Digital Silk Road in the Indo-Pacific

• South Korea's Perigee Aerospace, a small space launch vehicles startup, partners Swedish Space Corporation to expand operations in Europe

• Australia: H2PowerBox launches mobile, off-grid solar-hydrogen energy system, generating and storing hydrogen via electrolysis in the day and using a fuel cell to convert back to electricity as needed

• Singapore's Rize raised $14M Series A with methane-reducing approach to rice farming, providing price-incentivized farming supplies to boost uptake

• Vietnam's VinCSS and China's GoGoByte ink MoU around development and deployment of cybersecurity solutions for the EV market in line with international regulations

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AI & web search: "The business is so vast and lucrative that Google pays Apple over $20BN a year to serve as the default search provider for the iPhone..."

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• Vietnam: SKC, chemicals arm of South Korean SK Group conglomerate, breaks ground on biodegradable plastics plant in Vietnam, expected to be the largest in the world

• China: Arrests made of group delivering illegal currency conversion using cryptocurrency, with proceeds of $296 million

• Australia: Firstmac, non-bank lender focusing on mortgage lending, investment management and securitization, hit by data breach of potentially 500GB

• China: US revokes some licenses allowing firms including Intel and Qualcomm to export chips to Huawei for use in laptops and handsets

• Australia: A brief intro to 6 firms selected for South Australia's Growth Ramp space pathway, working in electronics, illegal fishing monitoring, space debris and more

• Taiwan: Ministry of Justice proposes amendments to anti-money laundering regulations focused on cryptocurrency firms, imposing heavy penalties for noncompliance

• Seoul Metro Gov't and Dubai Future Foundation ink collaboration agreements, looking at mutual tech and startup exchange benefits

• Japan's Mitsubishi Electric partners UK's Extend Robotics for VR tech for industrial robotics focusing on incidents and actions outside defined processes

• China's space administration inks MOU with Serbia Ministry of Science, Tech Development & Innovation on cooperation on China's International Lunar Research Station

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"Indonesia's rapidly growing digital economy grew by 52 per cent in 2021 with a total of 53 billion US dollars and is projected to exceed 124 billion by the end of 2025."

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• PLDT, Philippines' largest telecoms group, now in talks to sell up to 49% of data centre business to Japan's Nippon Telegraph & Telephone in $750M deal

• Australia: MetroElectro secures $680K from Singapore's Wavemaker Impact venture builder to develop mid-sized renewable power plants, looking to unused rooftop solar potential

• Hong Kong's Brinc venture accelerator unveils 9 startups selected for Spring 2024 Web3 and Gaming accelerators, working on crypto accounting, e-commerce, NFTs and more

• Philippines: Anti-Red Tape Authority partners Twala, digital ID startup supported by Dep't of Science & Tech Startup Grant Fund, to ease business activities in the country

ASEAN-EU Strategic Partnership Blue Book 2024-2025

• In February, Korea Int'l Trade Assoc'n inaugurated Special Committee on ROK-Japan Cooperation to boost economic and trade collaboration between the two in the private sector

• Australia: A quick intro to 9 startups that collectively raised $233M in the week to May 10th, working in agri-tech, music technology, AI and more

• Bangladesh: An overview of the country's moves to become a digitally-smart nation by 2041, with initiatives in AI, digital ID and biometrics

• Japan: Researchers have developed a large language model trained predominantly in Japanese to serve as a foundation for generative AI, using Japan's Fugaku supercomputer

• A quick look at the impact of the Australian government's Investing in Women program on women-led small businesses in The Philippines

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Reserve Bank of India governor: "One of the key features of cash is that it works offline... We are working on making the CBDC transferable in the offline mode also..."

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• NTT Startup Challenge from Japan's Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp applications open in June for tech startups across Southeast Asia

• Emerging Enterprise 2024 Awards are now open for applications, seeking early-stage businesses in Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia and Malaysia

• Taiwan's Mobileheroes Global competition applications open, seeking startups worldwide focused on 5G, IoT and artificial intelligence solutions

• South Korea: Ministry of SMEs & Startups unveils strategy and initiatives to foster 3K companies, targeting exports of $1M each by 2027

• Japan: Metaplanet investment firm adopts bitcoin as 'strategic reserve asset' as a hedge against Japan's debt burden and volatility in the yen

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Critical minerals: "...there are clear ongoing efforts, including by China's state-owned entities, to extend their nation's monopoly by controlling Australia's rare earths deposits..."

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In wider-world technology news:

» Xona Space Systems preps Pulsar low-orbit satellite constellation as a commercial GPS alternative, potentially costing less to operate whilst delivering sharper geolocation data

» Vodafone preps to use blockchain with SIM cards for digital ID in digital wallets on mobile phones

» Mycocycle, using mushrooms to upcycle tires and construction waste made of fossil fuel materials into plastic-like polymers

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Crypto money laundering: "...huge increase in the volume of funds sent to cross-chain bridges... substantial increase in funds sent from ransomware to gambling platforms…”

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