Asia's Tech News, Weekly: May 17th 2025
China's Tiangong expansion, Laos looks at blockchain, Samsung's 2nm chips, Thailand digital wallet, Asia Tech x Singapore in May, Huawei's HarmonyOS laptop, Singapore tokenized fund...
• China is to launch new modules for the Tiangong space station, believed to be in preparation for expanding science activities, and international partnerships / full item
• South Korea: Samsung is reportedly close to securing major 2nm chip orders from majors including NVIDIA and Qualcomm as a result of yield improvements / full item
• Thailand: Gov't unveils 'G-Token', its first government-backed digital token, offering a novel way for citizens to invest / full item
• South Korea: Applications are now open for the 10th K-Startup Grand Challenge 2025, a government-backed accelerator and soft-landing program for international startups / full item
• China: Xiaomi smartphone giant is to launch its self-developed XringO1 mobile chip in late May, moving further into advanced chip production / full item
RISC-V tech: "...an expected flip from license-driven revenue to royalty-driven revenue from RISC-V around 2027, and even sooner if penetration into data centers intensifies." / full item
• Thailand: Government scraps 10,000 baht digital wallet plan, instead reallocating over 150 billion baht towards economic stimulus plan / full item
• Indonesia: Gov't Ministry projects the value of digital economy investments in Indonesia in 2025 will reach $130 billion, equivalent to 44% of total digital economy projection in SE Asia / full item
• China: Zhipu AI looks to the Belt and Road Initiative to expand its global footprint in bid to better compete with firms like OpenAI / full item
• Japan: Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group will establish an online bank in fiscal year 2026, targeting younger, tech-savvy users / full item
• 'What next for Southeast Asia’s China-backed solar boom?' / full item
• 'Franklin Templeton to Launch Singapore’s First Tokenised Fund for Retail Investors' / full item
"China has launched its first commercial 10-Gigabit broadband network in Sunan County, Hebei Province, in collaboration with Huawei and China Unicom..." / full item
• SatelliteAsia conference and expo takes place as part of Asia Tech x Singapore - ATxSG - May 27-29, looking at all things satellite communication technology-related / full item
• China: Huawei unveils its first laptop running the entirely self-developed HarmonyOS, with all Windows licencing having expired in March / full item
• Malaysia: Google awards second data center contract to infra company, Gamuda, for a $233.7 million hyperscale data center 90km south of capital, Kuala Lumpur / full item
• Laos looks into blockchain and digital assets to develop a digital economy / full item
• South Australian Government launches 2nd round of Fearless Innovator Grant Program to encourage more women in SA to expand their startups into global markets / full item
"South Korean crypto exchange deregulation proposals could affect the nation’s banking industry, dealing a blow to the likes of K Bank, reports have claimed" / full item
• China: An overview of EV giant Nio's 284-acre Factory 2 and the manufacturing automation and robotics that enable the firm to produce high volumes at low cost / full item
• Indonesia: Vietnam's EV charge station developer, V-GREEN, inks MOU with 4 partners to deploy near 63,000 charging ports for VinFast EVs in Indonesia by the end of 2025 / full item
• New Zealand: Daisy Lab foodtech firm has developed a high-yield bovine lactoferrin that surpasses protein concentration found in cow milk / full item
• Download: 'Future Farming in India - A Playbook for Scaling Artificial Intelligence in Agriculture' from the World Economic Forum / full item
• Thailand: Ministry of Labour partners Microsoft Thailand for AI skills development through THAI Academy, aiming to train 100,000 Thai workers in AI skills / full item
"Hackers hijack Japanese financial accounts to conduct nearly $2 billion in trades" / full item
• China launched the first 12 of 2800 satellites intended for on-orbit 'AI space computing' constellation / full item
• Japan: Sony Bank and partner Fujitsu launch 'next-generation' digital banking system built on Amazon Web Services / full item
• Asia Tech x Singapore conference and expo is set for May 27-29, with ATxSummit, ATxEnterprise, and ATxInspire components providing the widest possible range of tech updates / full item
• Laos has launched digital ID cards for all citizens, with the Ministry of Public Security leading the project / full item
• Japan's EMURGO blockchain-Web3 company partners Huawei Cloud to extend support for a Cardano Validator Node, enabling developers to build Cardano solutions / full item
• Can Huawei Take On NVIDIA's CUDA, the Compute Unified Device Architecture? / full item
"For years, North Korea has been secretly placing young IT workers inside Western companies. With AI, their schemes are now more devious—and effective—than ever." / full item
• Philippines: Fintech Alliance PH unveils new initiatives for digital finance in the country / full item
• Australia launches its first official national Cyber Pavilion at GISEC Global 2025, the Middle East and Africa's largest cyber security event / full item
• China: NVIDIA plans to release a downgraded version of its H20 AI chip for the China market in the next two months, following US export restrictions on the original model / full item
• Thailand has set sights on all units in government to fully adopt digital systems by 2026, with an estimated investment of 500 billion baht in digital infrastructure / full item
• An overview of the recent Australia-Vietnam Smart Cities Business Forum 2025, and the ways in which the two countries might collaborate / full item
'Low-cost India seen as potential regional hub in data centre boom' / full item
• Thailand: Here's a brief overview of the recent Huawei Cloud 2025 Asia Pacific Partner Conference held in Thailand which focused on AI opportunities across a range of industries / full item
• Japan: Tokyo Exchange-listed Remixpoint has used its balance sheet to buy another $3.4M worth of Bitcoin, adding to its sizeable Ethereum and altcoin portfolio / full item
• Thailand: MUU animal-free dairy startup secures funding from major backers with sustainable dairy alternatives created using precision fermentation / full item
• Cambodia: '2024 E-commerce Report' from Profitence was released earlier this year, looking at the Kingdom's challenges, initiatives and opportunities PDF download link: / full item
• Philippines: NoneAway property-tech launches AI Concierge, The Philippines' first AI-powered real estate app helping buyers, owners, brokers, and global investors / full item
'China's dying EV batteries, solar cells are powering a circular economy in new-energy era' / full item
• Hong Kong: InvestHK Global Fast Track 2025 is now open for applications / full item
• Australia: NSW Government is calling on the state's companies and research organisations to take part in the International Astronautical Congress 2025 - details here / full item
• 'US senator introduces bill calling for location-tracking on AI chips to limit China access' / full item
• Philippines: Maya fintech offers a new loan programme based on user QR payment activity, with AI calculating creditworthiness / full item
• 'Digital clones of real models are revolutionizing fashion advertising': "This trend is also reshaping the US$2.5 trillion modelling industry..." / full item
• India: Thailand's A2D Ventures VC and startup investing platform enters India via partnership with We Founder Circle, an angel investment syndicate / full item
Anthropic co-founder: "People outside the field are often surprised and alarmed to learn that we do not understand how our own AI creations work" / full item
In wider-world technology news:
» Former Google CEO and Relativity Space look to place data centres directly into orbit, powered by solar energy / full item
» "Meta’s tools can find interested users better than human marketers can, claimed Zuckerberg..." / full item
» In February, Huawei submitted a trademark application for 'MATEROBOT', with products set to include telepresence robots, chatbot software, smartphones and more / full item
» 'E-commerce Trends Report 2024' from DHL, a survey of 12,000 shoppers across 24 countries / PDF download
» 'European E-Commerce Report 2024' can be downloaded, from EuroCommerce / PDF download
And here's the link for the LinkedIn edition of the weekly newsletter, for those who prefer LinkedIn for their reading:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/asias-tech-news-weekly-may-17th-2025-startup-news-asia-rwocc/
To read the previous 146 LinkedIn editions of Asia's Tech News, Weekly, head on over to the archives at:
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