Asia's Tech News, Weekly: May 31st 2025
Vietnam-Japan chips, Singapore AI moves, Pakistan & Bitcoin, BeiDou vs GPS, Cambodia QR payments, palm payments, Penang's digital economy, Xiaomi mobile phone chips...
• Upgraded ASEAN Trade in Goods Agreement (ATIGA) and ASEAN Digital Economy Framework Agreement (DEFA) are expected to be signed by the end of 2025 / full item
• Vietnam looks to Japan's Rapidus as a possible partner on Vietnam's semiconductor industry ambitions / full item
• Japan Post has launched a 'digital address' system, linking 7-digit combinations of numbers and letters to physical addresses / full item
• Singapore: QuikBot takes 'Best Startup of the Year' at the recent Asia Tech x Singapore Enterprise Tech Awards with its autonomous final-mile delivery Platform-as-a-Service / full item
• SpaceX and Europe's OneWeb partner to launch satellite communication services in South Korea / full item
"Samsung struggles with 3-nanometer process as China's SMIC gains ground in 5-nanometers" / full item
• Taiwan's TSMC is to open a chip design centre in Germany 'which could at a later date help develop chips for applications including artificial intelligence' / full item
• Singapore unveils global initiatives to strengthen its AI ecosystem, including the MERaLiON Consortium, a globally-focused R&D collaboration platform / full item
• China: Sugon 'supercomputer' maker and Hygon chip designer, leading entities in the computing supply chain, have announced merger plans / full item
• Taiwan's Foxconn is among possible bidders for Singapore's semiconductor assembly and testing firm, UTAC Holdings, in a deal that may value UTAC at near $3 billion / full item
• China: MinoSpace commercial satellite manufacturer wins major contract to build remote sensing satellite constellation for Sichuan Province, notable as a departure from SOE-delivered projects / full item
Video: 'How ASML Makes Chips Faster With Its New $400 Million High NA Machine' / YouTube
• Thailand: Big Data Institute partners National Science & Tech Development Agency for national data bank for secure collection, management and access to Thailand's national data / full item
• China: Space Epoch, aka Beijing Jianyuan Technology, completed China's first sea-based vertical landing of a reusable rocket / full item
• 'Pakistan Allocates 2,000-MW Capacity to Power Bitcoin Mining' / full item
• "BeiDou, China’s version of GPS, now being used over 1 trillion times per day" / full item
• Vietnam's Tech Ministry instructs telco service providers to block Telegram messaging app for not cooperating in combating alleged crimes by users of the app / full item
• Cambodia: Citizens can now make cross-border payments in Thailand, Vietnam, Laos and Malaysia by scanning QR codes for Khmer Riel, without having to convert to US dollars / full item
"Lawmakers close to Lee Jae-myung, the frontrunner in the South Korean presidential elections, have called for Seoul to steal a march on Washington by fast-tracking the rollout of a KRW stablecoin." / full item
• Malaysia: Penang Digital Economy Summit 2025 is set for August 9th, a one-day conference and exhibition looking at cybersecurity, policy, tech talent and more / full item
• Thailand: China's Tencent eyes the Thai market for palm biometric payments, in competition with Alipay / full item
• 'China's SMIC may have used older lithography gear to build Huawei's new 5nm chip' / full item
• Indonesia's investment management agency, Danantara, and Indonesia Investment Authority ink MoU with France's Eramet mining firm to explore nickel sector strategic investment platform / full item
• South Korea's KT telco and Vietnam's Viettel ink $95M AI partnership, looking to develop Vietnam's tech capabilities and infrastructure, and consult in the wider SEA region / full item
• Philippines: Cyber Revolution Summit 2025 is set for June 27th - keynotes, presentations, panels and connections for industry, government, and stakeholders / full item
• India: Tata Consultancy Services has won new $337M advance purchase order for full implementation of 4G mobile network at 18,685 sites across the country / full item
• Thailand: Government pushes plans to integrate crypto into the economy with consideration of scheme allowing tourists to link digital assets to credit cards for in-country spending / full item
• 'China sets the pace on 5G-A with $3B rollout in 2025' / full item
• AI+ Taipei Startup Pitch Contest applications are open until June 30th, seeking submissions from global tech firms and startups / full item
• China: Huawei is pushing its Ascend AI chip-based, high-performance 'Supernode 384' architecture as a rival to NVIDIA system for alleviating data center processing bottlenecks / full item
'The Rise of AI Manufacturing in China and South Korea: AI-driven strategies in China and South Korea reinforce East Asia's manufacturing dominance...' / full item
• Thailand: South Korea's Naver tech major inks MoU with Thailand's SIAM AI to work on development of sovereign Thai AI large language model, and a tourism-specific AI agent / full item
• Australia's Core8 established Core8 BioValley Incubator in Long An Province, looking to be Vietnam's first hub for research, talent development, and international partnerships / full item
• Thailand: China's Huawei now serves over 80,000 Thai households via its FusionSolar energy solutions, providing up to 70% of their electricity supply / full item
• DronTech Asia 2025 is set for Malaysia, September 30 to October 2, gathering all things drones-related for land, air, and sea applications / full item
• Thailand: Wind Energy Holding, the country's largest wind power producer, looks at large-scale spend to nearly triple its generating capacity over 12 years / full item
• ASEAN Digital Content Summit 2025 is set for Malaysia's Johor Bahru from September 2-4, looking at the region's games, animation and creative tech spaces / full item
• China "could take legal action against any individual or organisation assisting or implementing US measures that advise companies against using advanced semiconductors from China." / full item
• Malaysia: Port Klang Free Zone unveils PKFZ 2.0 masterplan, outlining vision to transform into a future-ready, smart logistics and industrial hub / full item
• Laos: Agricultural Promotion Bank Co partners Visa B2B Connect, boosting cross-border payment capabilities / full item
• China and Middle East cloud computing: 'Huawei and Alibaba are outpacing established U.S. providers by aligning with government priorities and addressing data sovereignty concerns.' / full item
China's DJI drones: "With a potential ban looming, the company has until the end of the year to convince US lawmakers it does not pose a national security threat..." / full item
• China: Xiaomi tech giant claims new Xring 01 mobile phone chip rivals Apple on some performance metrics, whilst delivering a complete phone at a lower price / full item
• Download: 'Future Jobs: Robots, Artificial Intelligence, and Digital Platforms in East Asia and Pacific' from the World Bank Group / full item
• 'Rise in fake news on social media alarms Fiji Police Force' / full item
• China: Here's a quick overview of the impressive new Huawei Watch 5 / full item
• "The Trump administration has told US companies that offer software used to design semiconductors to stop selling their services to Chinese groups…" / full item
"Anthropic’s newly launched Claude Opus 4 model frequently tries to blackmail developers when they threaten to replace it with a new AI system..." / full item
In wider-world technology news:
» imec semiconductor R&D firm proposes reconfigurable chip architectures to avoid bottlenecks for future generations of artificial intelligence systems / full item
» Google launches new 'AI mode' in 'total reimagining of search', providing 'conversational, question-and-answer experience akin to OpenAI's ChatGPT' rather than a list of links / full item
» European Investment Bank is working on a project to boost European capabilities on artificial intelligence and semiconductors, aiming to raise $78BN by 2027 / full item
» Google agrees to fund the development of three new nuclear sites, committing early-stage capital to the projects, each of which will generate at least 600 megawatts / full item
» 'Luxembourg's 2025 risk report classifies crypto companies as high risk for money laundering, even as local institutions ramp up crypto adoption efforts' / full item
"The State of New York, following in the footsteps of many other states, is banning smartphones in K-12 schools. Doing so may improve social capital and community around the state." / full item
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And here's the link to the LinkedIn edition, Issue 149 of Asia's Tech News, Weekly, for the week to May 31st, 2025:
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:ugcPost:7334742626656538624/