Asia's tech news, weekly: May 7th 2024
India's RISC-V chips, StarLink & Filipino stores, Japan 6G milestone, new China space missions, AI & Japan's cities, Tesla China deal, HK $2BN fund bid, Russia & Iran for CBDC trade...
• India: Mindgrove Technologies semicon startup rolls out India's first commercial high-performance system-on-chip based on RISC-V open-standard architecture
• Japanese research consortium announces 6G milestone with world-first 6G wireless device capable of transmitting 100 gigabits per second
• South Korea and AUKUS grouping recently discussed the country's possible participation in technologies-focused Pillar 2 activities
• China: Recently-announced space research missions, touching on lunar far-side astronomy, astrophysics, solar pole observation, exoplanets and gravitational wave missions
"Across APAC, digital channels account for 51% of overall fraud losses, surpassing physical fraud for the first time...
• Australian gov't makes near $1BN investment in quantum tech firm, PsiQuantum, with sights on delivery of the country's first quantum computer
• China: SpacemiT unveils RISC-V chip based laptop, primarily aimed at hardware engineers, developers and DIY enthusiasts, and potentially retailing around only $300
• Australia: Dep't of Foreign Affairs & Trade Cyber & Critical Tech Cooperation Program opens call for funding proposals, aiming to boost cooperation with and capabilities across 8 SEA nations
• Philippines: Packworks partners HelpNGO for connectivity to sari-sari stores via Starlink Internet, launching SariLink for corner store SMEs
• Malaysia: More on Blue Chip Capital's semiconductor industry investment plans, aiming to fund at least 10 startups through $210M fund
• Thailand: Gov't Digital Economy Promotion Agency invests in Techsauce Media, backing the company's 4 THAI strategy which aims to place Thailand as a gateway to Asia's tech scene
• China: Shenzhou-17 crew return to Earth after six months aboard Tiangong space station, with completion of 84 in-orbit experiments and collection of 400 material samples
• Hong Kong Uni of Science & Tech launches HK$500M HKUST Redbird Innovation Fund aiming to establish multiple Venture Investment Funds to a collective value of HK$2BN
• China: Revised State Secrets Law now requires internet giants including Tencent, Weibo and Douyin to delete leaked info, demanding network operators closely monitor what users transmit
TSMC’s Arizona plant troubles: "Missed deadlines and tension among Taiwanese and American coworkers are plaguing the chip giant’s Phoenix expansion."
• China: May 3rd saw Chang’e-6 launch to collect first set of lunar far-side samples, building on technical, engineering, scientific and communications tech of past missions
• India's Digantara joins Space-MAITRI - Mission for Australia-India’s Tech, Research & Innovation - project, adding optical tech to Australia's Space Machines for debris monitoring
• India's L&T Technology Services IT services firm inks $48M deal with Europe's Forvia auto supplier for engineering development activities focused on 'clean mobility'
• 3rd Malaysia-China Joint Committee Meeting on Science, Tech & Innovation Cooperation concludes with commitments to collaborate on research in key areas including space tech, AI, blockchain and advanced materials
• Japan: Osaka, Nagoya, Tsukuba and Yokosuka in talks with Microsoft, AWS and Google around guidelines governing use of AI in city and government work
• US Dep't of Commerce now reviewing national security implications of China's work in open-standard RISC-V chips tech
• South Korea's Hyundai Motor Group inks MoU with China's Baidu Group for collaboration in smart car connected vehicle services in China
• Thailand's Betagro launches Betagro Ventures with $30M fund focused on food and agri tech sectors
• Download: 'Same targets, new playbooks - East Asia threat actors employ unique methods' from Microsoft Threat Intelligence (pdf link)
"Beijing has previously said it strongly opposes a forced sale of TikTok, and it has revised its export control rules to give it the power to block a sale on national security grounds."
• South Korea's KB Kookmin Card credit card issuer partnered by Int'l Finance Corp to boost financial access for Indonesia's small businesses, and to lift digital inclusion in Thailand
• 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..."
• UK expects to have removed China-made surveillance tech from sensitive sites by April 2025, tightening security in light of spying, cybersec and data access concerns
• India: Alibi Global inks MoU with IIT Bombay on tech transfer for Spherical Robot surveillance tech developed for defence and law enforcement use in compromised environments
• China: Zeeker Intelligent Technology Holding EV maker targets $5.13BN in US IPO bid, the first major float of a PRC-based firm in over 2 years
Video: ‘An AI startup made a hyperrealistic deepfake of me that’s so good it’s scary’
• China: Tesla's new China deal clears 2 key regulator hurdles - a mapping & navigation deal with Baidu, and meeting state requirements on data security and privacy
• Australia: Victorian state gov't fund, Breakthrough Victoria, draws US stratospheric near-space exploration firm, World View, to Melbourne in $37M deal
• Japan: An overview of the country's revitalized investment focus on advanced technologies
• Australia: University of Sydney awarded $18.3M federal grant over 4 years to establish research and commercialisation group for the country's quantum sector
• Thailand: Tops, the food business of Central Retail supermarket chain, partners Jaikla startup to repurpose excess and waste food into insect farm food, producing insect-protein pet foods
It's not just about export controls: Semiconductors, manufacturing equipment, electronic design automation software, and EDA process design kits
• Silicon Valley's Y Combinator incubator to close YC China, claiming strategy change and that 'now is not the right time to run a new, country-specific version of Y Combinator'
• Australia: Airwallex for Startups launches, aiming to be Australia's most comprehensive program for local startups looking to accelerate their growth
• South Korea: Seoul's Gangnam-gu district rolls out 2 startup initiatives, one to boost entrepreneurship, the other targeting global expansion
• 7 Australian and New Zealand startups that collectively raised over $27M in the week to May 3rd
• South Korea: Government's Youth StartUp Association and Korea CreataChain Ass'n ink MoU to grow blockchain-based startups, and to boost youth entrepreneurship
• Australian Technologies Competition 2024 applications are now open for startups and tech firms across 16 award categories
• Thailand: Techsauce Global Summit 2024 set for August 7-9, featuring startup showcase, business matching, workshops and over 130 sessions
• Vietnam: A brief dive into key items in the recently-approved 'Information And Communication Infrastructure Plan For The Period Of 2021–2030, With A Vision To 2050'
• Australia: Thinktank proposes big tech companies face a digital platform tax to fund trusted news media, in bid to confront 'rising tide of misinformation and disinformation'
• Cambodia: A brief overview of the recent 7th edition of Startups Technology Sharing Conference and Networking Day held at the Nat'l Incubation Center
"...cryptocurrencies are some of the best-performing assets this year – and demand from Asia-Pacific retail investors has been a major engine of the rally."
In wider-world technology news:
» Iran and Russia are working on CBDC and digital financial asset-powered trade solutions, which could 'potentially mitigate the impact of sanctions'
» US-based Hubble Network space-tech firm establishes world-first Bluetooth connection directly with a satellite over 600km distant, a potential global tech game-changer
» United Kingdom becomes first country in the world to ban easily-guessable default usernames and passwords from net-connected IoT devices
» 'Salicrop has developed treatments that activate plants' innate stress-response mechanisms...to better handle periods of intense heat, prolonged dry spells, and salty soil'
» Multiple nation-state hacking groups found increasingly to be using Microsoft Graph API for 'command-and-control' use of cloud-based systems
» Stripe payments giant moves carefully back into crypto market, now allowing customers to take crypto payments in USDC stablecoins via Solana, Ethereum and Polygon
» Bottlepay app firm raises $15M providing real-time int'l payments in Bitcoin and fiat, allowing users to send funds via messages on Twitter, Reddit, Discord
"Automated traffic makes up almost half of all internet traffic worldwide... Concerningly, bad bots alone account for nearly a third of all traffic, at 32%...
Indo-Pacific tech news: Other editions
• LinkedIn / Twitter / Facebook / Monthly / Substack / Web / Connect
Note: Due to Twitter/X's ongoing devolution, our mobile app news updates are on hold. We'll relaunch our mobile app, upgraded and revamped, in late Q2 2024.
And, for those who prefer reading and receiving via LinkedIn, here's the link to this week's LinkedIn edition of Asia's Tech News, Weekly, for the week to May 7th 2024:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/asias-tech-news-weekly-may-7th-2024-startup-news-asia-bjqhc/
The archives are also fully available over on LinkedIn - head on over to:
https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/sna-asia-s-tech-news-6940166562133749760/