Asia's tech news, weekly: November 21st 2023
Foxconn's spacetech, South Korean sats, China's RISC-V server, crypto & stablecoins in Singapore, Japan & NATO on cybersec, Australian alt-foods, Filipino blockchain finance
• Taiwan's Chunghwa Telecom inks deal with Eutelsat OneWeb for low Earth orbit satellite services as backup for terrestrial fixed and mobile networks, undersea cables and microwave comms
• Philippines: Central bank is set to sell tokenized treasury bonds for the first time, offering $179M in one-year tokenized bonds, to explore blockchain tech and tokenized securities
• India: RecycleKaro, taking lithium ion battery waste and processing it into cobalt, nickel and manganese
• The Academy of Women Entrepreneurs Indo-Pacific Women in Tech Summit recently took place in Taiwan
"Stablecoins and central bank digital currencies, not crypto, will be part of the financial ecosystem in the future, the managing director of Singapore's central bank said..."
• South Korea: Nara Space successfully launched and placed Observer-1A satellite in orbit via SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, completing 2-way communication with Antarctica ground station
• Japan's Rapidus Corp chip-maker to partner Canada's Tenstorrent to mass produce more-efficient semiconductors
• Singapore: dtcpay to launch system using fiat and crypto for in-store and online payments, partnering China's PlatON and Allinpay Int'l for blockchain, terminals and interfacing
• Taiwan's Foxconn steps into space exploration as part of diversification moves with launch of 2 prototype low-Earth orbit satellites via SpaceX rocket, partnering Taiwan's National Central Uni
• China: SophGo chip-maker develops high-performance RISC-V chips based on designs from US firm, SiFive, with Shandong University successfully deploying a Sophgo RISC-V server
• Philippines: Orbits Corp satellite service provider orders 2nd MicroGEO broadband satellite from Astranis, potentially connecting 4 million citizens to the internet and services
• China Unicom, State Grid Shandong and Huawei unveil 5G RedCap project built on network slicing, allowing end-to-end use of 'slices' of the network by particular applications
• Singapore: Paxos blockchain firm gains in-principle approval to issue a stablecoin, pegged to the US dollar and backed one-for-one by the dollar and cash equivalents
"China claims to have launched the world's first ultra-high-speed next-generation Internet backbone with a bandwidth of 1,200 GB per second (1.2 Terrabytes)..."
• NATO and Japan deepen cooperation on emerging security challenges, discussing 'cyber defence, cutting edge technologies and defence against hybrid threats' in recent meeting
• China: SMIC, the country's largest chipmaker, posted a 80% profit drop in Q3 profits, tho income still reached $94M
• South Korea: An introductory look at Pangyo Techno Valley's moves to establish itself as a global biotechnologies hub
• Australia: Another look at the country's opportunities in the global semiconductors industry
• China's Boyaa Interactive gaming firm, listed on HK Stock Exchange, looking to buy $100M in cryptocurrencies, constituting near 38% of firm's total assets, to deepen Web3 activities
• Hong Kong: WOW Summit 2024 has been set for March 26-27, looking at all things Web3 and associated
• Taiwan's X-PITCH unveils 10 tech startup finalists selected from 3000 startups worldwide, working on solutions in deep-tech, healthcare, advanced manufacturing and more
• China: Huawei and Chery automaker unveil Luxeed S7 electric vehicle, setting the stage for competition with Tesla
"The 2024 Indonesian elections will take place at a technological watershed, with artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning poised to play an influential role."
• China: First of a new series of Haiyang ocean monitoring satellites entered orbit, adding to capabilities in observation across environmental factors, and also marine navigation
• South Korea: Sapeon AI-focused chip-maker unveils X330 NPU, targeting H1 2024 production and claiming X330 has 'roughly twice the computational performance and 1.3 times better power efficiency' than competitors
• Singapore's REVIVO BioSystems takes overall DeepTech Startup of the Year win at X-PITCH 2023 global startup competition, focusing on 4D human tissue testing models
• Australia: A video intro to Cauldron, working on a continuous - rather than batch - microbial fermentation process to successfully commercialize low-value, high-volume animal-product alternatives
• Philippines: Maya, the country's only end-to-end digital payments company, partners UK's TerraPay for seamless money transfers for Filipinos worldwide
• Australia: Indigenous-led First Australians Capital impact fund secures $3M from US fintech Block, owned by Jack Dorsey
• An intro to 10 biotech companies in the Asia-Pacific region, a region contributing almost 50% of new clinical trial activity globally
• Hong Kong: Sleek raised $5M seed funding with blockchain-based social network, and features including physical Sleek Card using NFC for networking
"...the two leaders talked about ways their countries can cooperate in the hydrogen sector, given South Korea's wide use of hydrogen cars and Japan's large number of hydrogen-related patents"
• South Korea: Ministry of Culture, Sports & Tourism plans to invest $766.5M over 5 years in 'K-Content', focusing on boosting global competitiveness of Korea's online video industries
• The Taiwan Pavilion at Singapore FinTech Festival 2023, showcasing Taiwan's fintech startups and innovations in finance
• Australia: Uniseed VC fund doubles backers with 5 uni's joining, allowing the fund to now cover over half of all commercial research output generated by Australian institutions
• Vietnam: VNG gaming firm, backed by China's Tencent and Ant Group, to roll out ChatGPT-like AI service for Vietnamese speakers aiming at content creation, language translation, chatbots and more
• 'E-commerce is entering a new phase in Southeast Asia. Are logistics players prepared?', a McKinsey report from December 2022
• South Korea's Bering Lab legal-tech startup takes grand prize of 2023 Huawei Cloud Startup Ignite Competition with AI-driven legal document translation
• Japan Airlines partners US startup Regent Craft for electric-powered seaglider vehicles, looking at small-scale carbon-free passenger and cargo transportation
"...90% of respondents believe that generative AI will...add new lines of business in the next 12 months. The study also found that 7 out of 10 organisations plan to use GenAI for cyber-defense"
• Pakistan's Voyage Freight secures over $1M pre-seed funding with digitally-driven freight forwarding, seeing opportunities in the international shipping sector in Pakistan
• Philippines: etaily raises $17.8M Series A with end-to-end e-commerce solutions for global brands, along its own in-house portfolio, with clients including Levi’s and Skechers
• The Philippines' FinTech Alliance and Australian Trade & Investment Commission ink MOU to cooperate on boosting trade and investment in the fintech sector
• Australia: Telstra to expand Intercity Fibre project with additional 5000km of fibre by 2027, including cabling between Darwin and Adelaide
• China: Gov't declares that theft of digital collections including NFTs will now be subject to theft sentences, marking policy shift towards legally aligning digital assets with tangible property
• Animoca Brands, Amazon Web Services and Polygon Labs unveil MoonRealm Express Accelerator, aiming to boost development of Web3 products and solutions via Animoca Brands Mocaverse
'Vietnam Sets Sights on Becoming Semiconductor Hub', an interview with representatives from Vietnam's FPT Semiconductor
Tech news beyond Asia & the Indo-Pacific:
» UK gov't awarded Space Forge $611K to build first manufacturing platform in space to create crucial defense items including semiconductors for radars and frontline communications
» "...automakers from General Motors to Jaguar Land Rover and major suppliers like BorgWarner are researching, or have developed, motors with low- to zero-rare earth content."
» ALPHV/BlackCat ransomware gang takes extortion to new level, filing US Securities & Exchange Commission complaint against a victim for not complying with '4-day rule' to disclose cyberattack
» Qualcomm and Google join for next-gen wearables built on open-source RISC-V chips architecture, touted as an alternative to Arm ecosystem
» Kazakhstan central bank to implement 'digital tenge' CBDC by end of 2025, with first test of retail use now complete
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