Asia's tech news, weekly: October 3rd 2023
Indonesia & social media payments, Penang micro-chips, Foxconn’s hard/software bid, China Mobile & Mt Everest, Japan & Canada talk lithium, Hong Kong crypto fraud, Deloitte & space...
• Malaysia: Singapore's GlobalFoundries chip-maker opens new facility in Penang, creating 300 roles supporting Singapore, US and European operations
• China: 'Super SIM' cards moves add digital yuan wallets, smartcards, ID cards, NFC tech and more, alongside option to manually fit on to existing ID cards
• Australia and France ink agreement to boost cooperation on critical mineral supply chains, focusing on needs including in clean energy, medical and defence
• Hong Kong: Fraud investigation now underway against JPEX crypto trading platform with claims of $166M in losses and case likely to test new regulations
Indonesia & social media transactions: "What the people are expecting is that the advancement of technology can create new economic potential, not kill existing economies..."
• China: Huawei unveils Pangu Gov't Model to deliver large pre-trained AI models to manage city applications the country including gov't services, office digitalization, city governance & more
• Vietnam: Cricket One edible insect firm opens Asia's largest cricket processing facility, closing Series A round with sights on North American pet foods
• Japan: US Space Force may establish unit in Japan, expanding on Hawaii unit and subordinate unit in South Korea
• Australia: A podcast interview intro to how Silver Futures is mapping the current ecosystem for age-tech or longevity-tech in Australia
• Taiwan: Foxconn joins $49M new funding to Kneron, US edge computing focused AI chip firm, part of Foxconn move to become both hardware and software integrator
• Vietnam, Philippines and Brunei join Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore in Regional Payment Connectivity Initiative for cross-border payments in local currencies
• India: In-principle framework adopted between a number of higher education institutes to create a common platform for agri-tech and startup information, aiming to develop national consortium
• The Philippines' Asia United Bank signs on with China's Alipay+, enabling local merchants to take cross-border e-payments from Hong Kong, South Korea and Malaysia
"Germany is considering a ban on parts made by Chinese manufacturers Huawei and ZTE in its 5G networks from 2026, government sources told AFP..."
• South Korea: AlphaOmega unveils portable EV charging solution capable of providing 124 miles of range in 40 minutes
• China: Central bank Shenzhen Branch joins Shanghai Gold Exchange to explore CBDC-tied gold recycling; recycled gold met a full 20% of 2018 domestic supply
• South Korea: Busan unveils plan for digital assets exchange to tokenize assets including raw materials, precious metals, carbon & emissions certificates and IP rights
• An overview of startups from Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan that took part in the recent TechCrunch Disrupt 2023 event in San Francisco
• China Mobile and Huawei deploy WiFi network for Mount Everest tourist base camp and hotel to provide service to staff, tourists, businesses and administration
• A brief look at growing ties between Japan and Canada in lithium technologies
• Malaysia: Gov't KWAP pension fund launches Dana Perintis initiative, aiming to invest up to $206M across 24 months into Malaysian early-stage firms, innovation and ecosystems
• Digital India Bill: "While the gov't is still considering the emerging technologies that it wants to regulate, solutions like blockchain and metaverse are understood to be on its radar."
"There are now 190 Indian space start-ups, twice as many as a year earlier, with private investments jumping by 77 per cent between 2021 and 2022, according to Deloitte..."
• Vietnam in Q3: "Startups in Hanoi secured funding worth $33 million, while those based in Ho Chi Minh City raised $17.1 million."
• New Zealand: Sharesies app partners BlinkPay, Māori fintech startup, to offer secure open banking services, connecting customer data between banks and 3rd party services
• Australia: 10 startups who in September collectively raised over $101M with solutions in e-commerce, climate-tech, sports-tech and more
• Australian Fashion Council and eBay Australia unveil $200K Circular Fashion Fund, seeking startups working on sustainable practices for the fashion industry
• Singapore: Quadria Capital looks to raise up to $1BN for Asia-focused healthcare fund
• Japan: Toregem Biopharma to trial antibody-based drug aimed at stimulating the growth of new teeth, activating dormant 'tooth buds'
• Taiwan: Financial regulator announces guidelines for crypto service providers, including mandate that foreign virtual asset platform operators must be registered
• Ford US motor giant pauses work on $3.5BN Michigan factory set to make lithium iron phosphate batteries using tech and services from China's CATL
"...critical seabed infrastructure is vulnerable to attack; India and Australia must make a coordinated effort to protect these assets in the Indian Ocean."
• Singapore-based Grab tech giant in talks for part acquisition of Delivery Hero Asia operations, absorbing Foodpanda brand in a number of SEA nations
• Australia: An intro to the startups selected for the University of Queensland UQ Ventures' first Empowered Women's Accelerator cohort
• Hong Kong: StartMeUpHK Festival 2023 set for November 8-17, touching on topics including Web3, health-tech, sustainability and more
• Australia's Stone & Chalk partners New Zealand's GridAKL, home to Auckland's startup community, aiming to boost networks for tech startups in both countries
• Hong Kong: SUNeVision data center operator launches Startup Programme, with applications open to December 31st, aiming to select 10 candidates for the inaugural cohort
"Telegram... with 800M monthly active users worldwide, is inching closer to adopting an ecosystem strategy that is reminiscent of WeChat's super app approach."
In wider-world technology news:
» HeyGen launches AI tool that clones voices from 30 seconds of video, translates to 7 languages, and syncs generated voices so clips look and sound realistic
» Deloitte Gravity Challenge 2023 applications are now open, seeking solutions for real-world problems using space-tech innovations
» Google for Startups Cloud Program - scale faster & smarter with Cloud credits, technical training, startup experts, resources, and AI and Web3 specific benefits
» Rain gains $9.7M seed funding with autonomous, uncrewed firefighting helicopters, with systems able to detect, understand and suppress early-stage wildfires
» Dubai's Expand North Star 2023 Conference & Expo set for Oct 15-18, featuring startups, VCs and unicorn founders from over 100 countries
» SpinLaunch's large-scale system to 'throw' payloads including spacecraft and satellites into space rather than using fuel-propelled rockets
» "Google has woken up, and they are iterating on a pace that will smash GPT-4 total pre-training FLOPS by 5x before the end of the year."
» CrowdStrike launches equity-free Cybersecurity Startup Accelerator for EMEA-based startups, in partnership with Amazon Web Services, dovetailing with AWS Startup Loft Accelerator program
Artificial intelligence in the wrong hands: "...it’s now possible, with the use of AI imagery, to create alternative history."
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