Critical technologies in the news, globally, in August 2024
Critical technologies news headlines touched on a range of issues and concerns, technologies and developments, for instance covering: the geopolitical implications of cloud-based data centers and AI; India’s quantum computing moves; TSMC’s $11BN Germany semiconductor manufacturing facility; China’s satellite launch acceleration; November’s Indo-Pacific Space and Earth Conference in Australia; and many more.
Hit the links below to read each critical technology news item or article in full.
Plus: Asia’s tech news, weekly newsletters >
Critical minerals and the energy transition
- University of Edinburgh researchers are working on bacteria to extract lithium, cobalt and other minerals from old batteries and waste electronics / full item
- “…data center supply under construction in North America’s top markets jumped by about 70% compared to a year ago to a record 3.9 gigawatts…” / full item
Quantum security: “…a nefarious individual could potentially download and store encrypted data today, and decrypt it once a large enough quantum computer comes online.” / full item
- US Nat’l Institute of Standards & Tech is to publish 3 approved security algorithms for use in safeguarding against the emerging threat of quantum hacking / full item
- IBM unveils latest semicon items, Telum II processor and Spyre AI accelerator, with mass production to be handled by Samsung Foundry under 5nm process / full item
- Available now: CHIPS for America’s 2-year progress report as an infographic / full item
The global chip war could turn into a cloud war: “It’s not unreasonable to bet that control over AI data centres will have political as well as economic implications.” / full item
- Nokia is working with Axiom Space on wireless technologies for high-speed communications for NASA’s Artemis spacesuits, enabling streaming hi-definition video and more / full item
- Space Investment Quarterly, Q2 2024 edition, is now available to download, from Space Capital / full item
- Lockheed Martin goes all-in on lunar ambitions, rolling out its vision in ‘A Water-Based Lunar Architecture‘ / full item
- Available to download: ‘Next stop, next-gen‘, an analysis of supply chain innovation in 1148 companies across 15 countries and 10 industries / full item
Inc42: The Rise of India’s Semiconductor Startups
- Australia: A look at ElectraLith, extracting and refining lithium to produce battery-grade hydroxide from a range sources using no water or chemicals, and minimal energy / full item
- South Korea: SDT gains $7.5M in pre-IPO funding to build out quantum tech and standardization for quantum computing control equipment, covering a range of platforms and components / full item
“We don’t expect quantum computing to replace classical computing… quantum computers and classical computers will work together to run computations beyond what’s possible on either alone.” / full item
- India: Country’s first small-scale quantum computer nears completion, feeding into National Quantum Mission with plans for 24-qubit computer in 3 years and 100-qubit system within 5 / full item
- Singapore: An introduction to, and outline of, the National Quantum-Safe Network, looking to deploy, trial and evaluate this critical technology / full item
- Singapore’s Singtel launches National Quantum-Safe Network Plus, NQSN+, to equip enterprises with the ability to future-proof critical networks / full item
- Japan’s Toshiba to make corporate VC investment in Europe-US Quantonation II fund, aiming to boost R&D and development of quantum-based services / full item
HSBC: Asset Tokenization in the Quantum Age
- Taiwan: US semicon firm, Micron, commits to high-bandwidth memory market with acquisition of a number of production facilities from Taiwan’s AUO display company / full item
- Samsung Electronics hits milestone in auto semiconductors with LPDDR4X chip gaining certification for integration with Qualcomm Snapdragon Digital Chassis platform / full item
“Semiconductor industry leaders predict chip rivalry will lead to supply chain split, with few prioritising Chinese market, survey says” / full item
- TSMC has broken ground on construction of its first European plant in Germany, an $11BN facility also backed by state subsidies of near half of total expenditure / full item
“India is set to become a global leader in the semiconductor industry, with demand projected to cross $80 billion by 2026 and $110 billion by 2030” – US International Trade Administration / full item
- South Korea: AI chip-makers Rebellions and Sapeon Korea ink merger agreement, with new entity maintaining Rebellions name / full item
- Malaysia advances value chain bid, opening its first semiconductor integrated circuit design hub in Selangor, with sights on 5 such centers in 5 years / full item
Vietnam: “…severe shortages of labor in traditional chip economies like South Korea and Taiwan, as well as the US, mean companies are looking further afield for engineers” / full item
- 2024 Asia-Pacific Semiconductor Summit & Expo is set to run in Penang, Malaysia, in October / full item
- Malaysia: Infineon launches phase 1 of new Kedah state facility set to become the world’s largest 200-millimeter silicon carbide power semiconductor plant / full item
- India: Tata Group’s Assam semiconductor plant is expected to be operational by mid-2025, with projected jobs boost of 27K positions in total / full item
- Japan: Rapidus preps for April 2025 test production of 2-nanometer semiconductors, backed by IBM as investor and client / full item
Generally Faster – the economic impact of generative artificial intelligence
- Taiwan’s Foxconn and Extreme Tech Challenge partner to co-host ‘Semi & AI for Climate Startup Cup’ competition / full item
- Unilateral restrictions on China access to AI chips from suppliers including Micron and SK Hynix, and production equipment, now under US consideration, potentially in force by September / full item
- Hong Kong: MassPhoto and HKSTP prep first production line for gallium nitride wafers, touted as next-gen semicon material, targeting 10K units annually by 2027 / full item
- Singapore: Protégé Ventures, SEA’s first student-led VC fund, invests Sg$25K pre-A in Equatorial Space Systems rocket propulsion & space launch firm / full item
- China: New communications satellite enters geostationary belt, with ChinaSat 4A satellite reportedly to ‘provide users with voice, data, radio and television transmission services’ / full item
- China: Galactic Energy completes 3rd Ceres-1 solid rocket launch, sending 6 sats into orbit from a mobile sea platform / full item
Indo-Pacific Space and Earth Conference – Australia in November
- Tamil Nadu’s Space Zone India launches Rhumi-1, the country’s first reusable liquid-solid fuel rocket, from a mobile platform, delivering 3 cube-sats and 50 PICO-sats under 1kg / full item
- China: Mission proposed to launch an exoplanet observatory in 2028, aiming to detect a potential ‘second Earth’ for the first time / full item
- Australia: Metakosmos space and extreme environments suit startup gains $2M Pre-Seed funding from Saudi Arabia’s Alzadhar Al-Sanai / full item
- India: 3rd Small Satellite Launch Vehicle completes launch and assessment, placing sat in orbit and paving the way for low-cost, fast-turnaround, low-infra launches / full item
- South Korea: An intro to Telefix, working on satellite imagery cameras and analysis and looking at opportunities in Europe and the US / full item
East Asia Forum: Indonesia’s critical minerals strategy
- Australia: A look at some of the Australian mining and mapping technologies making an impact on space exploration / full item
- China: Shanghai Spacecom Satellite Tech launch of first G60 mega-constellation sats sees Long March 6A rocket disintegrate, creating hazardous debris cloud / full item
- India: EtherealX raised $5M seed funding to develop fully-reusable medium-lift launch vehicles, focusing on returning both upper stage and booster sections / full item
- Japan: Interstellar Technologies secures $21M Series E with sights on launch of its first orbital rocket in 2025 / full item
- China: State-run Shanghai Spacecom Satellite Tech launches first batch of G60 mega-constellation sats, with sights on 15K+ sats to overtake Starlink’s 5.5K / full item
Global megatrends: Shaping the future of societies, economies, and values
- Japan: Interstellar Technologies raised new $21M round for rocket and comms satellite development, moving to vertical-integration model used by SpaceX / full item
- India: Vaanam private sector space-tech accelerator launches in Tamil Nadu, set to host the country’s 2nd launchpad / full item
- China: Long March 3B rocket places 2nd of new series of high-orbit geostationary comms satellites, providing no images, platform info, potential uses or customer info / full item
- India: GalaxEye Space secures $6.5M in new funding to launch inaugural ‘Drishti Mission’ satellite, with use cases in defence, agriculture, aquaculture and beyond / full item
China: “…proposed infrastructure includes…data communication, positioning, navigation… space situational monitoring for ground-based, near-Earth, cislunar, lunar surface & deep space…” / full item
- China: Space Pioneer commercial launch firm continues towards first launch of Tianlong-3 rocket despite uncontrolled launch and explosion in June / full item
- Infographic: ‘China 2024 – Metrics of a Rising Power’ from BryceTech / full item
- China: Two spacecraft believed to have successfully reached lunar orbits following initial launch issue that left them stranded in low Earth orbit / full item
- New Zealand: Dawn Aerospace hits milestones with highly-reusable ‘spaceplane’ achieving Mach 0.92 and altitude of 15000m / full item
“Australia could host up to 100 rocket launches, including SpaceX launches… as a result of the US Technology Safeguards Agreement…” / full item
- Japan: Gov’t to apply foreign trade regulations to wide range of technologies, including chip-making equipment, in bid to secure stable supply chains into the future / full item
- Vietnam’s FPT expands in Japan with $200M for cloud AI services and solutions for businesses, looking to launch in 2025 and building on NVIDIA partnership / full item
- China: Huawei reportedly in testing phase of newest processor, Ascend 910C, with potential clients told that the chip is comparable to NVIDIA H100 / full item
China: ‘For Alibaba and several Chinese AI startups, open-source AI presents an opportunity for faster commercialization and global recognition.’ / full item
- South Korea: Samsung moves into CXL memory in bid to catch next AI tech wave, with CXL potentially boosting server memory capacity 10-fold / full item
“15 Japanese companies including Isuzu Motors and trading house Sojitz will receive government funding to create supply chains in Southeast Asia…”; semiconductors a key element / full item
- Video: The potential of Malaysia’s tech scene with Khailee Ng, 500 Global Managing Partner, from the recent Tech in Asia Conference Kuala Lumpur 2024 / full item
- ‘Taiwan-India Chips Cooperation and the Logic of Choosing India’ / full item
- Taiwan’s TSMC preps for $10.8 billion plant construction in Germany, targeting production in 2027 and counting Infineon and NXP as both clients and investors / full item
- Australia: An intro to the 6 Au startups that made it onto the Forbes Asia 100 to Watch list, working in space technologies, payments, AR and more / full item
- Singapore’s Equatorial Space rocket firm secured $1.5M pre-A led by Singapore’s Farquhar VC, with Australia’s Paspalis participating / full item
- 2024 Indo-Pacific Space & Earth Conference is set for Perth, Western Australia, in November / full item
- Construction of 100-home, 3D-printed housing project approaches completion, with NASA interested in lunar housing module applications / full item
Cushman & Wakefield: Asia Pacific Data Center Market H1 2024
- Asia tech news: Singapore cybersec, China’s G60 satellites, India semicon jobs, Japan’s meta-hikikomori, Vietnam digi-biz goals, HK crypto trading, AU-US space launch… / full item
- Lockheed Martin goes all-in on lunar ambitions, rolling out its vision in ‘A Water-Based Lunar Architecture’ / full item
- India: NxtQube drones infrastructure gains seed funding, targeting Universal Docking Station compatible with multiple manufacturers, battery-swapping, and drone swarm docking / full item
- China: UAV test flight successfully carries near 3.2 tons of cargo, completing 40-minute flight with potential altitude claimed of 7300 metres and 2200km range / full item
- China: Country’s largest-yet cargo drone completed 20-minute test run with cargo of 2 metric tons / full item
- China: Huawei reportedly in testing phase of newest processor, Ascend 910C, with potential clients told that the chip is comparable to NVIDIA H100 / full item
- India: Madhya Pradesh state may be set to gain Google Cloud startup hub and Center of Excellence, alongside interest from NVIDIA chip giant / full item
Swarms Over The Strait: Drone Warfare in a Future Fight to Defend Taiwan
Asia Tech newsletters:
August 2024
- August 28th: Digital banking in Thailand, quantum computing in India, crypto mining & electricity in Laos…
- August 21st: Flying cars in China, Taiwan partners Microsoft for AI, Australia’s sustainable lithium extraction…
- August 14th: Indonesia and EV batteries, HP backs away from China, Vietnam’s EV charging subsidies…
- August 7th: Vietnam’s digital business goals, crypto trading in Hong Kong, Australia’s space launch opportunities…
