Q3 2024: Critical technologies

Critical technologies in the news across Q3 2024 – July, August & September of the year – captured a wide range of developments and challenges including: Huawei’s latest processor, the Ascend 910C, claiming the equivalent of NVIDIA chip processing power; Japan’s many moves into the global semiconductor industry; quantum computing, and cryptography, developments across Asia and globally; and many more.

Critical technologies in September 2024

August 2024: Critical technologies, globally

Critical tech news: July 2024

Asia’s Tech News, Weekly newsletter >

Peri Labs: The State of Edge Artificial Intelligence

September 2024: Critical tech

WEF: ‘Securing Minerals for the Energy Transition‘ “McKinsey… indicates that investments of $300-400 billion in mining, refining & smelting would be needed per year through 2030…” / full item
Linux Foundation Decentralized Trust launches to boost collaboration in blockchain, ledger, identity, interoperability, cryptographic, and related technologies / full item
Oklo, nuclear energy startup backed by OpenAI, gains US Dept of Energy agreement for first small, modular commercial microreactor in Idaho / full item
IBM Quantum Data Center expands with highest number of utility-scale quantum computers at a single location in the world, offered to clients via IBM cloud services / full item
Download: ‘Quantum for Society – Meeting the Ambition of the SDGs‘ looking at quantum technologies in the context of the UN Sustainable Development Goals / full item

Japan’s SoftBank partners Intelsat for hybrid satcom solution allowing ongoing connection via mobile or satellite, globally, using single device and single account / full item
Star Catcher raised $12.25M with plans for first-of-kind grid to beam solar energy to spacecraft in Low Earth Orbit, and potentially to Earth and locations beyond / full item
An overview of the challenges faced by GPS and space-based navigation, with a focus on AltPNT technologies / full item
Lockheed Martin is testing inflatable structures for use in space and lunar environments, seeing benefits over metal in scaleability, volume-to-mass ratio and more / full item
Verizon has partnered Skylo to launch satellite-based text and location services for Android smartphones in the US, at no extra cost / full item

Download: ‘Global megatrends – Shaping the future of societies, economies, and values‘ / full item
The US Commerce Department is expected on Monday to propose prohibiting Chinese software and hardware in connected and autonomous vehicles on American roads… / full item
Japan: An intro to Emulsion Flow Technologies, producing modular units to scale recycling of rare earth metals and critical minerals / full item
China: “According to investigations by Chinese media, data center players have built too much capacity, lack the skills to carry out complex AI processes, and have overestimated demand.” / full item
Japan sets sights on faster, light-based photonics for data centers to facilitate build-out of facilities outside of metro and industrial areas / full item

Deutsche Bank: G20 Roadmap for enhanced cross-border payments

Indonesia: PT Telkom Data Ekosistem, subsidiary of state-owned telco, now targeting data center capacity of up to 500MW by 2030, seeing opportunities in AI-focused services / full item
India: Techno Electric & Engineering Co is preparing to build edge data centres for RailTel telco in 102 Indian cities, boosting the country’s digital infrastructure / full item
China: Over $6BN invested to date in nationwide datacenter network, so far consisting of near 2 million server racks and using energy from China’s West to drive Eastern tech centers / full item

Australia: ElectraLith, startup making lithium extraction susatinable, running on renewable energy and requiring no water or chemicals / full item
India: Pixxel becomes the first Indian space firm to secure NASA contract to provide a hyperspectral earth imaging satellite constellation / full item
Oracle unveils its first zettascale cloud computing clusters, delivering the largest AI supercomputer in the cloud with up to 131,072 NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs / full item
Australia’s Quantum Brilliance to help deliver world-first mobile quantum computer for Germany’s cyber innovation agency by 2027, with civil and defense use cases / full item

HSBC successfully trials first quantum-secure tech for trading tokenized physical gold, looking at protection from future quantum computing attacks / full item
Google and Microsoft web browsers prep to change security coding to defend against risks likely to be posed by quantum computers / full item
Japan: Fujitsu and Osaka Uni Center for Quantum Info & Quantum Biology announce 2 new technologies, one cutting calculation time from 5 years to 10 hours. / full item
“Shrinking [Australia’s] presence in the global semiconductor value chain has allowed us to sidestep… trying to compete with global semiconductor superpowers, but… we lose opportunity” / full item
An estimated 20% of the global semiconductor engineering workforce is of Indian origin… Despite this… [the] sector has struggled to generate significant financial returns / full item
China: YMTC, a key player in the flash memory segment, achieves chip design architecture innovation as it responds to ‘tech war’ limitations / full item
Taiwan: TSMC is preparing ground for two 2nm semiconductor fabrication plants to commence operations in Q1 and Q3 of 2025, building on volume of 3nm chip orders / full item
Intel’s contract manufacturing arm signed on as a customer with Amazon’s cloud unit for the production of customized AI-focused chips / full item
India: Uttar Pradesh unveils plans for state’s first semiconductor park in Noida, aiming to attract global chip firms with a range of subsidies / full item
Japan: An overview of Hokkaido’s moves into semiconductor manufacturing, touching on the Rapidus-IBM partnership for a 2nm semicon fabrication plant / full item
India: Tata Consultancy Services reportedly now working with Tata Electronics, leveraging different positions in value chains to roll out first made-in-India chips by 2026 / full item

ASPI: The future of subsea cables and opportunities for Australia

Intel has outsourced production of Lunar Lake processors to Taiwan’s TSMC, and reportedly to outsource all sub-3nm process manufacturing to the firm / full item
India: US’ Applied Materials inks MoU with Tamil Nadu gov’t for AI-enabled tech Center of Excellence focused on semicon manufacturing & equipment / full item
The Netherlands plans to limit ASML Holding NV’s ability to repair and maintain its semiconductor equipment in China… / full item
Japan: Intel partners AIST for advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment and materials R&D hub / full item
China: “Although a difference in yield still exists, SMIC’s capabilities are approaching a level 3 years behind TSMC…with comparable performance as TSMC’s 5-nm products…” / full item
India’s Kaynes Semiconductor approved for Gujarat assembly, testing, marking & packaging facility, backed by near $400K investment under gov’t India Semiconductor Mission / full item
HP is set to receive a $50M US Commerce Department grant to modernize existing semiconductor facility, with flow-on benefits in health and medical tech, AI and more / full item
China Manned Space Agency unveils extravehicular lunar suit to be used in the country’s future crewed lunar landing missions. / full item
India: Karnakata state to set space policy, developing a space technologies Centre of Excellence with sights on services for 10% of the global industry / full item
SpaceX has proposed a $1.5BN investment to bring Starlink to Vietnam / full item
China: Deep Blue Aerospace completes 10 of 11 tasks with first-of-its-kind reusable kerosene-fuelled Nebula-1 rocket, but crashes at the final stage / full item
India’s GalaxEye space-technologies firm gains $2M backing from Infosys Innovation Fund, seeing opportunities in multi-sensor satellites and comprehensive datasets generated / full item
India: Gov’t has approved space projects including Chandrayaan-4 lunar sample return mission, a first space station module, and Venus Orbiter Mission / full item
China: Landspace successfully completes 10km vertical liftoff, vertical landing test of reusable orbital rocket, targeting first orbital flight in 2025 / full item

Franklin Templeton: Digital Assets Bulletin, September 2024

Singapore: Eartheye Space raised $1.5M pre-seed with online sat-tasking platform claiming workflow across 475 satellites / full item
China: Geespace, backed by Geely, launched 3rd batch of satellites for ‘megaconstellation’ of near 6000 LEO sats, aiming for global broadband services / full item
China is to to launch a 2-vehicle Mars sample-and-return mission in 2028, aiming for an optimal Mars launch window that opens for only a few weeks every 26 months / full item
“India’s space agency expects a 20%-30% increase in its budget in the coming years…” with pricing aiming for on-par with SpaceX / full item
China: Tianwen-2 prep is underway for 2.5 year sampling mission from a near-Earth asteroid, launching 2025 and later slingshotting to a second asteroid / full item
China’s space plans: “…5 main scientific themes have been identified for future breakthroughs…” “..extreme universe, space-time ripples… habitable planets… biological & physical space….” / full item
Taiwan: Beyond 5G low-Earth orbit satellite program potentially facing setbacks with low payload performance and project timeline delays / full item
Malaysia’s OMS undersea cabling firm sets $300M for new ASEAN-focused cable systems and acquisitions, responding to demand for data centers and cloud computing / full item
New Indonesia-to-Singapore Nongsa-Changi undersea cable was recently announced, targeting Q4 2025 operations connecting with Nongsa Digital Park / full item
Microsoft, BlackRock and partners unveil $30BN fund for AI infrastructure, looking to mobilise up to $100BN focusing primarily on US data center development / full item
KDDI telecoms major and Sharp electronics firm partner for what may be Asia’s largest data center in Osaka, focusing on AI services / full item
Vietnam: Google reportedly considering construction of hyperscale data centre in South Vietnam, the first major US tech company investment in the country / full item
“Malaysia (mainly due to Johor) has observed the highest increase in operational capacity at 80%, between H2 2023 and H1 2024…” / full item
China: Shanghai’s Energy Singularity looks to raise $500M to further develop cheaper next-gen nuclear fusion tech with small-scale tokamak reactor / full item
China & nuclear energy: “…planning at least 150 new reactors in the next 15 years, more than the rest of the world has built in the past 35…. could cost as much as $440BN…” / full item
India: Tata Electronics and Taiwan’s PSMC ink agreement for major semiconductor manufacturing facility in Gujarat, with investment projected at $11BN / full item
“Worldwide spending on semiconductor equipment is expected to grow 24 percent to $123 billion in 2025…” / full item

Accenture: Supply chains networks in the age of generative AI

Oracle unveils its first zettascale cloud computing clusters, delivering the largest AI supercomputer in the cloud with up to 131,072 NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs / full item
Taiwan’s TSMC and Korea’s Samsung Electronics reportedly discussed plans for semiconductor plant in the UAE, potentially rivaling TSMC’s world’s-largest fab in Taiwan / full item
AMD now classifies itself as a ‘data center first’ company, with CPU and gaming businesses unable to match data business revenue / full item
India’s Tata Electronics inks MoU with Tokyo Electron Limited, accelerating production of semiconductor manufacturing equipment in Gujarat, and assembly & testing in Assam / full item
“Malaysia is accelerating its ambitions to become a major player in the global digital economy and semiconductor industry through two significant initiatives…” / full item
South Korea: Samsung enters mass-production of semiconductor industry’s first 1Tb V-NAND flash memory for SSDs serving ultra-high-capacity servers / full item
Malaysia: Taiwan’s ELNA opens 2nd printed circuits board plant in Penang with $230M in funding, seeing supply chain opportunities in a range of sectors / full item
“…the silicon photonics market is nascent but will grow at an annual compound rate of 40% from 2023, reaching $500 million by 2028.” / full item
India: Silizium Circuits and Calligo Technologies, semiconductor and RISC-V startups respectively, and the support received from Taiwan’s semicon industry / full item
South Korea’s Hanwha Aerospace and Australia’s Gilmour Space ink MOU for collaboration in space launch and satellite imagery / full item
Australia: AICRAFT AI firm secures SA Space Collaboration & Innovation Fund backing, partnering India’s Guerin space-tech for miniaturized SAR radar / full item
Japan: Taiwan’s TSMC semiconductor chip-maker is on track to build a 3rd plant in Japan by 2030, with timeframe slowed due to availability of trained workforce / full item
Vietnam: An overview of Vietnam’s 10 proposed undersea cabling projects, and concerns around possible participation of a number of China’s cable ecosystem firms / full item
South Korea’s SK Hynix announces high-bandwidth memory and enterprise SSD milestones at Semicon Taiwan, in part set to enhance data transfer and efficiency in AI uses / full item

GITEX Asia Tech Conference & Expo: April 2025 in Singapore

Critical technologies: August

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
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

The Politics of Subsea Cables in Indonesia

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
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
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

Suse: Securing the Cloud – APAC 2024 edition

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
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
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
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

PwC: Generative AI in – the new face of banking disruption

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

WEF: Chief Risk Officers Outlook – October 2024

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
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

Hoover Institution: Digital Currencies – The US, China and the World

Critical tech news: July 2024

‘The Data Center is the New Compute Unit: NVIDIA’s Vision for System-Level Scaling’ / full item
Download: ‘The Case for Confidential Computing – Delivering Business Value Through Protected, Confidential Data Processing’ from the Linux Foundation / full item
NVIDIA’s lead in design & development: “This little-known NVIDIA programme is backing 4,500 European startups… and over 17,000 around the world…” / full item
IonQ, a US quantum computing firm, raised $55M in round led by funds backed by Samsung and United Arab Emirates government, with unique room-temperature quantum tech / full item
Digital twins tech in semiconductors & integrated circuits: “One of the most compelling arguments for digital twins is its potential to replace costly wafer runs with software runs.” / full item
“Italy is gearing up for a major role in European semiconductor production with… plans to invest around €10 billion ($10.7 billion) in the sector this year.” / full item
Semiconductor funding, globally, in Q2 of 2024 saw 91 startups raise $2.6 billion – here’s a breakdown of companies and categories / full item
“US exports of semiconductors were worth $52.7 billion in 2023, 6th-highest among US exports, behind only refined oil, crude oil, airlines, natural gas and automobiles.” / full item
Nexperia, semiconductor maker owned by China’s WingTech, to invest $200M in expanding capacity at main production site in Germany, despite growing scrutiny around subsidies / full item
Etched AI startup raised $120M, focusing on specialised chips for running specific AI models used by OpenAI and Google Gemini, stepping into competition with NVIDIA / full item
SpaceX unveils backpack-sized Starlink Mini satellite internet antenna / full item
Available now: Q2 2024 Space Investment Quarterly, looking at activity and space industry trends, from Space Capital / full item
‘Space – The $1.8 trillion opportunity for global economic growth’, a report from the World Economic Forum / full item

Inc42: The Rise of India’s Semiconductor Startups

Break-up of defunct Russian satellite creates debris cloud in orbit, forcing ISS astronauts to shelter in other docked spacecraft / full item
Indonesia expands Simbara mineral and coal online tracking system to also track nickel and tin, recognizing geopolitical and technological importance of key minerals / full item
South Korea: Ministry of SMEs & Startups unveils 15 ‘preliminary unicorns’ and 50 ‘baby unicorns’ selected for Global Unicorn Project, each working in ‘critical growth industries’ / full item
India and UK partner for tech security initiative, aiming to work closely on crucial technologies and supply chains across critical minerals, AI, semiconductors, telecoms and beyond / full item
Critical & emerging technologies: Global news in June 2024, touching on semiconductors, artificial intelligence, space launch, satellites, quantum and more / full item
Generative AI & cybersecurity: “[Accenture] has seen roughly a “doubling” of ransomware attacks and a 1,000% increase in phishing attacks over the past 12 months.” / full item
South Korea: Poen secures $28M Series B with remanufacture of EV waste batteries / full item
‘The Data Center is the New Compute Unit: NVIDIA’s Vision for System-Level Scaling’ / full item
‘Underground network smuggles Nvidia’s AI GPUs into China despite US sanctions — some smugglers even sell entire servers’ / full item
New Zealand: An intro to UneeQ’s Synanim AI animation solution, working with NVIDIA on ‘digital humans’ tech in synthetic voice, language, dialect, pronunciation and beyond / full item
Q2 2024: Critical & emerging technologies news summary, capturing headlines across April, May and June of 2024 / full item

Cyber resilience and emerging technologies

WEF: Navigating cyber resilience in the age of emerging technologies

“This year alone, researchers say, more than 60,000 commercial flights have been hit by bogus GPS signals, which can confuse pilots.” / full item
India: iVP Semi secures $5M pre-A and unveils chip design center plans for Chennai and Bangalore, alongside licensing semiconductor chip product IP from Taiwan, Japan and the US / full item
Japan: An interview overview of Rapidus’ goal of becoming a global leader in the highest-value corner of the semiconductors market, the logic chips space / full item
China: StarShine Semiconductor adds Series B funding of $137.6M with focus on radio frequency filters and modules, with China Mobile and Wenzhou City investment platform taking part / full item
Singapore moves into semiconductor space with NXP and Vanguard International plans for $7.8BN factory, adding to recent GlobalFoundries and Micron investments / full item
China: Huawei partners chip foundry, Wuhan Xinxin, and semicon packaging firms for high-bandwidth memory – HBM – chips, aiming for domestic control of AI-focused chips / full item

2024 Threat hunter perspectives: Insights from the front lines

India’s Tier-2 & Tier-3 cities’ semiconductor opportunity: “”…expenses up to 30% lower than in Tier-1 cities, including employee salaries, real estate, and administrative costs.” / full item
Japan’s Softbank Group has acquired UK’s AI chip accelerator firm, Graphcore / full item
SEMICON Taiwan conference and expo is set for September 4-6, looking at all things in microelectronics and with a theme focus on artificial intelligence / full item
Malaysia: “…$5.33BN to transform the nation into a global semiconductor hub… develop an integrated circuit design park in Selangor and a ‘Silicon Island’ off the coast of Penang” / full item
India’s L&T engineering and infra conglomerate acquires Bengaluru’s SiliConch Systems, a fabless semiconductor design company, fast-tracking L&T’s chips presence / full item
South Korea: A look at Samsung’s challenges around AI-focused chips, with competitors gaining ground in supplying HBM – high-bandwidth memory – semiconductors to NVIDIA / full item
Japan: Semiconductor makers including Sony, Mitsubishi and Toshiba planning near $31BN in capital investments to 2029, boosting production of power devices and image sensors / full item
Japan: Toshiba partners Rohm Co semiconductor manufacturer for $636M investment over 3 years, looking at chips for EV power control and industrial devices / full item
China: 3rd phase of ‘Big Fund’ has been established with registered capital of $47BN to focus on semiconductors and other strategic, critical and emerging technologies / full item
“…reports indicate that Chinese companies have accessed Nvidia’s latest AI chips… on the US export control list, through overseas servers of American companies Google and Microsoft.” / full item
Taiwan: AMD, US chip design giant, gains approval for Taiwan R&D center, with local companies to benefit alongside the creation of 1000 jobs / full item
China: “The PRC’s advancements… in photonic technology aim to revolutionize the nation and military with chips potentially 1000 times faster than their electronic counterparts.” / full item
Taiwan’s ASE Technology Holding Co, world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, to launch new high-end chip testing plant in the US, nearshoring to better serve key US customers / full item
“…the stolen files include details on future AMD products, datasheets, employee and customer databases, property files, firmware, source code, and financial documentation.” / full item
China’s ByteDance, parent firm of TikTok, is now working with chips firm, Broadcom, on a restrictions-compliant 5 nanometer AI-focused processor design / full item

Stanford University: Artificial Intelligence Index Report 2024

South Korea: Gov’t to offer $12.2 billion in loans for semiconductor chipmakers from July, alongside tax breaks for other ‘national strategic technologies’ / full item
The 2nd Australian Space Week is set for July 22-26 in Adelaide, a showcase of technologies, innovations and more in the space ecosystem / full item
China’s Tianlong-3 rocket suffered an unintended launch and crash, with parent firm Beijing Tianbing, aka Space Pioneer, acknowledging a structural failure / full item
China: 7th launch of iSpace Hyperbola-1 solid-fuel rocket fails, dropping successful-launch record to just 3 out of 7 / full item
Australian Space Week is set for July 22-26, alongside the 17th Australian Space Forum, featuring showcases, seminars, networking and more / full item
Singapore & semiconductors: “Almost all of Micron NAND memory is made in Singapore. NAND contributed $2.1BN to Micron’s revenue last quarter, representing 30% of its revenue.” / full item

Taiwan & global semiconductor supply chain: August-September 2024 (pdf)

The 2nd Australian Space Week is set for July 22-26 in Adelaide, a showcase of technologies, innovations and more in the space ecosystem / full item
Australia: NSW Space+ Program grants program launches, in part aiming to showcase Australian space-tech to international stakeholders in 2025 / full item
China adds a 5th Gaofen-11 hi-res imaging satellite to CHEOS constellation, believed capable of image resolution of around 10cm, likely for both civil and military use / full item
Beijing Institute of Spacecraft System Engineering proposes 21-sat network around the moon to provide real-time, high-precision navigation and monitoring / full item
China: ‘The upper stage of China’s Long March 6A rocket appears to be creating numerous pieces of space debris, adding to the growing issue of orbital debris.’ / full item
China: State-owned Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Tech preps for launch capability boost with approaching 1st launch of Long March 12, capable of 12000kg payload delivery / full item
“The Cook Islands is experiencing a profound digital transformation touching every aspect of the lives of its 20,000 inhabitants on 15 island groups scattered across 2M square miles…” / full item
Japan: An overview of the Space Strategy Fund launched earlier this year, a $6 billion, 10-year initiative to boost space-related R&D / full item
Australia: Gilmour Space rocket developer and satellite launcher to launch a suborbital flight test service in Australia for commercial and defence customers requiring hypersonic speeds / full item
Japan’s Axelspace Holdings gains Epson and Epson X Investment Corp subsidiary backing in development, manufacturing and operation of microsatellites / full item
Australia: 4 space research projects received $18M funding as part of the $230M University of South Australia-led iLAuNCH Trailblazer program / full item
China’s International Lunar Research Station: “We hope to work with 50 countries by inviting 500 foreign scientific research institutions, and 5,000 foreign scientific research personnel…” / full item
The 17th Australian Space Forum is set for July 24th & 25th in Adelaide Convention Centre / full item
China’s Chang’e-6 reentry capsule returned to Earth on June 25th, completing 53-day mission and returning with near 2kg of samples from the moon’s far side / full item
China: First 18 satellites commencing build-out of China’s G60 Starlink mega-constellation of over 12,000 satellites is set for August 5th / full item
South Korea’s Innospace secures contracts for $1.5M from Italy’s CShark and Thailand’s EOS ORBIT to place satellites into orbit / full item
SpaceX is in talks with Australian and US officials around landing and recovering Starship rocket off Australia’s coast, possibly a first step toward a bigger presence in the region / full item
TSMC and ASML near final agreement on purchase of next-gen extreme ultraviolet lithography equipment for semiconductor production, with sights on 1nm process / 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
Taiwan: AMD, US chip design giant, gains approval for Taiwan R&D center, with local companies to benefit alongside the creation of 1000 jobs / full item
Australia’s Northern Territory Gov’t and Japan Organisation for Metals and Energy Security ink 2 MOUs to boost critical minerals and energy cooperation / full item

World Bank: Electronic Signatures

“Italy is gearing up for a major role in European semiconductor production with… plans to invest around €10 billion ($10.7 billion) in the sector this year.” / full item
An intro to India’s Silizium Circuits semiconductor startup, working with TSMC on 2 semiconductor chips and with more in development / full item
“Taiwan’s TSMC is increasing its supply of 3.5 nm semiconductors. However… China has no way to secure these products… we need to find ways to effectively utilize the 7 nm semiconductors.” / full item
‘The Data Center is the New Compute Unit: NVIDIA’s Vision for System-Level Scaling’ / full item
South Korea’s Samsung steps up competition with Taiwan’s TSMC and others, unveiling plans for one-stop AI chip productions solutions for clients, claiming a 20% cut in delivery times / full item
South Korea: Samsung secures a 2-nanometer AI chip foundry and package order from Japan’s Preferred Networks Inc AI applications developer / full item
Malaysia: A brief overview of the goals of the Silicon Island project, a man-made recovered island off Penang’s southern coast, projecting 220,000 new tech jobs over 30 years / full item
US Commerce Dep’t to award Taiwan’s GlobalWafers up to $400M in grants for Texas and Missouri plants to significantly boost silicon wafer production / full item
TSMC and ASML near final agreement on purchase of next-gen extreme ultraviolet lithography equipment for semiconductor production, with sights on 1nm process / 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
Taiwan’s Foxconn unveils plans to invest $137M to construct a new business HQ – in Zhengzhou, China / full item
India’s Jio conglomerate and Taiwan’s MediaTek semiconductor giant to supply India’s electric scooter market with digital dashboards and Android-based operating system / full item
South Korea: Rebellions Inc AI chip-maker gains $14.4M from Saudi Arabia’s Aramco oil giant, likely an opening move to more fully entering the Middle Eastern market / full item
India and Bangladesh partner on emerging tech including civil nuclear and space, and development of a small satellite for Bangladesh for launch via an Indian launch vehicle / full item
Japan: “…suborbital launch by TiSpace has faced regulatory hurdles… amid questions over whether Japan should embrace overseas business… to double the size of its… space industry over the next decade” / full item
Australia’s SmartSat CRC joins with New Zealand Gov’t to bring 4 joint research projects under Australia-New Zealand Collaborative Space Program / full item
Australian gov’t CSIRO research agency to trial AquaWatch in California, delivering satellite data-driven water quality forecasting in partnership with US universities and gov’t / full item
Australia’s Space Machines Company inks Launch Service Agreement with NewSpace India, government company under Indian Space Research Organisation, for SMC’s next sat launch / full item

Wade K Wright: GITEX Asia Tech Voice & Ambassador

Weekly newsletters

For a one-shot round-up of each week’s technology news headlines, gathered across Southeast Asia and the Indo-Pacific, you should read Asia’s Tech News, Weekly, the Startup News Asia newsletter, on LinkedIn and via Substack.