Asian Tech Roundup: More sanctions for Chinese chipmakers

Plus: Australia’s increasing concerns over US big tech dominance

Welcome to Computing's weekly roundup of tech news in Asia. This time we look at the latest ratcheting-up of US attempts to contain the Chinese semiconductor sector

Australia

• Australia’s Competition Commission has expressed concerns over the dominance of Google and Microsoft. Source
• A Senate select committee has called for large language models by large tech companies to be classified as “high-risk” under a new AI law . Source

China

• Jack Ma sees AI future for Ant Group. Source
• The USA has launched a third round of sanctions targeting China’s chipmakers, which includes limits on exports of high bandwidth memory chips to China; additional chipmaking and software tools; and chipmaking equipment made in Asia. Source
• In response, China has placed export controls on dual-use items (those that can be used for civilian or military purposes) related to gallium, germanium, antimony, and superhard materials. Source
• Despite the sanctions, Chinese chip firms insist they can withstand the new export limits. Source
• Tencent Holdings has introduced a text-to-video tool, HunyuanVideo, using its Hunyuan AI model. Source
• TikTok owner ByteDance has introduced an image recognition feature to its AI assistant, Doubao. Source

India

• Verification vendor Signzy, used by hundreds of banks for know-your-customer checks, ID verification and customer onboarding has been hacked. Source
• India has blocked more1,700 Skype IDs and 59,000 WhatsApp accounts used in "digital arrests”, in which fraudsters impersonate law enforcement officials to extort their victims. Source
• Russian crime group Turla has been caught using networks associated with a Pakistani-based APT group known as Storm-0156 to spy on individuals and organisations in India and Afghanistan. Source
• Israel Aerospace Industries is seeking deep tech startups in India to work together in fields such as big data, signal and image processing, green energy and more. Source

Japan

• Japanese tech companies like NEC and Mitsubishi are “struggling” to keep up with EU regulations like the Cyber Resilience Act. Source
• Japan is developing an AI system to combat online anime piracy. Source
• A new spear-phishing campaign pinned on Chinese threat groups and targeting Japanese individuals has been detected. It delivers backdoors which allow the victim’s activities to be monitored. Source

South Korea

• Police have arrested the head of a satellite receiver firm and several employees for allegedly adding DDoS functionality to its equipment for a customer. Source
• Samsung, LG Electronics and Hyundai Motor Group are among investors in potential Nvidia rival Tenstorrent. Source

Taiwan

• Sources say Nvidia has encountered a technical bottleneck in the mass production of its next-generation Blackwell architecture GB200 chip in Taiwan. As a result Microsoft is expected to cut orders. Source
• Tokyo Electron Ltd, a chip production machinery manufacturer, has opened a NT$2 billion ($61.5 million) operations centre in Tainan. Source
• Threat actors are using SmokeLoader malware to target manufacturing, healthcare and IT organisations in Taiwan. Source

Other Asia

• Asia: Fewer than 10% of organisations across Asia have AI governance policies in place, according to a survey by Deloitte. Source
• Cambodia: The government has blocked access to the websites of 16 different cryptocurrency exchanges, including Binance and Coinbase – but not their apps. Source
• Indonesia: Investment minister Rosan Roeslani has said the country expects Apple to commit to a $1 billion investment in the country before it allows sales of the latest iPhone and Apple Watch, which it banned in October. Source
• Singapore: The European Commission has signed an agreement with Singapore’s Ministry of Digital Development and Information to cooperate on artificial intelligence, specifically the safety of general-purpose AI models. Source
• Southeast Asia: UAE-based Damac Group says it will invest $3 billion in datacentres across southeast Asia over the next 3-5 years, with a focus on Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand. Source
• Vietnam: Nvidia and the Vietnamese government will jointly establish an AI R&D centre and an AI datacentre. Source