South Korea’s robot chefs - Asian Tech Roundup

Plus: China’s annual CO2 emissions fall for the first time

Welcome to Computing's weekly roundup of tech news in Asia. This time we look at the advent of robot chefs in South Korea’s roadside diners, the welcome downturn in China’s CO2 emissions thanks to its epic renewables rollout, and a North Korean hacker infiltrating a US politician’s election campaign.

Robotic chefs are starting to replace their human counterparts in South Korea’s roadside restaurants, to a mixed reaction. Restaurant owners praise their efficiency, saying that in an aging population competent and reliable cooks are hard to find. But customers are less happy, complaining the robots can’t cook and that menus have been dumbed down to accommodate automation. Meanwhile human staff say their jobs have been downgraded.

China, for some time the world’s largest emitter of CO2 is seeing these emissions drop for the first time, down by 1.6% year on year despite a surge in demand for energy, due to a massive rollout of clean power infrastructure. It’s perhaps too early to claim they have peaked, but a positive sign, nevertheless. Meanwhile in the world’s second largest emitter...

Also in the US, a politician outsourced work to a web developer who subcontracted some tasks to a dev who turned out to be a North Korean hacker on the red list of several major cybersecurity firms.

Australia

• Australia’s Human Rights Commission leaked private information including sensitive personal data online where it was indexed by search engines. Source
• Steven Worrall, currently Microsoft’s MD Australia and New Zealand, is to take over as CEO of the InfraCo division of telecoms firm Telstra in September. Source
• The APAC region has not invested enough in cybersecurity according to Avanade’s president: “If you look at all the research that has been published, it is not where it needs to be”. Source

China

• China is seeking to beat the world to nuclear fusion, with a new reactor set to be ready by 2027. Source
• Meanwhile the country’s CO2 emissions are falling despite surging power usage thanks to a mass deployment of renewables. Source
• Baidu has launched a cluster of 30,000 of its own P800 Kunlun chips, which can support the training of DeepSeek-like models, CEO Robin Li announced. Source
• Baidu is also planning to launch a driverless taxi service in Europe, with testing beginning in Switzerland. Source
• Researchers at Peking University have claimed a breakthrough in transistor design, based on a two-dimensional material, bismuth oxyselenide. They claim their silicon-free design achieves speeds 40% faster than Intel’s latest 3nm chips while using 10% less power. Source
• eCommerce platforms Alibaba and Shein are helping manufacturing companies find alternative locations in Vietnam and other countries. Source1 Source2
• CATL, the world’s largest battery manufacturer, plans to float on the Hong Kong stock exchange and hopes to raise $4 billion. Source
• The US has decided that using Huawei Ascend AI chips anywhere in the world violates its export controls. Source
• Meanwhile Tencent says it has stockpiled enough advanced AI chips to train new models for years. Source
• Chinese nation-state hackers are exploiting an unauthenticated file upload vulnerability in SAP NetWeaver. Users are advised to upgrade NetWeaver to the latest version as soon as possible. Source
• TikTok has been charged with failing to comply with the EU Digital Services Act over a lack of reporting of an advertising repository. Parent ByteDance could be fined a maximum 6% of global turnover. Source
• iPhone sales fell by 50% in March in China. Source

India

• India is becoming a hotspot for datacentres as both domestic and international demand for cloud and AI boom. Source
• The IndiaAI Mission, which promotes the R&D of AI in India, has shortlisted seven companies for GPU tenders and received 230 applications for building India-specific LLMs and small language models (SLMs). Source
• Amazon is to introduce ads for Indian subscribers of Amazon Prime Video from 17^th June. Source
• Taiwanese Apple device manufacturer Foxconn has been given the green light to build a new RS37 billion ($435 million) semiconductor plant in India in partnership with HCL Group. Source
• But Trump has told Apple he doesn’t want the company expanding into India. Source
• And Japanese chipmaker Renesas has signed two memoranda of understanding with India’s Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) to support local startups and promote manufacturing in India. Source
• Meta’s AI glasses, which boast including hands-free photo capture and real-time translation, are set to launch in India, raising questions about personal privacy. Source
• Growth of India’s broadband market is slowing overall, but fixed wireless access (FWA) and machine-to machine (M2M) connections are picking up pace. Source
• But it would take many years for Apple to diversify out of China because the supply chain is so entrenched in the country, according to a new book. Source

Japan

• Japan's antitrust watchdog is advancing a law that would prevent Apple and Google from monopolising the smartphone app store market. Source
• Sony predicts a 0.3% rise in operating profits in the financial year ending in March, after factoring in a 100 billion yen hit from the US trade war, which saw PS5 console sales fall significantly. However, the recent rapprochement between the US and China could change this prediction. Source
• NTT is to take its subsidiary NTT data private, by purchasing the remaining 2.37 trillion yen ($16.4 billion) of shares it does not currently own. Source
• The European Commission is to sign a letter of intent with Japan to boost cooperation in quantum technologies. The parties also discussed a deal to develop a submarine cable between Europe and Japan via the Arctic circle. Source

North Korea

• A web developer hired by a US politician from freelance platform Upwork, subcontracted work to a North Korean worker who used the developer’s credentials to infiltrate the election campaign site. Source
• North Korean threat actor TA406 has been targeting government organisations in Ukraine through phishing, credential harvesting and malware. Source

South Korea

• Robot chefs are replacing humans at some South Korean roadside restaurants with menus changed to be automatable and staff complaining of their work being downgraded. Source
• A North Korean threat group APT37 or ScarCruft is once again phishing South Korean organisations with national security interests. Source
• Samsung’s new S25 Edge phone is very thin at 5.8mm, but at the cost of poor battery life. Source
• Chinese and South Korean customers are known to have been affected by a cyberattack and data breach at fashion house Dior. The company confirmed its South Korean website was affected. Source
• Samsung is to buy German datacentre cooling specialist FlaktGroup for $1.68 billion. Source

Taiwan

• Zeon Corporation and Sino Applied Technology (SiAT) have formed a strategic partnership to expand production of single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) conductive paste, an essential material for the development of next-generation lithium-ion batteries. Source
• TSMC is the 10th most valuable company in the world with a market capitalisation of around NT$30.34 trillion (US$1 trillion). Source
• Foxconn downgraded its annual financial forecast owing to the strength of the Taiwanese dollar, even as it noted strong demand for AI servers. Source

Elsewhere in Asia

• Thailand: Thai officials seized more than 200 tons of electronic waste illegally imported from the US and plan to return it to source. Smuggling harmful e-waste is a growing global problem. Source