Tech giants bet big on Indian AI - Asian Tech Roundup

Plus: Australia’s social media ban takes effect

Welcome to Computing's weekly roundup of tech news in Asia. This time we look at new investment announcements by US tech firms looking to tap Indian talent and resources, fallout from the Coupang breach and the arrival of Australia’s social media ban for children.

As the AI race continues at breakneck speed, Amazon and Microsoft have both put their faith in India, with plans to invest a total of $52.5bn (£39.4bn) in AI-related ventures, on top of existing commitments.

Microsoft was first out of the traps, announcing $17.5 billion investment into India’s burgeoning AI sector, and Amazon followed a day later with plans for a $35 billion push into the country by 2030.

These announcements join one of similar size ($15 billion) by Google in October, which aims to create an AI data hub. Intel is also in play, via a $14 billion semiconductor tie-in with Tata.

US tech giants are already heavily invested in Indian high tech, seeing the country, in part, as a hedge against China. Plans include AI hubs, chip manufacture and a new hyperscale cloud region in Hyderabad. Microsoft is also working on a “sovereign cloud” for India, with promises to keep sensitive information in country, and plans to integrate AI across government services.

Elsewhere, there has been fallout from the giant Coupang data leak in South Korea (is there any other kind in that country?), with the CEO resigning, and a suspect identified as a security employee.

The Sino-American GPU to-and-fro continues with the US saying, "Take our chips (at 25% extra, naturally),” and China saying, "No thanks.”

And Australia's world-first social media ban for under-16s comes into effect, with the rest of the world watching closely.

Australia

• Australia has begun enforcing the world’s first social media ban for under-16s, although some teens have already found ways around the new rules. Source
• Social media platforms affected by the under-16s ban will be expected to deter the use of VPNs, the regulator has said. Source

China

• China will purposefully “limit access” to Nvidia’s H200 chip despite the USA lifting export restrictions, sources have told the Financial Times. Source
• At the same time, China is trying to boost domestic offerings by adding locally developed AI chips to an official government procurement list for the first time. Source
• Veteran investor Allen Zhu says China is likely to overtake the USA and become the world’s leading AI power within a decade. Source
• Moore Threads Technology will unveil its fifth-generation GPU architecture – an alternative to Nvidia’s CUDA platform – next week, it has announced on WeChat. Source
• Chinese smartphone makers are promoting apps that help iPhone users switch to their own brands. They believe Apple’s slowness in having AI features approved have opened a gap in the market. Source
• China’s largest AI companies, including Alibaba, are attracting finance from US-managed investment funds despite restrictions. Source
• The UK has sanctioned two Chinese tech firms - Sichuan Anxun Information Technology Co. Ltd and Integrity Technology Group – for launching “reckless and indiscriminate cyber-attacks” around the world (Source, Source)

India

• Both Amazon and Microsoft have announced massive Indian investment plans. Microsoft will invest $17.5 billion for AI development, and Amazon plans to double that with a $35 billion infusion for local cloud and AI infrastructure. Source
• Ecommerce marketplace Meesho’s share price climbed 46% from its issue price on the first day of trading. Source
• NATGRID, a public–private counter-terrorism initiative of the central government, aims to merge public and private datasets to enable seamless surveillance of individuals for “national security” reasons. Campaigners are sceptical, arguing that intercepting communication systems violates individual privacy. Source
• AI tools are being used to clone local dialects and create deepfakes to spread election disinformation in India. Source
• The government is seeking to track activity in the informal economy as more casual payments are carried out online, or mediated through social media and apps. Source.

Japan

• A test of Google’s AI overviews feature for tsunami information gave false information that could have put lives at risk. It falsely claimed all tsunami warnings had been lifted on 8^th December, hours before that actually happened. Source
• A 17-year-old from Osaka has been arrested for carrying out cyberattacks on an internet cafe operator in which personal data belonging to millions of people was leaked. Source

South Korea

• Advertisers will be required to label the use of AI in adverts from next year, as the country seeks to crack down on deepfakes that risk harming consumers. Source
• Park Dae-jun, the CEO of Coupang - South Korea’s largest online retailer – has stepped down after taking responsibility for a massive data breach. Nearly two-thirds of South Koreans were affected in the incident. Source
• The Coupang breach suspect was revealed to be a cybersecurity professional who had worked for the company for less than 2 years. Source
• Samsung will retake the leadership position from SK Hynix to be the biggest seller of RAM in 2025, analysts predict. Source

Elsewhere in Asia

• Indonesia: Research suggests Indonesia’s massive gambling ecosystem, long thought to be low level cybercrime, may in fact be a cover for a state sponsored actor. Source
• Singapore: A Malaysian man has been jailed for more than 5 years for making videos to teach people how to scam Singaporeans using malware. Source
• Taiwan: The Taiwanese authorities are investigating Japanese chip equipment maker Tokyo Electron for failing to prevent alleged theft of trade secrets from TSMC. Former TSMC executive Lo Wei-jen has been arrested on suspicion of leaking secrets to Intel. Source