China’s autonomous vehicles are literally unstoppable - Asian Tech Roundup

Plus: India loses patience with Apple in $38bn lawsuit

Welcome to Computing's weekly roundup of tech news in Asia. This time we look at China’s autonomous automotive menace, the latest in the Nvidia AI chip saga, and India’s $38 billion antitrust case against Apple.

The cautionary tale of the Sorcerer's Apprentice is often invoked to describe the problem of AI misalignment. In that tale, you will remember, the lazy apprentice casts a spell on a broom, instructing it to fetch water from the well while he kicks back and takes it easy. The magic broom proves to be unstoppably effective in this task, and a flooding disaster is only averted when the Sorcerer awakes and casts a counter spell.

Road users and builders in China have been frantically seeking the equivalent of a counter spell as rogue autonomous delivery vehicles careen off obstacles, bounce through rutted streets collecting motorcycles in their wheel arches and even drive through wet concrete on their mission to deliver their packages on time, prompting China’s latest viral social media phenomenon. “Nothing stops them,” commentators note.

Staying in China, the saga of Nvidia GPU exports to the country continues on its back-and-forth trajectory, the latest twist being America’s insistence that all China-bound Nvidia and AMD AI chipsets bound for China must be diverted through the US, where they will attract a 25% tariff. For its part, China says it will restrict the use of US GPUs to certain sectors as it promotes its own industry. Speaking of which, startup Zhipu AI claims to have trained a new advanced LLM using only Huawei hardware.

Meanwhile in India, the authorities have lost patience with Apple’s delaying tactics in providing information for an App Store antitrust case. If found guilty, the iPhone maker could be subject to a record-breaking $38 billion fine. The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has reportedly issued Apple with a final warning that it will that it will proceed in the case unilaterally if there is no response from Apple.

Australia

• Meta has deactivated more than half a million accounts belonging to children, to comply with Australia’s new social media for under-16s. Source
• Australia is in talks with the UK and Canada over banning social media platform X, due to sexually explicit material generated by the Grok chatbot. Source

China

• Videos showing autonomous delivery vehicles getting themselves into trouble have gone viral in China. The videos show unmanned vehicles ploughing over crumbling roads, bashing through barriers, ploughing up freshly poured concrete and in one case, continuing with motorcycles stuck in a wheel arch. Source
• The Trump administration has made official it’s verbal commitment to allowing shipments of the Nvidia H200 AI chip to China. There are conditions. China cannot receive more than 50% of the total amount of chips sold to American customers and Chinese customers will have to show sufficient security procedures” and cannot use the chips for military purposes. Source
• Despite shipping opportunities reopening, Beijing is indicating that it will exert control over which organisations within China can by the powerful chip with universities most likely to be allowed access. Source
• In another twist, on Wednesday the US issued new requirements that Nvidia chips made in Taiwan must enter China via the United States, where they will be subject to 25% tariffs. Source
• Meanwhile, Chinese authorities have reportedly ordered companies not to use security software made by US and Israeli firms including VMware, Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet and Check Point Software. Source
• A spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Commerce has said Beijing intends to investigate the acquisition of Manus, an AI firm that was born in China but relocated to Singapore in advance of Meta’s $2bn acquisition. Source
• China is launching an antitrust investigation into online travel platform Trip.com. Source
• A quarter of Hong Kong students struggle to finish homework without using chatbots, raising concerns over the impact of AI on children’s reasoning and problem-solving skills. Source
• Alibaba and US bank JP Morgan are said to be among the investors in chip designer Montage Technology Co, which is set to float on the Hong Kong stock exchange. Source
• Lin Junyang, technical lead of Alibaba’s Qwen team, has said the USA’s advantage in compute resources gives Chinese AI a “less than 20% chance” to surpass American tech giants in the next 3-5 years. Source
• Alibaba’s Qwen family of AI models has surpassed 700 million downloads on dev platform Hugging Face, making it – according to consultancy AIBase – the world’s most widely used open source AI system. Source
• Meanwhile Zhipu AI claims it has trained a new LLM using Huawei hardware exclusively, including the company’s Ascend Atlas 800T A2 server. Source
• The Cyberspace Administration of China has released draft rules to regulate how internet apps collect and use personal data. Source
• Shares of Chinese semiconductor firm OmniVision Integrated Circuits jumped 16.2% in their Hong Kong debut on Monday after the company raised HK$4.8 billion ($616 million) from a second ‌listing. Source
• China has formally applied to the UN to launch nearly 200,000 satellites into orbit. The move follows China's earlier criticisms of Starlink’s rapid deployment of 6,000 satellites and potential collision risks in low Earth orbit. Source
• Carmakers have found new ways to get their hands on Nexperia chips after supplies dried up when the Dutch government took control over the China-owned Netherlands-headquartered company last year citing national security and European economic security interests. Source

India

• India has issued a final warning to Apple over its $38 billion App Store antitrust case, accusing the company of using delaying tactics to undermine its investigations. Source
• India’s Supreme Court has ruled that US investment firm Tiger Global illegally avoided paying capital gains tax in India on profits linked to its exit in the 2018 Walmart takeover of Flipkart by routing them through Mauritius. Source
• The government has denied reports that it would require smartphone makers to provide their source code, though did confirm it is working on new mobile security standards. Source
• TCS has posted revenue growth for the third quarter marginally above estimate, mainly due to AI-driven growth. Revenues rose 4.9% to 670.87 billion rupees ($7.44 billion) in quarter ending December 31. Source
• Meanwhile, HCLtech’s AI business grew 19.9% in the 3^rd quarter, buoyed by a “strong uptick in agentic physical AI and AI factory programmes”. Source
• India has rolled out mandatory Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements for cryptocurrency exchanges, including liveness detection via selfies for users. Exchanges must also record the geographical coordinates, date, timestamp and IP address from which a user creates an account. Source
• Coal powered electricity fell in both China and India in 2025 for the first time as renewables took an increasing share of generation. Source
• Bengaluru-based cloud software company Amagi Media Labs has launched a $199 million IPO. The company provides cloud services for broadcast and streaming media. Source
• Tamil Nadu has signed a memorandum of understanding with Sarvam AI to develop a “sovereign AI park” in the state. Source

Japan

• The Japanese government is the latest to call on X to take measures against the alteration and sexualising of images using Grok. Source
• Japan has launched the words first deep-sea mining trial to extract rare earths. The trial is part of a much wider global effort to diversify access to rare earth which are crucial for battery production and for other electronic equipment, away from China. Source
• Japan has signed a memorandum of cooperation (MOC) on quantum science, technology, and innovation with Singapore. Source
• Fujitsu has won a place on a £984 million UK government framework, despite its commitment not to compete for new public sector contracts during the investigation into the Horizon scandal. Source

South Korea

• Police are considering imposing a travel ban on Coupang interim CEO Harold Rogers after he refused to appear for questioning over an investigation into a data breach at the online retailer which affected more than 33 million customers. Source
• SK Hynix has said it plans to invest KRW19 trillion ($12.9 billion) into a new chip packaging facility in Cheongju, in a bid to meet surging AI demand. Source
• Samsung is doing well out of the AI boom, but on commodity products rather than advanced technology. Source
• Samsung is launching its Certified Re-newed programme for refurbished devices in France, Germany and the UK. Previously these devices were only available in the USA and South Korea. Source
• Education and publishing conglomerate Kyowon confirmed a ransomware attack this week, admitting that customer data may have been stolen. Source

Taiwan

• The US and Taiwan have signed a trade deal that will see Taiwanese companies make direct investments of $250 billion into the US semiconductor industry. Source
• Chipmaker TSMC plans to increase capital spending by nearly 40% this year after a 35% jump in net profits for the latest quarter thanks to the boom in AI. Source
• Offshore wind projects created to power Taiwan’s chip industry are disrupting the livelihoods of its fisherfolk, reports Rest of World. Source
• Taiwan prosecutors have issued an arrest warrant for Pete Lau, CEO of Chinese smartphone maker OnePlus, alleging he was involved in illegal business and recruitment activities within Taiwan. Source

Other Asia

• Malaysia and Indonesia are the first countries in the world to block X due to its AI companion, Grok, spreading sexually explicit and non-consensual images. Source
• Singapore: Ant International, the Singapore-based spinoff of China’s Ant Group, has teamed up with Google to endorse the company’s Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), an open standard that powers agentic commerce. Source
• Qatar and the UAE will join Pax Silica, a US-led initiative to diversify control of AI-supply chains. Source
• Vietnam: Google will start to develop and manufacture high-end smartphones in Vietnam this year, as it seeks to diversify its supply chain outside China. Source