India’s audacious AI data city - Asian Tech Roundup
Plus: Australia’s defence deal with Palantir
Welcome to Computing's weekly roundup of tech news in Asia. This time we look at the Global AI Impact Summit in New Delhi, Australia’s Palantir deal and Chinese datacentres turning to liquid cooling.
India is currently hosting the Global AI Impact Summit in New Delhi, where 35,000 delegates are rubbing shoulders with world leaders and top tech moguls - barring a couple of notable stay-aways. The summit is part of the world's most populous nation's drive to showcase itself as a global AI powerhouse, and to attract the all-important investment to make that happen.
One of the most eye-catching pitches was made by the state of Andhra Pradesh, which is planning an "AI data city” close to Visakhapatnam, a port city of 2 million people. With submarine links to Singapore, nuclear-powered infrastructure and a focus on cutting-edge AI, the project aims to attract billions in investment. The state's IT minister, Nara Lokesh, announced that $175 billion in investment agreements has already flowed in, backing 760 projects - including $15 billion from Google for its largest AI hub outside the US. A joint venture between Reliance Industries, Brookfield and Digital Realty is also said to be investing $11 billion in an AI datacentre.
Andhra Pradesh is offering several incentives including offering plots of land at US$0.01 per acre to major investors. It’s aiming to build an entire ecosystem on site, including server manufacturers and cooling system providers in addition to 6 GW of datacentre capacity. Lokesh professes to be an admirer of China's successful consolidation of entire supply chains into regional hubs, answering environmental critics by claiming the AI data city will make use of "surplus" monsoon water, with power coming from new nuclear, for which it has "in-principal approval".
Lokesh is the son of Andhra Pradesh chief minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, who helped turn Hyderabad into a global IT hub two decades ago. Both are allies of prime minister Modi, which probably doesn't hurt.
Australia
- A KPMG partner in Australia was fined A$10,000 for using AI to cheat during an internal training course on AI. More than 20 KPMG Australia staff have been caught cheating on exams since July. Source
- Australia has handed a $7.6 million deal to Palantir without competition to map its defence industry capability and capacity. Source
- Hackers stole 141 GB of data from Sydney-based financial technology company YouX. The attackers claimed to have stolen data on more than half a million 629,597 loan applications as well as addresses, names, phone numbers and driving licences. Source
- In the last quarter of 2025 2.1 GW of renewables were added to the electricity grid plus 2.3 GWh of battery storage, leaving the previous record - 1.3 GW added in third quarter of 2021 - well behind. Source
China
- ByteDance has released Doubao 2.0, an updated version of China’s most popular AI app. Source
- Over the Lunar New Year holiday Chinese authorities cracked down on social media comments that might appear to question the value marriage and having children. Source
- Chinese companies are turning to liquid cooling for their datacentres, causing shares in Shenzhen-based Envicool to triple in value over the past year. Source
- ByteDance has said it will prevent the unauthorised use of IP on its AI video generator Seedance 2.0 after complaints from movie makers including Disney. Source
- Alibaba has released a new version of artificial intelligence model Qwen 3.5 designed to execute complex tasks independently, with big improvements in performance and cost that the Chinese tech giant claims beat major US rival models on several benchmarks.
- Shanghai start-up NeuroXess is moving to human trials of its neural interface brain implant technology that enables communication between people and machines. It’s one of several Chinese rivals to Elon Musk’s Neuralink. Source
- The EU is investigating ecommerce platform Shein over concerns about its “addictive design” and illegal products. Source
India
- India is planning to build an “AI data city” in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, positioned as a hub for AI infrastructure with submarine links to Singapore. Source
- India, which is seeking to be a hub for AI and compute, has announced plans to attract more than $200 billion in AI infrastructure investment over the next two years. Source
- Galgotias University was evicted from its stall at India’s AI summit after a staff member was filmed pretending a robot dog bought from China was developed at the university. Source
- Last week Indian IT shares suffered their worst downturn in 10 months, losing $50 billion on fears of AI disruption. Source
- One of India’s largest pharmacy chains, DavaIndia Pharmacy, had a flaw that could have allowed attackers to gain full administrative rights of its platform. It has now been fixed. Source
- A $1.1 billion government-backed venture capital programme aimed at boosting domestic tech startups has been approved. Source
- Fractal Analytics, the first Indian AI company to go public, saw shares drop on its first day of trading from its issue price of RS900 to RS873 per share amid market jitters about India’s tech sector. Source
- Software services firm Infosys has revealed that AI represented about 5.5% of its revenue in the previous quarter, the first time India’s second-largest software exporter has broken AI out separately in financial reports. Source
- Adani Enterprises plans to spend $100 billion on building AI-ready data centres powered by renewable energy by 2035. Source
- Yotta Data Services is to spend over $2 billion on Nvidia’s latest Blackwell Ultra chips for a new AI hub as it prepares to go public. The company is seeking to raise up to $1.2 billion from investors. Source
- OpenAI and Indian fintech company Pine Labs have announced a deal to integrate AI-driven reasoning into the firm’s payments stack, with the aim of boosting the update of AI-led commerce in India. Source
- OpenAI will also be the first customer of Tata Consultancy Service’s data centre business, beginning with 100 megawatts of capacity. Source
- India's Reliance Industries and telecoms arm Jio announced a $109.8 billion investment to run over the next seven years to build out AI and data infrastructure, Source
- Indian thinktank the Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER) has published research which finds that AI is not an immediate threat to the country's important IT services industry. The research suggests that whilst job losses will occur, over time the employment opportunities will be net positive. Source
Japan
- Japanese chipmaker Renesas has strengthened ties with GlobalFoundries with a new multi-billion-dollar manufacturing partnership aimed at boosting US semiconductor production. Source
- Sex toy manufacturer Tenga has disclosed a data breach after one of its employees allegedly fell for a phishing email. Source
- The Tokyo-based Washington Hotel brand has announced a successful ransomware attack compromised its network and exposed business data. Source 1 Source 2
- Sony has reportedly developed a system that can identify the original works embedded in AI-generated music. This could allow rights holders to claim compensation when their material influences synthetic tracks. Source
- Brewing giant Asahi has confirmed that more than 115,000 counts of personal data were exposed in the cyberattack it suffered last September. Source
South Korea
- Samsung says it has begun mass production of HBM4 memory and has shipped commercial products to customers, claiming an industry first. HBM4 is more efficient and faster than previous DRAM. Source
- Samsung Electronics stock was the most popular commodity for high net worth (HNW) investors in South Korea (with financial assets topping KRW1 billion ($700,000)) last year, accounting for almost a third of all HNW purchases of domestic stocks. Source 1 Source 2