Are you ready for the humanoid robot bubble? - Asian Tech Roundup

Plus: Delhi Police show off their smart glasses

Welcome to Computing's weekly roundup of tech news in Asia. This time we look at why you may not be able to hand your household chores over to robots just yet, Delhi Police’s dystopian turn and Japan’s biggest port under ransomware attack.

There’s been a lot of big talk of late about humanoid robots.

Jensen Huang has said that humanoid robots will reach “human‑level” capabilities in 2026 and that robots with human‑type abilities are coming this year.

Futurist Peter Diamandis has predicted that general purpose humanoid robots will start appearing in homes this year, able to do some household work and personal assistance tasks.

And booster-in-chief Elon Musk has repeatedly hyped Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robot branch as potentially the most valuable part of the company (which this week dropped two of its car models), suggesting long‑term revenue potential in the trillions of dollars.

As the AI bubble expands to breaking point, is another being inflated in its place to keep the money rolling in? If so, Michael Tam, chief brand officer at Chinese firm UBTech, a leading humanoid robot producer, has some deflating news. UBTech’s latest robots are at best only half as efficient as human workers, he admitted, and that’s when they’re given tasks to which they are well suited, like box stacking. Maybe not time to trust them with the ironing just yet.

Humanoid robots are not required to bring the Robocop era a step nearer. Police in Delhi are to start using smart glasses, with facial recognition systems connected to police databases allowing them to spot suspects “whether it is a photo from 20 years ago or a recent one, whether they have a beard or long hair, or even a cut on their face.”

Australia

• Apple has paused the rollout of several iOS updates, after Australian users with older iPhones reported issues with network connectivity. Source
• Katherine Bennell-Pegg, the first Australian astronaut to fly under the country’s flag, has been named Australian of the Year. Source

China

• An executive at humanoid robot maker UBTech admitted that robots are at most half as efficient as humans, even in tasks to which they are suited, such as such as stacking boxes and quality control. Source
• The Daily Telegraph has claimed that China hacked the phones of close aides to former Prime Ministers Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak. However, senior sources from the governments from 2021 to 2024 dispute the claim. Source
• The leaders of China’s AI companies are starting to act more like their US counterparts, making grand prophesies and visionary statements, The Guardian reports. Source
• Imports of Nvidia H200 GPUs to China have recommenced after the government loosened restrictions. The easing comes ahead of a planned visit to China by President Trump in April. Source
• Alibaba is to buy a stake in autonomous freight delivery vehicle (robovan) firm Zelostech. Source
• A former Google engineer faces decades in prison for economic espionage and theft after being convicted in the US of stealing Google IP to build a startup in China. Source
• Apple's Q1 2026 sales in China increased 38% year-over-year thanks to the popularity of the iPhone 17, a reversal of the picture in recent years. Source
• Baidu has merged two of its businesses into a new consumer AI department as it focuses on the highly contested AI app space. Source

India

• Delhi Police are to start using smart glasses with facial recognition, sparking privacy concerns. Source
• Indian citizens are being targeted in a sophisticated cyber campaign that starts with phishing messages impersonating the Income Tax Department of India and ends up with the installation of a backdoor enabling surveillance and data theft. Source
• The Indian states of Goa and Andhra Pradesh have both announced that they are considering the pros and cons of an Australian style age-based ban on selected social media platforms. Source
• Cybersecurity companies have detected what appears to be an attack on Indian government organisations by a new Pakistan-based threat actor. Source
• India has become the prime testing ground for Google as it pushes AI in education, and the country now has the highest global usage of Gemini for learning. Source

Japan

• Japan’s largest maritime port, the Port of Nagoya, has been severely disrupted following a ransomware attack linked to Russia-based hacking group Lockbit 3.0. Source
• Online piracy and fake products related to Japanese anime, games and other content have cost the Japanese economy an estimated ¥10.4 trillion according to an industry ministry survey. Source

Singapore

• The Singapore government will invest over S$1 billion ($778.8 million) in public AI research until 2030 to enable the country to compete on the international AI stage. Source
• US chipmaker Micron has begun work on a $24 billion manufacturing complex to produce NAND memory chips, with production due to begin in 2028. Source

South Korea

• South Korea is the latest country to announce an investigation into xAI's Grok following the creation and distribution of nonconsensual deepfake pornography via Grok and X. Source
• Samsung Electronics plans to start production of its next-generation high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips for supply to Nvidia next month. Source
• Samsung and SK Hynix have warned that consumer products could be squeezed as resources flow into AI data centres. Source
• Hackers managed to breach all seven public-sector systems tested in a simulated cyberattack carried out by Korea’s Board of Audit and Inspection. Source
• South Korea has enacted its national AI laws targeting trust and safety, requiring human oversight for “high impact” AI applications, including those involving nuclear materials, education, drinking water and medical devices. Source

Taiwan

• The 2025 Taiwan Startup Ecosystem Survey, which is conducted by the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER), shows that AI and Big Data are the most common keywords among Taiwanese startups. Source
• Nvidia is about to overtake Apple as TSMC’s biggest customer. Source

Elsewhere in Asia

• Iran: A government spokesperson has confirmed that Iran’s internet blackout will persist until late March at the earliest. The government is building a tiered systems that will grant internet access only a small, vetted elite, and restricting all other citizens to an intranet. Source
• Malaysia: Malaysia’s datacentre capacity will double by the end of this year, with rapid construction activity in the southern state of Johor. Source
• North Korea: A video has emerged purporting to show North Korean soldiers pretending to be tech workers posting on job sites. Fake accounts, aided by AI, are flooding social media with some fake workers hired by US and European firms. Source