Asian tech roundup: Bao Fan is back

Plus: Alibaba struggles for gains and Google employees unionise in Japan

Welcome to Computing's fortnightly roundup of tech news in Asia. This time we look at China's rewritten data laws; Toshiba's COO scandal; and Amazon's plan to dethrone Amazon in India. This is not a typo.

China

• Alibaba ended last year with revenues up just 2% YoY to RMB247.8 billion ($35.7 billion). Cloud unit revenue rose 3% YoY to RMB20.2 billion ($2.9 billion), though this still represented a $215 million loss. The company said "healthy" public cloud growth was partially offset by "declining" hybrid cloud revenue. Source
• Bao Fan, the missing Chinese billionaire, has been found assisting local authorities. His company, China Renaissance, said the board had "become aware" of Bao helping with an investigation into a former colleague, Cong Lin, ex-president of the company. Source
• At the same time as it is tightening data restrictions for SMEs, the Chinese government is taking pressure off of large firms struggling to comply with a data mapping deadline. Rather than having completed the process by 1st March, they international companies now only need to have submitted an application. Source
• Hackers breached two major Asian datacentre firms: China's GDS Holdings and Singapore's ST Telemedia Global Data Centres. They were able to uncover the emails and passwords belonging to about 2,000 customers, including Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Walmart, Huawei, Alibaba, BMW and Goldman Sachs. Both providers say they have fixed the vulnerabilities. Source
• Guizhou Province plans to invest $2.9 billion on data infrastructure, promising to install more than 4 million servers in 800,000 racks by 2025. Guizhou is China's first national comprehensive pilot zone for data projects. Source
• Internet giant Tencent has established its own AI chatbot department to build a ChatGPT competitor. Sources say the product, 'HunyuanAide', will be based on Tencent's 'Hunyuan' training model. Source

Other Asia

• Amazon has joined an Indian government-backed initiative that aims to challenge the dominance of e-commerce giants - like Amazon. Open Network for Digital Commerce aims to disrupt India's e-commerce market, dominated by Amazon and Walmart's Flipkart, as the government did for mobile payments with the United Payments Interface in 2016. Source
• Rapidus, the Japanese state-backed chip maker, plans to build its first factory in Chitose city on Hokkaido. A prototype 2nm line is planned for 2025. Source
• Ten Japanese companies, including Mitsubishi and Fujitsu, are collaborating to build an "advertiser-friendly" immersive gaming environment called the Japan Metaverse Economic Zone. The aim is to create an open, interoperable metaverse structure known as Ryugukoku. Source
• Goro Yanase, COO at Japan's Toshiba, resigned last month amid an investigation into his entertainment expenses. A corporate document said Yanase "submitted entertainment expenses without reporting the actual names of the parties with whom he had business meals or drinks in violation of Toshiba Group rules." Source
• "Dozens" of Google employees in Japan have joined a labour union - the company's first in the country - over fears they could be laid off in the upcoming cuts. Source
• South Korea is to launch a domestic programme to develop rockets, after cancelling its previous partnership with Russia. The country plans to not only launch its own satellites, but reach the Moon by 2032 and Mars by 2045. Source