Asian Tech Roundup: Apple's charm offensive

Plus, South Korea's AI investment

Asian Tech Roundup: Apple's Asian charm offensive

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Asian Tech Roundup: Apple's Asian charm offensive

Some indicators show tech salaries in Australia stalling in 2024, but this is in the context of a decade of steady growth, says recruiter. Source
The Australian arm of Estonian cloud provider BlueVPS has suffered a multi-day outage, starting on 9th April and ongoing as of writing on 15th April. Source

Alibaba Cloud has cut its prices outside China for its core compute, storage and database services, in a bid to entice new customers. Source
Tencent Cloud has apologised for an outage that affected customers last week, and says it will take action to avoid the same happening in the future. Source
A stabilising property sector is expected to push China to 5.3% economic growth this year, according to the ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic Research Office. Source
Microsoft has observed what it says are state-backed Chinese hackers spreading dis- and misinformation in the USA, trying to antagonise voters before the presidential election in November. Source
GPU prices are rising in China, sparking fears of global impact. Source
Blizzard games like World of Warcraft, Overwatch 2 and Diablo IV will once again be available in China later this year, after new owner Microsoft struck a renewed deal with local publisher NetEase. Source
Huawei has provided a technical breakdown of the dynamic traffic allocation system it uses to manage demand. Source

X said it blocked some posts in India containing political speech from politicians and candidates after the election commission ordered their takedown. Source
Prime minister Narendra Modi says he used AI to build a strategy for India for the next 25 years. His party, the BJP, has previously promised to use AI to combat the drugs trade and improve road traffic management. Source
Use of India's central bank digital currency, a blockchain-based digital currency launched in 2022, have been trending downwards since December 2023. Initial volumes could have been inflated by one-off transactions. Source
Tesla has signed a deal with Tata Electronics, a subsidiary of Tata Group with no chipmaking capacity, to supply semiconductor chips to the EV firm. Source
India has deferred approval of fintech Paytm's RS 500 million ($6 million) investment in its Payment Services arm owing to concerns about Chinese shareholdings. Source
boAt, a domestic audio and wearables brand, has suffered a data breach affecting 7.5 million customers. Around 2GB of data, including personally identifiable information, have been leaked on the dark web. Source
Apple assembled $14 billion of iPhones in India in its last fiscal year, doubling production in a sign it's accelerating a push to diversify beyond China. Source
Kotak Mahindra Bank suffered a technical issue with its servers over the weekend of 13th April, preventing some customers from using its services. Source

Oracle plans to invest more than $8 billion over the next 10 years in expanding Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) in Japan. Source
Lens maker Hoya Corp has halted production of several products after a system failure, which it has blamed on "unauthorised access" to its servers. Source
Telecoms giant NTT has warned that AI could damage "trust in society as a whole." In the worst case scenario, "democracy and social order could collapse." Source
Japan could be invited to join the AUKUS project, a defence and research collaboration between Australia, the UK and USA. The group has formally floated the idea, but has not said what criteria Japan would have to fill to join. Source
Prime minister Fumio Kishida has helped secure a $2.9 billion investment in Japan from Microsoft, specifically focusing on boosting artificial intelligence. Source
The government has rejected a plan by Yahoo to improve its cybersecurity. It is concerned about the security of the LINE messaging app, which suffered a data breach last year. Source

South Korea's Naver has shown a new LLM family called HyperCLOVA X, which it intends to use to build sovereign AI systems across Asia. Source
South Korea has successfully launched its second military spy satellite into orbit, four months after its first launch in December. Source
President Yoon Suk Yeol has announced a $7 billion investment in AI by 2027, as it aims to lead the world in AI chips. Source

Chipmaker TSMC said the earthquake that shook Taiwan earlier this month caused losses of T$3 billion ($92.44 million) to the company. Source
The USA's National Science Foundation has launched a programme to connect American start-ups with their peers in Taiwan. Source

Hackers suspected of being from Vietnam are spreading data-stealing malware - including financial information - across Asia. Targets of the so-called CoralRaider group have been found in India, China, South Korea, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia and Vietnam. Source
Apple's Tim Cook visited Vietnam to meet local students and content creators, discuss clean water projects and boost connections with local suppliers. Source

Tim Cook says Apple is looking into the possibility of setting up manufacturing facilities in Indonesia, away from its traditional base of China. Source
Apple is also busy in Singapore where it plans to invest more than $250 million to expand its regional campus. "Singapore is truly a one-of-a-kind place," said Cook. Source
North Korea is buying surveillance cameras from China to place in schools and workplaces. It is also collecting biometric information from its citizens, in a technology-driven push to build out the surveillance state. Source
Pakistan's interior ministry has finally confirmed that it blocked access to X around the time of the elections in February. Source