AI and related tech news in February 2024 touched on issues and items including: the use of artificial intelligence to influence voters in the Presidential campaign of Indonesia’s Subiarto; the launch of the AI-RAN Alliance, aiming to integrate AI with wireless networks technologies; Tencent’s latest text- and image-to-video AI service; South Korea’s moves into production of AI-focused semiconductors; and many more.
For more technology news from across Asia and the Indo-Pacific, you should take a look at our daily editions and weekly newsletters.
AI-RAN Alliance: Unleashing AI to transform RAN for 5G and upcoming 6G
- Google’s Messages AI upgrade found to pose serious privacy risk, with Bard AI able to read and analyze private messages, and with this falling outside end-to-end encryption provisions
- Microsoft and OpenAI partner with Semafor, high-funded journalism startup, for AI tools to develop ‘Signals’ breaking news stories
- Google launches AI Cyber Defense Initiative and report, looking at the problems around defenders having to be vigilant across multiple fronts whilst attackers need only one vector for success
“…then there’s the fear of a complete collapse
of human knowledge and science as it
becomes impossible to know what to believe
because so much material is
nonsense made up by AI“
- ‘OpenAI has built a new generative video model called Sora that can take a short text description and turn it into a detailed, hi-definition film clip up to a minute long’
- US Federal Trade Commission floats proposal to make companies liable if they are aware their tech, including AI-driven content generation tools, ‘is being used to harm consumers through impersonation’
- EY’s take on the intersection between AI & Web3: “Web3 could help AI tackle its trust issues, and AI could help overcome Web3’s adoption challenges…”
- Industry majors join to launch AI-RAN Alliance aimed at integrating artificial intelligence into cellular tech to advance radio access network tech and mobile networks
Google Whitepaper: An Artificial Intelligence Opportunity agenda for ASEAN
- ASEAN Foundation and Microsoft launch ‘AI TEACH for ASEAN’ program to help to prepare the region’s workforce for the challenges and opportunities presented by artificial intelligence
- South Korea: Rebellions Inc raised $124M to ramp up development of next-gen AI chips
- Taiwan is building its own ‘Trustworthy AI Dialogue Engine’ AI model as part of $555M plan to both bolster identity and influence in the face of disinformation, and to expand into software development
- China: Tencent rolls out new version of DynamiCrafter, open source video generation AI model, moving further into the text- and image-to-video space
Singapore National AI Strategy 2.0 (NAIS)
- Microsoft partners India’s Sarvam AI startup to bring Sarvam’s Indic voice large language model to Microsoft Azure, implementing Hindi as first output language
- India: Microsoft ‘Code; Without Barriers’ program sets sights on skilling and certifying 75,000 women developers in India in 2024 in cloud, AI, and digital technologies
- China: Baidu search giant partners Lenovo to feature generative AI tech on Lenovo smartphones, further growing-out applications for Ernie AI model
Video: ‘Indonesia election gives glimpse of AI influence on democracy’, a look at the use of artificial intelligence technologies in the successful Prabowo Subianto presidential campaign
- Indonesia: “In another video that attracted intense criticism, AI-generated children were used by the party in a TV commercial to skirt rules banning children from appearing in political campaigns”
- China: Moonshot AI hits $2.5BN valuation following new $1BN backing from investors including Alibaba and Xiaohongshu
‘Next, Rizal plans to take the platform to India before its general election… “Because Indonesia is before the US and India … this election [Indonesia] is a warm up,” he said.’
- China: Release of OpenAI’s Sora text-to-video capabilities prompts concerns from policymakers, China’s AI industry and observers over competitive pressure
- China: Ministry of Education issues list of 184 primary and secondary schools to run artificial intelligence-focused curricula in bid to boost technology competencies in children
McKinsey: The economic potential of artificial intelligence
- Japan: Softbank Group founder reportedly exploring establishment of $100BN AI chip company, Project Izanagi, with sights on similar industry standing to NVIDIA, Intel and AMD
- South Korea: DeepX nears $90M funding with specialized AI-focused semiconductors, working with Hyundai Kia Motors Robotics Lab and others to enter mass production
“A survey of more than 1000
UK undergraduates, conducted by the
Higher Education Policy Institute,
found 53% were using AI
to generate material for work
they would be marked on”
- South Korea’s largest telco, SK Telecom, partners US AI startup Perplexity for artificial intelligence-driven search engine as an alternative to offerings from Google and Naver
- South Korea: Seoul Metro Gov’t partners Google Startup Campus for AI Startup School program for young people, targeting an overall intake of 6000 for education
- Thailand looks to develop homegrown Open ThaiGPT project, partly in bid to avoid heavy reliance on foreign technologies in artificial intelligence
Australian Strategic Policy Institute: Derisking authoritarian AI
- Hong Kong: MediConCen secured $6.85M Series A with automation of insurance claims using AI and blockchain, with HSBC Asset Management leading the round
- Download: ‘Digital Horizons – How emerging tech will shape tomorrow’s business’, the results of a survey of 2900 C-suite or business decision-makers, from HSBC
“Soaring appetite for Huawei’s
artificial intelligence chips coupled with
manufacturing constraints has forced
the Chinese tech giant to prioritise AI
and slow production for
its premium Mate 60 phones…”
- China: “Embedding software tools with AI tech is allowing some companies to offer better-standardized products and cut back on development costs, potentially serving as a last resort for startups trying to secure backing…”
- Bugcrowd AI-driven cybersecurity firm raised $102M for crowdsourced security platform development, recognising the increasing sophistication of often AI-driven hacking
- Australia: CSIRO-run National AI Centre launches AI Sprint initiative to help startups develop AI solutions to address national issues including cost of living, supply chain resilience and environmental well-being
Digital Risks to the 2024 Elections: Democracy in an Era of Disinformation
- South Korea: TelePix unveils NVIDIA-based AI processor geared for satellites, running 10 trillion operations per second to analyze large datasets in space in real-time
- Philippines: Iveda launches $5M venture to fulfil contracts over 12 months to bring AI-driven smart cities tech to 100 government units
- Japan: Government-backed research group to partner Tenstorrent Inc on the design of its first advanced AI semiconductor chip, built on open-standard RISC-V architecture
- Google published ‘AI Opportunity Agenda for ASEAN’, a whitepaper outlining policy recommendations to ASEAN member states with suggestions on how to make the most of artificial intelligence
- ‘Tech Trends 2024’, Deloitte’s take on emerging technology risks, opportunities and developments likely to affect businesses this year
Infosys Generative AI Radar Asia-Pacific
- TikTok Shop rolls out test feature that scans and identifies products in videos on the platform, and then generates a link to ‘Find similar items on TikTok Shop’
- A multinational lost $25.6M after Hong Kong branch employees were fooled by deepfake tech, partly featuring a digitally-recreated version of its CFO ordering money transfers in a video call
- South Korea: Rebellions AI-focused semiconductor firm raised $124M Series B, with next-gen chips targeting a price half that of NVIDIA equivalents
- OpenAI terminates accounts believed to be operated by nation-state cyber-threat actors linked to China, Russia, Iran and North Korea
- Samsung wins its first 2nm AI chip order from Japan’s Preferred Networks Inc in switch from PFN’s past TSMC supply of advanced chips
StormWall: Analysis of DDoS cyber-attacks in 2023 in Asia Pacific
Asia’s tech news: Other editions
PwC: 2024 AI Business Predictions
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