Our critical technologies collection for January 2024 is based on an admittedly-wide range of technologies, issues, concerns and implications, whether in artificial intelligence, semiconductors, rare earth minerals, or in the supply chains and the geopolitical risks that affect them.
January 2024‘s collection is drawn not just from across Asia and the Indo-Pacific, but also from wider, global coverage of critical and essential technologies. Items include, for instance: what happens to lithium-ion batteries at the end of their productive lives; defense satellites for tracking hypersonic missiles; moves being made into sodium-ion batteries as a lithium-on alternative for EVs; the risk of LLMs being unable to ‘fix’ incorrect, or deliberately ‘broken’, decision-making processes; global news in quantum technologies, including a Russia-China partnership; and many more.
SNA’s other editions: Asia’s tech news, daily (via LinkedIn, Facebook & Twitter/X); and our Indo-Pacific technology newsletters, weekly.
Also available:
Critical technologies, quarterly across Q4 2023
Orbiting Now / Active satellite orbit data
- ‘Rare earth magnet production looks set to advance in the US and Europe in 2024 with market participants outside of China seeking to secure and onshore the supply chain…’
- France’s Tiamat sodium-ion battery tech startup gains €22M backing with plans for a 5 GWh Gigafactory in France, focused entirely on manufacturing sodium-ion battery cells
“Millions of electric car batteries
will retire in the next decade…
By one estimate, more than 12M tons
of lithium-ion batteries are expected
to retire between now and 2030″
- Available to download: ‘Quantum Economy Blueprint’, a January 2024 Insight Report from the World Economic Forum
- Global semiconductor industry outlook for 2024, results from an annual survey conducted by KPMG and the Global Semiconductor Alliance
- Semiconductor Engineering’s December 2023 round-up of semicon company funding
- Intel steps to compete with Qualcomm, NVIDIA with coming launch of auto versions of latest AI-enabled chips, alongside acquiring Frances’ Silicon Mobility for system-on-chip hard/software for EVs
- US Space Development Agency unveils 3 suppliers to build and operate 54 infrared-equipped satellites tasked with tracking hypersonic missiles in all phases of flight
World Economic Forum Quantum Economy Blueprint – January 2024
- Starlink satellites launched to deliver Direct to Cell capabilities for T-Mobile customers, with carriers in Japan, Australia, New Zealand and others set to take part
- Starlink Mini Dish reportedly launching later this year, a portable unit small enough to fit into a backpack
- KPMG Supply Chain Trends 2024: “Through 2024, 50% of supply chain organizations will invest in applications that support artificial intelligence and advanced analytics capabilities…”
- China: BYD EV auto-maker commences construction of its first sodium-ion batteries factory, just weeks after partnership announcement
- Australia: Gov’t assigns $22M in grant funding for 3 critical minerals research projects aiming to develop ‘knowledge, technology and IP on critical mineral extraction and processing’
World Economic Forum Global Cybersecurity Outlook 2024
- China-DR Congo Sicomines copper and cobalt joint venture formalizes agreement, with China to invest up to $7BN in mining infrastructure projects
- China: “The future prospects of the low-altitude economy are vast, potentially reaching trillion-dollar industry scales significantly sooner than that of autonomous vehicles…”
Solid-state batteries:
“…’extremely challenging’ to mass-produce
solid-state batteries to the same quality
as current lithium-ion batteries,
but if achieved, the tech
will be ‘globally unbeatable‘”
- Taiwan’s ProLogium EV battery maker to mass-produce in France in 2027; and partners Germany’s Mercedes-Benz for joint development of solid-state batteries
- US gov’t launched ‘Framework to Counter Foreign State Information Manipulation’ to develop shared knowledge with allies and partners to deliver coordinated responses to foreign info manipulation
Deloitte, NASSCOM, ISA: Opportunities for Indian downstream spacetech
- “Researchers programmed various large language models (LLMs)… to behave maliciously… regardless of the training technique or size of the model the LLMs continued to misbehave. One technique even backfired…”
- ‘Welcome to the era of AI nationalism – Sovereigns the world over are racing to control their technological destinies’, in The Economist
- Microsoft and US Dept of Energy lab used AI to create a material potentially able to reduce lithium use by 70%, with battery prototype taking months to produce instead of decades
- India and Argentina sign agreement for exploration and mining of lithium, with India accessing over 15000 hectares of Argentine ‘lithium blocks’
Deloitte: NewSpace, India’s space perspective
- India: A brief overview of the nation’s moves to secure and develop a lithium supply chain
- Taiwan: National Science & Tech Council announces goal of producing the nation’s first quantum computer by 2027, meeting targets set in 2022’s $258M quantum tech plan
- India: National Quantum Mission calls for proposals to establish 4 technology hubs to focus on communications, computing, metrology and sensing, and materials
“According to the International Energy Agency, demand for rare earth elements is expected to reach 3 to 7 times current levels by 2040; demand for other critical minerals such as lithium may multiply 40-fold.”
- India: An overview of the country’s moves to become quantum technology-ready in 2024, growing around the $735 million National Quantum Mission
- Taiwan: Academia Sinica research institute connected a domestically-developed quantum computer to the internet, country’s first, offering 5 qubits as a test bed for university collaboration projects
PwC 2024 Artificial Intelligence for Business Predictions
- Australia: Element Zero raised $10M with zero-carbon minerals processing tech, using renewable energy
- Russia and China report new quantum milestone with establishment of communications between the two countries, encrypted using secure keys transmitted by China’s Mozi quantum satellite
Russian senator:
“… the Central Bank is ‘turning a blind eye’ to firms that use crypto as a payment tool in international trade” with traders using crypto assets alongside currencies such as Emirati dirham and Chinese yuan
- Malaysia’s MEASAT satellite solutions provider signs with SpaceX to become authorised Starlink reseller, with MEASAT currently serving 130 countries across Asia, Africa, Europe & Australia
- China’s SEIDA, a case study in why containment efforts around access to high-end technologies is so challenging to implement, maintain and develop
Singapore National AI Strategy 2.0 (NAIS)
- Malaysia: “…has an established presence in chip assembly, packaging and testing as well as electronics manufacturing services, producing 13 per cent of global back-end semiconductor output.”
- The Netherlands’ ASML global semiconductor manufacturing equipment giant canceled export of chip-making machines to China, partly in response to US-led tech controls
- China: EpicMEMS raises circa $28M with RF chips focus – used in smartphones, tablets, IoT devices, communication networks and more – taking 3-year funding to at least $100M
- US-China research team makes chip breakthrough, producing world-first semiconductor constructed from graphene, potentially a leap forward in computing beyond traditional silicon chips
- Japan: Toshiba and Rohm semiconductor firm join for gov’t-supported $2.7BN development and manufacture of power devices, dovetailing with moves towards tech self-sufficiency
Jamestown Foundation: Examining China’s Grand Strategy For RISC-V
- India: Tamil Nadu Semiconductor & Advanced Electronics Policy 2024 to allow chip design entities to be eligible for payroll reimbursement if they employ Tamil Nadu residents, in bid for manufacturing base
- India: Infosys IT services major to acquire Bengaluru’s InSemi semiconductor design and services provider for around 433M, looking to develop Infosys’ chip-to-cloud strategy
- India: Micron US tech giant and NAMTECH – New Age Makers Institute of Tech education initiative join to grow a globally-competitive talent pool as part of the India Semiconductor Mission
- Singapore’s Temasek-owned Accuron acquired France’s Recif Technologies, a company specialising in design, manufacture and instal of robotic equipment for semiconductor wafer-handling
EY Parthenon: 2024 Geostrategic Outlook – ongoing geopolitical complexity
- Taiwan’s TSMC to mass produce next-generation 2nm chips for Apple in 2025, with prototype already presented
- ‘Taiwan’s president-elect faces growing challenges with its chip industry – Lai Ching-te and semiconductor makers need to deal with escalating domestic and geopolitical issues’ via TechCrunch
- South Korea: Gov’t unveils $471BN private sector investment blueprint for 13 new chip plants and 3 R&D facilities, adding to 21 existing facilities, targeting 7.7M wafers monthly by 2030
- OpenAI CEO Altman is in talks around building a global network of AI-focused chip factories, with Abu Dhabi’s G42 and Japan’s SoftBank in early discussions
- More on South Korea’s proposed semiconductor mega-cluster development, set to cover 21M square meters whilst creating 3.46 million jobs
- OpenAI CEO Altman adds Taiwan’s TSMC to list of companies in discussions around building a global network of AI-focused chip manufacturing facilities
CSIS: NATO’s role in protecting critical undersea infrastructure
- China: Researchers claim to have slowed speed of electrons in light-based photonic chips, boosting efficiency and reducing signall loss
- China: Biren Technology, China’s competitor to NVIDIA in chip design, sees second co-founder resign without official statement, raising concerns over Biren’s Hong Kong IPO ambitions
- Taiwan Semiconductor Research Institute and Finland’s IQM Quantum Computers ink MOU for hardware purchase, knowledge-sharing, technical support and more
- US Gov’t proposes US cloud firms be required to determine whether foreign entities are accessing US data centers to train AI models, widening chip restrictions to include services run on the chips themselves
- Space Solar Power Demonstrator project marks successful test, beaming solar power to Earth from a satellite
Microsoft: New Future Of Work Report 2023
- India: Gov’t space agency successfully launches orbital observatory to study astronomical objects including black holes
- China: Geely auto firm to launch 11 sats in early 2024, adding to 9 launched in June 2023 and targeting 72-sat constellation, ostensibly for integrated terrestrial-space ‘smart travel’ system
- Download: ‘India’s booming space economy – Opportunities for downstream spacetech’ from Deloitte
- ICYMI: Starlink satellites launched to deliver Direct to Cell capabilities for T-Mobile customers, with carriers in Japan, Australia, New Zealand and others set to take part
- China: Launch pad at Hainan Commercial Launch Site was completed December 29th, the first of 2 pads to host liquid propellant launch vehicles and aiming to speed constellation launch schedules
- China: Orienspace’s Gravity-1 rocket launches via mobile sea platform, delivering 3 satellites using launcher and propellant capable of more than double the previous heaviest
PwC: Findings from the 2024 Digital Trust Insights Survey
- Japan’s Marubeni conglomerate backs Italy’s D-Orbit space logistics firm in $100M funding round to further develop in-orbit servicing, transport and debris cleaning
- ICYMI: Starlink Mini Dish reportedly launching later this year, a portable unit small enough to fit into a backpack
- Japan: Mitsubishi Heavy Industries-built satellite enters orbit primarily to gather national security intelligence, but with remit to also monitor the scope of major natural disasters
- Japan’s SLIM moon lander enters lower lunar orbit in preparation for January 19th landing attempt – livestream takes place via
- China: CAS Space, aka Zhongke Aerospace Exploration Tech Co, plans larger-scale liquid propellant launcher for 2025 capable of delivering 7800kg to sun-synchronous orbit, or 12000kg to low Earth orbit
CSET: Downrange – a survey of China’s cyber ranges
- Japan’s ‘Smart Lander for Investigating Moon’ successfully achieved landing, but overall mission now uncertain due to problems with solar panels
- China: Orienspace orbital rocket developer raised near $84M from state backers, looking to roll out reusable launch vehicles in 2025, and orders secured to ‘launch several hundred satellites’
- Indian Space Research Organization sets sights on minimum of 12 space missions through 2024, with NASA satellite collaboration and Venus study mission in development
- Australian Space Agency seeks expressions of interest for discussions on niche Australian technology capabilities, with submissions closing February 14th
- Taiwan Space Agency to launch incubation center in H2 2024 to attract and develop domestic and international space industry firms, leveraging Taiwan’s manufacturing supply chains
- Singtel adds Starlink satellite comm’s to digital options for ship owners and operatorsseeing benefits of advanced tech in improved safety, operational efficiencies, fuel consumption and more
MERICS: China’s data management – Putting the Party-state in charge
- Meta to allow EU users to unlink personal information from Instagram, Facebook, Messenger and other services in early response to EU implementation of Digital Markets Act
- China: ‘Digital yuan’ crime starts to emerge with theft of $1.4M in cash from more than 900 digital yuan accounts, simply using ATM machine CBDC functions
“With estimates showing the EU’s mining industry
is 15 years behind Beijing and a staggering
98% of Europe’s rare earth metals are imported
from China, there is a lot of ground
for the EU to make up.”
- Indonesia: China’s BYD electric vehicle maker to invest $1.3BN to build a manufacturing plant in Indonesia, targeting production capacity of 150,000 units
- University of Tokyo, Seoul Nat’l University and University of Chicago have entered into a trilateral technology partnership to train a quantum-focused workforce and strengthen collective competitiveness
- Taiwan’s TSMC outlined its tech roadmap for 2nm, 1.4nm, and 1nm chip processes, alongside plans to put a trillion chips on a semicon package using multiple 3D-stacked chiplets
- Japan: Taiwan’s TSMC to formally open its first Japan semiconductor facility in February, set to produce chips at 28nm scale to cater to auto and consumer electronics sectors
“Huawei’s HiSilicon Kirin 9006C system-on-chip in the Qingyun L540 laptop was made by TSMC using its 5nm-class process technology and assembled around the third quarter of 2020…”
- An overview of Taiwan’s Neuchips Inc, presenting at CES 2024, introducing Neuchips’ scaleable AI ‘accelerator’ chips, built on TSMC’s 7nm process and capable of 200 trillion operations per second
- India: Tata Group close to finalising plans for a semiconductor manufacturing plant in Gujarat state, alongside plans for a 20GW lithium-ion batteries factory
China’s pursuit of processing power:
“…one of the factories told the source that he had been responsible for disassembling more than 4000 NVIDIA GeForce graphics cards in December alone.”
- India: Taiwan’s Foxconn partners HCL Group IT consultancy major for JV to establish a semiconductor assembly and testing facility
- Vietnam: 15 US firms, reportedly including chips firms, interested in investing up to $8BN in Vietnam with a focus on clean energy infrastructure, contingent on renewable energy regulation
Google Whitepaper: ‘Artificial Intelligence Opportunity Agenda for ASEAN’
- South Korea: Customs busts 3-year chip smuggling operation focused on China market, impounding 53,000 dual-use chips worth $11.6M
- India: Vodafone Idea states rumours around tie-up talks with Elon Musk’s Starlink are not accurate, seeing share values fall after initial 21% surge
- Online now: December 2023’s round-up of critical technologies news items, spanning space launch & satellites, critical minerals, cybersecurity, semiconductors and the supply chains that underpin them
- Singtel adds Starlink satellite comm’s to digital options for ship owners and operators, seeing benefits of advanced tech in improved safety, operational efficiencies, fuel consumption and more
SharePass: Confidential info sharing & digital footprint management
- Taiwan announces plans for first lunar mission, with Deep Space Radiation Probe potentially to launch in Q4 aboard Japanese lander
- Australia: CSIRO Next Generation Graduates Program to fund more than 160 postgrad students in emerging technologies, quantum and AI with dedicated opportunities for regional students
- High-capacity undersea link connecting Sydney & Melbourne to New Zealand’s Invercargill is planned, connecting with planned Invercargill hyperscale data center
Orbiting Now / Satellite orbit data
Indo-Pacific Tech news: Daily
- Indo-Pacific tech, daily on LinkedIn
- Asia’s tech news, daily on Twitter / X
- Asia tech news daily – Facebook
Note: Our mobile app is offline due to the ongoing breakdown of Twitter/X. The app will be back, much-improved and with broader functionality, late in Q1 of 2024.
World Economic Forum Quantum Economy Blueprint – January 2024
Weekly Asia Tech newsletters
In the January 23rd newsletter:
South Korea’s semicon mega-development,
India-Argentina lithium mining,
Singtel adds Starlink for maritime use,
India’s quantum technology moves,
Huawei adds Changan and JD for OS growth,
Google backs Pacific Connect undersea cable…
● January 23rd newsletter on LinkedIn
● January 23rd newsletter on Substack
