December 2024 | November 2024 | October 2024
Fostering Order in the Indo-Pacific: What the European can learn
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China: December 2024
- China’s CATL batteries giant to seek Hong Kong IPO, pending regulator approval / “CATL, world’s top battery maker, has a global market share of roughly 37% in [EV] batteries…” / full item
- China beats 2024 space launch milestone with 68th 2024 launch, but Kinetica-1 solid rocket failed in later launch stage / full item
- China: Landspace secures $123 million in state investment to speed development of reusable, methane-liquid oxygen launch vehicles / full item
‘US authorities are considering a ban on China’s TP-Link over national security concerns after its internet routers were linked to cyber attacks…’ / full item
- China: Agibot, aka Zhiyuan Robotics, showcases manufacturing facility with sights on 1000 units produced by the end of 2024 / full item
- China: Sharge unveils 1st mass-produced AI-backed smart glasses, AI Snap Glasses A1, ahead of Xiaomi and Baidu / full item
- China: Galactic Energy conducted 4th sea launch, adding to potential for a record-breaking 67 space launches in 2024 / full item
“Ji Yue’s collapse is not a standalone incident… Other manufacturers, including Enovate and Bordrin, have faced comparable financial crises, underscoring the precarious state…” / full item
- Apple is reportedly now in talks with Tencent and ByteDance around integrating AI models from the companies into future iPhones sold in China / full item
- China: Zuchongzhi3 quantum computer claims milestones including surpassing Google Sycamore processing benchmarks and equivalence to elements of Google’s Willow processing / full item
- US House of Representatives is to vote on annual defense bill that includes over $3BN for 126 US telecom firms to remove equipment made by Huawei and ZTE / full item
- China: New generative AI services roll-outs slow as regulators approve 64 for release, bringing the 2024 total approved to 252, and suggesting market saturation / full item
- China: BYD EV maker may be set to exceed annual sales goal, overtaking Ford and Honda with sales of more than 4M vehicles in 2024, and sights on 5-6M cars in 2025 / full item
‘Chinese firms have grown domestic market share, but new Huawei phone shows little sign of technology progress’ / full item
- China Telecom identifies artificial intelligence-based services, enhanced 5G calling and services, and satellite-to-phone devices as its handset priorities for 2025 / full item
- China: ‘Laser Diamond Constellation’ test satellites enter orbit, looking at inter-satellite communications most likely in the context of mega-constellation sat plans / full item
- ‘3D Real-Scene China’ is in development, real-time model of the physical world, dovetailing with ‘new quality productive forces’ and in part with sights on the low-altitude economy / full item
- Imports of solar-grade polysilicon, wafers, and tungsten products from China to the US face tariff increases of 25-50% from Ja 1st, 2025, in response to alleged unfair trade practices / full item
- China’s Ant Int’l has joined Swift Network Interoperability Reference Implementation program, a pre-pilot looking at transparency in cross-border end-to-end payments / full item
- China: Bybit cryptocurrency exchange rolls out update allowing China users to trade on the platform using a VPN, but without yuan trading in order to comply with regulations / full item
- China: A look at the Maextro S800 from Huawei and JAC Group, targeting the luxury EV market with prices up to $210K, launching in 2025 with production target of 2000 units / full item
- Xiaomi’s entry into the electric vehicle market is gaining speed, and its strategy for global expansion might hinge on one key integration: Apple’s ecosystem… / full item
- China’s HK-based SenseTime, best-known for facial recognition tech, restructures to add generative AI focus for both opportunities and in a bid to stay relevant as AI evolves / full item
- China: First Long March 12 rocket launches from new spaceport, Wenchang Commercial Space Launch Site / full item
- Bolivia inks $1BN deal with China’s CBC, a CATL subsidiary, to build 2 lithium carbonate production plants, with separate Citic Guoan Group contract under negotiation / full item
- China: Former head of digital currency development is facing prosecution for cryptocurrency-based bribery / full item
- China: 140 semiconductor industry firms added to US Chips Act ban, preventing receipt of exports of advanced chip-making equipment and direct chip purchases / full item
China: “The first 10G converged services launched in Beijing and Shanghai in August on a very limited scale. Pilots are also underway in more than 20 provinces and cities…” / full item
- China: Beidou sat-nav roadmap to 2035 is unveiled, with test sats for 2027 launch, and next-gen sats in place circa 2029 / full item
- Alibaba Hong Kong Entrepreneurs Fund launches $150M AI-focused AEF NextGen Fund / full item
- Vietnam: Bac Ninh province targets site prep for Nam Son-Hap Linh Industrial Park before February’s Lunar NY holiday to speed investment by China’s Goertek electronics giant / full item
- Vietnam’s Holdstation partners China-founded KuCoin to boost blockchain and DeFi adoption in Vietnam, looking at education and collaboration across business, communities and business / full item
- Hong Kong: Stablecoins bill is to be introduced, aiming to regulate virtual tokens, in ongoing fast-track moves to secure global crypto industry hub status / full item
- Philippines: Huawei Cloud launches its first public cloud availability zones in the country, offering over 100 cloud computing services / full item
- South Korea’s Ably becomes Korea’s first ‘unicorn’ of 2024 with $71.4M investment from Alibaba with shopping apps focused on clothing / full item
‘…the Mekong is facing increasing pressure from ambitious infra projects, competing interests, and the effects of climate change… Cambodia’s Funan Techo Canal, highlights these challenges’ / full item
ADB: The Role and Future of Digital Economy Agreements in Asia & Pacific
China: November 2024
- China’s Pony AI autonomous driving giant shares open near 15% above IPO offer price, valuing the firm at $5.25BN / full item
- China: Huawei is preparing to launch its first smartphone equipped with a fully-homegrown operating system, HarmonyOS Next / full item
- China: A deep dive look at the ‘Eastern Data, Western Computing’ project, its component parts, considerations and dovetail projects / full item
- China: Gov’t moves to curb tech giant use of algorithms to influence opinions online, issuing 3-month deadline for action across a wide range of concern areas / full item
- China’s manned lunar mission, targeting a moon landing by 2030, includes a a three-day rover vehicle exploration of the moon’s surface / full item
- China: Alibaba has raised $5BN via Hong Kong-based dual-currency bonds – $2.65BN in US dollar-denominated notes and $2.35BN in offshore yuan-denominated notes / full item
- China’s SpaceSail inks MoU with Telebras, Brazil’s state-owned telecoms company, to provide its ‘Thousand Sails’ satellite internet services similar to StarLink / full item
“…foreign device makers would find a ‘simple and straightforward approval process’ if they utilize already-approved large language models (LLMs) from Chinese companies, rather than attempting to implement their own AI systems.” / full item
- China’s Huawei reportedly plans mass-production of its most advanced AI chip in Q1 2025, partly in bid to reach commercially-viable 70% functionality of chips produced / full item
- China: Ehang eVTOL developer completes 48-minute test flight of autonomous flying vehicle powered entirely by solid-state batteries / full item
- China: GAC Group and Changan Automobile, two of the nation’s largest automakers by sales volume, set sights on manufacture of solid-state batteries for electric vehicles / full item
- China: Recent Shijian-19 space mission successfully tested a small, expandable module in orbit, potentially for use in planned Tiangong space station expansion work / full item
- China: Space Transportation, aka Lingkong Tianxing Technology, targets H2 2025 for first test of Mach 4-capable Cuantianhou near-space reusable spaceplane prototype / full item
- China: Xingyun IC gains backing with alternative approach to next-gen high-performance GPU chips for AI, looking to general x86 servers rather than proprietary AI hardware / full item
- China: Rokid augmented reality firm unveils new lightweight smart glasses driven by Alibaba’s Tongyi Qianwen LLMs / full item
- China Aerospace Science & Tech Corp unveils concept for fully-reusable heavy-lift rockets, targeting 100-ton delivery to low Earth orbit and 50 tons to lunar transfer orbit / full item
- China: State-owned CHN Energy now generates electricity at 1GW offshore floating solar park, capable of supplying 2.6M city residents annually / full item
- China: Beijing and state enterprises and funds are to establish a $4.6BN 12-inch wafer fabrication facility, further boosting domestic semiconductor production / full item
- China: Construction begins in Ningxia on first of 3 large-scale green hydrogen facilities, targeting 16,500 tonnes annually for transportation, green ammonia and methanol / full item
- China: Baidu search giant deepens AI tech bid with text-to-image generation, no-code app creator, and AI-supported smart glasses / full item
- China: Dongfang Electric Corp unveils 26MW offshore wind turbine, world’s largest in capacity and size with 310m blade radius at 185m in height / full item
- Japan’s Hyundai Motor has partnered China’s HaomoAI autonomous driving software firm for China-market EV, set to feature generative AI-backed DriveGPT systems / full item
China’s Geely reportedly mulls $95M stake in Germany’s Volocopter eVTOL firm, gaining 85% ownership “…the deal would slash the startup’s valuation from a peak of $1.9BN in 2022 to about $110M…” / full item
- In October, China’s CATL launched the Freevoy battery for hybrid vehicles, claiming over 400km in fully-charged range, and 280km on a 10-minute charge / full item
- China’s CAS Space commercial space launch firm launched 15 satellites into orbit including one for the Sultanate of Oman, marking the firm’s first overseas customer / full item
- China’s PepperHi venture studio gains angel backing with global markets entry services for China firms, with initial focus on Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, and Vietnam / full item
- Canadian gov’t has ordered TikTok social media giant to cease operations in Canada by the end of 2024, citing security concerns and TikTok’s handling of user data / full item
- China’s CAS Space, a commercial spinoff from Chinese Academy of Sciences, looks to deliver launch services to global clients in light of fierce domestic competition / full item
Huawei’s HarmonyOS Next: “At the launch event two weeks ago… the head of Huawei’s device business group dropped some more numbers. Yet these really expose the platform’s limitations.” / full item
- China Manned Space Engineering Office has selected two low-cost cargo transportation systems to serve the Tiangong space station, each capable of delivering at least 1800kg to orbit / full item
- International Air Transport Association, IATA, to offer digital currencies in financial settlement systems it operates for the aviation industry. / full item
- China: Alibaba Group is reportedly scaling down metaverse operations, joining other tech firms in pulling back from the much-hyped sector / full item
- China: Zhejiang Cross-Border E-commerce Comprehensive Service Platform launches, aiming to provide a streamlined one-stop source of solutions for all scales of e-business / full item
- China: Xiaomi, best known as smartphone leader, hits EV milestone with delivery of over 20,000 SU7 electric vehicles in October, targeting production pace of 100,000 units by end-November / full item
- China: Apple has established research labs in Beijing, Shenzhen, Suzhou, and Shanghai, in supply chain diversification and cost-cutting move, with Korean firms losing out / full item
- China: Cosmoleap launch secured $14M for Yueqian reusable rocket, and vehicle recovery system inspired by SpaceX, likely targeting mega-constellation sats delivery / full item
- Chinese manufacturers such as BYD, Nio, MG-owner SAIC, Great Wall and Chery are building more advanced electric cars with costs 30% lower than those of European carmakers… / full item
- Temu is now also facing EU Digital Services Act investigation over potential sale of illegal products, alongside an examination of alleged ‘addictive’ services design / full item
- China: Space Transportation, aka Lingkong Tianxing Technology, claims successful prototype engine test for future Yunxing hypersonic passenger airplane / full item
- China: GDS data centers firm raises $1BN in round predominantly led by US investors, looking to further develop data center capacity outside China and SEA / full item
- Australia’s All G biotech firm becomes the first globally to land regulator approval for sale of animal-free lactoferrin protein in China / full item
- China’s Baidu is to trial Apollo Go robotaxis in Hong Kong as soon as year-end / full item
- China Mobile is in talks to acquire HKBN, a major Hong Kong fibre and enterprise connectivity provider / full item
- Australia: Nourish Ingredients partners China’s Cabio Biotech to produce and distribute precision-fermented ‘designer fat’ alternatives in China / full item
- Visa and China’s Tencent partner to trial pay-by-palm tech in Singapore, with Visa cardholders from banks including DBS, OCBC, and UOB eligible for the pilot programme / full item
- Samsung now reportedly to curb supply of chips 7nm and smaller to China firms, aligning with US limitations on tech access, with Intel likely next to cut supply / full item
- Indonesia’s GoTo Group, and China’s Tencent and Alibaba Cloud deepen partnership with Tencent committing $500M to a third data center, cloud services and talent development / full item
- Vietnam: Gov’t states that online retailers Shein and Temu must formally register before end-November or face having web domains and apps blocked in the country / full item
- Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co notified Chinese chip design firms it is halting production for them of chips at 7 nanometres or smaller, aligning with US sanctions / full item
- China’s Oppo smartphone giant and Hong Kong Polytechnic University are to launch a joint AI and imaging research centre, with Oppo pledging US$4.2M over 5 years / full item
- Temu shopping platform meets heightened government scrutiny in Vietnam, in line with wider SEA concerns over the platform’s impact on domestic businesses / full item
- AI Safety Institutes, or AISIs, are one of the most important new structures to emerge in international AI policy… / full item
‘Semiconductor back-end manufacturing, less capital-intensive than strategic front-end chipmaking, is dominated by China and Taiwan, but Vietnam is among the fastest-growing countries’ / full item
Collision Course: The future of China’s carmarkers in Russia
China: October 2024
- China: Intel is planning a $300M investment to expand chip packaging and testing in Chengdu, expected to bolster the Chengdu plant’s role in Intel’s global supply chain / full item
- China: BeiDou sat-nav system gained $1.78BN in commitments for new projects, deepening competition with GPS and targeting integration with vehicles, agriculture and more / full item
- China: Xpeng e-car manufacturer breaks ground on construction of facility focused on Aeroht brand eVTOLs, electric vertical take-off aircraft, targeting production capacity of 10,000 units / full item
- China: Greater Bay Technology unveils Phoenix EV battery, claiming superconducting materials enable charging and functioning within 6 minutes, regardless of temperature / full item
- China: Zeekr auto-maker unveils new Mix model, spacious ‘people mover’ capitalizing on an electric vehicle’s longer wheelbase, and featuring limited elements of autonomous driving / full item
- China: Deep Blue Aerospace offers first 2 tickets for seats on a vehicle taking passengers into space in 2027, priced around $210K and with plans for more ticket sales in November / full item
- China: Domestic firms dominate state-owned China Telecom $2BN server procurement shortlist, likely continuing moves to eliminate foreign hardware from its networks / full item
- China: Sales of Apple iPhone 16 are up 20% in their first three weeks compared with 2023’s iPhone 15 model, tho local rivals are set for end-of-year challenger product releases / full item
- ICYMI: More semiconductor and chip-manufacture exports to China face restrictions, including NVIDIA A800 and H800, and impacts likely on those sold by Intel and AMD / full item
- China’s Lenovo Group to partner Meta and NVIDIA to boost its AI offerings in markets outside China, alongside implementing Meta’s Llama LLM for PC chatbots / full item
- Binance crypto exchange has expanded reach in West and Central Africa, integrating mobile money payments for cryptocurrency purchases in 6 countries / full item
- China’s Huawei and Saudi Arabia’s Alinma Bank, a Shariah-compliant banking and financial services institution, partner for digital infra growth, and possible cloud banking / full item
- Apple Music inks partnership deal with China Mobile, hoping to monetize China Mobile’s more than 1BN subscribers with app- and retail-based subscription offerings / full item
- China: AutowiseAI gains license for unmanned road cleaning vehicles in Hangzhou, using LiDAR, machine vision, vehicle-to-cloud tech and more / full item
- China: Alibaba invests in Robot Era, aka Xingdong Jiyuan, in $42M Pre-A round, looking at further development of humanoid robots and ’embodied intelligence’ technologies / full item
- China Aerospace Science & Tech Corp’n launches 2nd group of 18 satellites for 14,000-sat ‘Thousand Sails’ mega-constellation, aka ‘G60 Starlink’ / full item
- China: Fifth Gaofen-12 satellite enters orbit for China’s Earth observation system, with stated focus areas including land surveys, urban planning and road network design / full item
“…it is likely that China will become as innovative as foreign robotic producers in the midterm at the latest, while also enjoying a significant cost advantage.” / full item
- China Mobile unveils plans for low-altitude economy and generative AI, targeting 100 low-altitude demo projects by 2025 alongside Jiutian AI’s 30 industry-specific AI models / full item
China: “Temu is looking to turn the costs of Amazon’s full range of logistics, order processing, transport, delivery and customer relations services into a weakness it can exploit…” / full item
- China: Huawei’s MateXT triple-fold smartphone is reportedly facing significant hinge durability issues just weeks after release, exacerbated for users by high price point / full item
- China: A broad overview of the many steps taken to implement a national blockchain infrastructure / full item
- China launches trial of cross-border payments CBDCs with Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong, Thailand and UAE with International Monetary Fund and others as observers / full item
“Chinese scientists have mounted what they say is the world’s first effective attack on a widely used encryption method using a quantum computer.” / full item
- China: ByteDance, TikTok parent firm, launches $170 AI-enabled earbuds linked to ByteDance Doubao chatbot / full item
- China: Baidu looks to expand Apollo Go robotaxi unit overseas, entering talks with foreign automakers, ride-share firms and tech companies / full item
- China is to launch 2-3 quantum communications satellites in 2025, and one in 2027, connecting with ground-based networks in pursuit of global coverage / full item
China: “…this was the place to be for ambitious merchants hoping to strike gold in the country’s booming livestreaming e-commerce industry – until the competition simmered to a boil…” / full item
- China: CRRS Corp Qingdao Sifang unveils hydrogen train capable of 200kmph, claiming 745 miles on a single charge, capable of refueling in 15 minutes and emitting only water / full item
- An overview of China’s growing interest in vehicle-to-grid technologies – V2G – wherein EVs double as mobile power banks, sending stored energy back to the grid / full item
- US Dep’t of Commerce issues preliminary duties on solar energy imports from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, addressing competition from China-owned manufacturers / full item
- China: TikTok parent firm, ByteDance, is to develop an AI model trained primarily using Huawei chips as ‘tech war’ pressures grow on access and supply chain / full item
- China: Shijian-19 reusable satellite launches to research low Earth orbit radiation’s impact on seeds, potentially generating beneficial mutations such as short breeding cycles / full item
- China: A brief intro to Cofe+ from Hi-Dolphin Robot Tech, a fully-automated coffee kiosk / full item
- China Telecom has trained LLMs using domestic-only AI chips – most likely Huawei Ascend chips – with one model reportedly using 1 trillion parameters / full item
“Sophgo was founded by Micree Zhan… Zhan is also the co-founder and chair of Bitmain, the largest Bitcoin ASIC designer and a provider of water-cooled crypto mining systems.” / full item
- Australia-China research identifies new method for lithium extraction from saltwater, with lower environmental impacts and faster processing, and freshwater as a by-product / full item
- Taiwan’s TSMC suspended shipments reportedly for Sophgo, a China-based chip designer affiliated with Bitmain crypto-mining firm, after chip made for Sophgo appeared on a Huawei AI processor / full item
- HSBC Hong Kong unit has joined China’s worldwide interbank renminbi payment system, CIPS, as a direct offshore participant, with Beijing pushing to internationalise the yuan / full item
- Australia-linked Ioneer gains US federal permit for Rhyolite Ridge lithium-boron mine, potentially supplying lithium for 370K EVs a year and quadrupling US production / full item
- Hong Kong: Civil service is now banned from using messaging and cloud services including WhatsApp, WeChat and Google Drive on work computers due to ‘severe internet safety risks’ / full item
“TSMC halted shipments to the client around mid-October after it realised semiconductors fabricated for that entity had found their way into Huawei products…” / full item
- Taiwan’s TSMC has notified US commerce department over customer orders for chip resembling Huawei Ascend 910B, potentially an attempt to circumvent tech restrictions / full item
- Thailand: Prime Minister invites China to build a satellite launch base for providing 6G technology in Thailand / full item
- Indonesia: Government orders Apple and Google to remove Temu e-commerce app from app stores, alongside plans for similar block on Shein, citing MSME protections / full item
- Indonesia’s gov’t-owned Battery Corp and China’s CATL battery-tech giant enter $1.2BN battery production JV, adding to Indonesia’s recent Hyundai and LG deals / full item
- Vietnam’s National Payment Corporation inks MOU with China’s UnionPay International for cross-border QR code interoperability, allowing QR payments between the two networks / full item
- Cambodia: Central bank partners China’s Ant International for Alipay+ cross-border mobile payments via the KHQR system, facilitated by Cambodia’s Bakong CBDC / full item
- China’s ByteDance, TikTok parent firm, has laid off more than 700 workers from its Malaysian unit, shifting focus towards greater use of AI in content moderation / full item
- Hong Kong Science & Tech Parks Corp’n unveils 12 new partner organisations, working in international data, health tech, artificial intelligence and more / full item
- South Korea’s SK On preps for mass production of prismatic batteries for the first time, supplying to China’s Geely electric vehicles maker / full item
- Malaysia’s Sipjoy takes win at most recent Alibaba Cloud Startup Demo Day with digital solutions for coffee shops / full item
- ICYMI: Democratic Republic of Congo sets sights on ‘better investors, more investors and diversified investors’ for critical mineral deposits and infra, see security in diversification / full item
- Philippines: Ayala Corp to sell 50% of shares in Mynt, parent of GCash – and JV between China’s Ant Group, Philippines’ Globe Telecom and Ayala – to Japan’s Mitsubishi in $318M deal / full item
“Indonesia and Vietnam are currently leading the manufacturing and trade flow shifts… In 2023, Indonesia received about $33BN in greenfield manufacturing FDI and Vietnam about $16BN…” / full item
- Philippines: StB Giga Factory Inc launches to produce advanced lithium iron phosphate batteries, with plans to export 70% / full item
Podcast: Why should we care about the Indo-Pacific?
