Old age poverty and active ageing in ASEAN: Trends
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December 2024
- A brief overview of the recent 2024 Humans In Space Challenge, coordinated by South Korean pharma firm, Boryung, looking at health challenges, solutions and opportunities / full item
- The head of South Korea’s stock exchange says the nation should ‘institutionalize crypto’ and ‘act quickly’ or risk losing ground on its international rivals. / full item
- South Korea: SK Telecom invests $3M in AI-backed video analysis firm, Twelve Labs, merging the two firms’ AI expertise to further develop SK Telecom’s AI Agent and new services / full item
- South Korea: SDT quantum computer manufacturing specialist raised $14M in pre-IPO funding, building on global partnerships / 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
“…Hwang delisted his shop from South Korea’s major delivery apps. His gross sales have dropped significantly [but] a worthwhile tradeoff given the high cost of working with the platforms.” / full item
- South Korea: DeepX chips firm preps to receive wafers from Samsung Electronics’ 5nm process, focusing on on-device AI semiconductors and following 87% yields / full item
- South Korea: Gov’t to roll out $10BN in low-interest loans in 2025 to support the chips industry, with advanced complex under construction in bid to attract firms / full item
- Thailand: Korea Tourism Startup Center opens in Bangkok, an initiative by Korea Ministry of Culture, Sports & Tourism and Korea Tourism Organisation aiming to boost collaborations and market entry / full item
ADB: The Role and Future of Digital Economy Agreements in Asia & Pacific
November 2024
- South Korea: ComeUp 2024 global startup festival was held December 11-12 in Seoul, featuring a range of specialist summits / full item
- South Korea: Police arrest 215 people on suspicion of stealing $228M in the country’s largest cryptocurrency investment scam, impacting 15K victims / full item
- South Korea: Startups Ministry proposes plan to create 4 cities by 2030 that will rank in the best 100 cities worldwide in which to start a new business / full item
- South Korea: Samsung Electronics commences gear installation at new NRD-K R&D complex, looking at future product development across all semiconductor fields / full item
- South Korea: SK Telecom expects AI-focused data centers to be its first major revenue source in AI business streams, seeing 80% of Korean centers under construction already leased / full item
- South Korea: Meta was fined over $15M following unauthorised collection of of near 980,000 users’ data for advertisers including on religion, political views and sexuality / 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
- South Korea’s Perigee Aerospace space launch firm and Thailand’s Geo-Informatics & Space Tech Development Agency ink MOU to develop Thai space infrastructure and capabilities / full item
- South Korea: Ministry of Startups & SMEs has launched new ‘Startup Korea Special Visa’ for Foreign Entrepreneurs and Startups’ initiative, selecting on criteria including business viability / full item
- South Korea: 7 major banks join retailers including 7-Eleven and Kyobo bookstore for participation in central bank’s fast-expanding CBDC pilot / full item
South Korea: The Digital Asset User Protection Foundation is being established to help users recover assets stuck in defunct exchanges, with gov’t pledging support for the initiative / full item
- South Korea: Busan Digital Asset Exchange formally launches, aiming to tokenize real-world assets including precious metals, raw materials, and carbon credits / full item
‘A record-breaking crypto rally born in the US is leaving its mark on Asia, including a jump in the value of Bitcoin held by Bhutan to more than $1BN…’ / full item
- Vietnam: South Korea’s LG Innotek to scale up manufacturing in Haiphong with $268M in new facility investment, targeting smartphone camera modules and optical products / 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
Collision Course: The future of China’s carmarkers in Russia
October 2024
- South Korea: Government launches National AI Research Lab with plans to invest $68.2M by 2028, looking at AI research projects and global partnerships / full item
- South Korea: Rebellions chip-maker partners Samsung Foundry, Arm, and ADTechnology for AI CPU chiplet platform, looking for scalable power and processing efficiency / full item
- South Korean media points to crypto trading as reason for young people defaulting on loans from neobanks / full item
- South Korea: North Gyeongsang Province seized $890K in crypto assets from residents who failed to pay taxes, with 22 cities and counties now preparing for further collections / full item
- South Korea: New regulatory body preps for launch this month, the tentatively-named Virtual Assets Committee, operating under the Financial Services Commission / full item
‘A South Korean probe into soldiers who reportedly used their military passwords as loan collateral to buy crypto has unveiled 29 further cases of compromised armed forces secrets.’ / full item
- South Korea’s Hyundai and Google’s Waymo, autonomous driving tech firm, have partnered to bring Hyundai EV’s to Waymo’s US robotaxi fleet in 2025 / full item
- South Korea: Global Content Insight 2024 event is set for November 21-22, providing networking for, and with, Korean content producers across K-Pop, K-Drama and more / full item
- South Korea, Japan and the US are to boost joint efforts to combat North Korea’s hacking activities, in response to a rise in attacks on global virtual currency exchanges / 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
- Korea-origin AI startup, MarqVision, secures $16.5M Series A with intellectual property protection platform, scanning messaging and platforms globally for counterfeit sales / full item
- North Korean hackers found using new Linux-focused FASTCash malware to attack ATMs and card transactions at both retail and regional interbank payment processor levels / full item
North Korea: “…about 6 in 10 people use mobile phones to purchase shop items in the capital [Pyongyang], and while the number is a bit lower in the provinces, it’s still 4 in 10.” / full item
- Japan’s JPYC, issuer of yen-pegged stablecoin, partners South Korea’s ITCEN IT major for stablecoin research, particularly focusing on integrations with real-world assets / full item
Taiwan: ‘…ranks first in the world in AI hardware, but 26th in software, behind neighboring Singapore (third) and South Korea (sixth).’ / full item
- Project Mandala proof-of-concept: Automating compliance procedures on cross-border financial transactions, with central banks of Singapore, Malaysia, Australia and Korea participating / full item
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