Asia in brief SoftBank-owned Arm is reportedly preparing to add AI chips to its product portfolio starting in 2025.

The chip designer plans to set up an AI division with prototypes available in spring 2025 and mass production handled by contract manufacturers starting in fall, reports Nikkei.

Arm is said to be taking on the initial development costs with some help from SoftBank. The resulting AI chip business could later be spun off into a SoftBank subsidiary.

According to Bloomberg, SoftBank's Vision Fund has been quietly sold off in preparation. The fund's workforce was also reduced to what the publication described as "caretakers."

South Korea readies $7 billion chip boost

Over the weekend South Korea's finance minister announced that the country was preparing a ₩10 trillion ($7.3 billion) support package for chip investments and research.

While the details remain vague, minister Choi Sang-Mok said the package would target chip materials, equipment makers, as well as fabless companies, and could include subsidies.

Foxconn defends Wisconsin endeavors

Foxconn issued a statement regarding its endeavors in Wisconsin after news broke last week that its fabled Mount Pleasant LCD manufacturing center was to be repurposed into a $3.3 billion Microsoft datacenter campus.

"Despite changes in market demand and other challenges, Hon Hai Technology Group (Foxconn) continues to grow with its community in Wisconsin," stated the Taiwanese component maker.

The company boasted that Foxconn Wisconsin "is a key manufacturing site for data servers" employing more than 1,000 people, an increase of 42 percent in the past three years.

"We have been Racine County's largest taxpayer in recent years. Foxconn supports expansion of technology and innovation to the state, backing bonds that allowed local stakeholders and partners to install world-class infrastructure. Foxconn has invested approximately $1 billion in the state," the company claimed.

Japan ramps up platform content responsibility

Japan's parliament enacted an amendment law on Friday that requires social media platforms to better regulate defamatory content.

Starting in one year, platforms including Facebook and X must set up points of contact for deletion requests and disclose the criteria required to remove content.

The amendment was approved in the House of Councillors after being passed last month in the House of Representatives.

Singapore financial institutions have 'insignificant' crypto exposure

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) clarified last week that the city-state's key financial institutions have "insignificant exposures to cryptocurrency and crypto players."

The statement was made in response to questions regarding Singapore-based Terraform Labs and the collapse of its Terra stablecoin. The regulatory body claimed the company "was not performing activities requiring a license from MAS and was consequently neither licensed nor exempted from licensing by MAS."

APAC dealbook

Recent alliances and deals spotted by The Register across the region include:

• HCLTech and AWS collaborating to accelerate adoption of generative AI.

  "HCLTech and AWS will help enterprises explore and develop GenAI-led use cases, proofs of concept, tools, and solutions," the pair said in a statement.

  "They will develop a structural framework with target-based milestones aligned to business strategy that enables the co-creation of customized GenAI-led solutions and offers clients flexible consumption models."

• Meanwhile, fellow Indian IT outsourcer Wipro has teamed up with Microsoft to launch a suite of generative AI-powered virtual assistance for use in financial services.

  Powered by Azure OpenAI, the chatbots will "provide financial professionals with deep market intelligence" on investment products and investor behavior, as well as "accelerate the investor onboarding and loan origination process" by speeding along the time it takes to validate documents and respond to investor queries, said the duo.

• Not to be left out, Infosys and ServiceNow announced they had strengthened a generative AI-related strategic collaboration.

  "The collaboration aims to increase productivity, enhance efficiency, and improve user experience for organizations by combining ServiceNow's Now Assist generative AI capabilities and Infosys Cobalt, a set of services, solutions, and platforms designed to accelerate cloud-powered enterprise transformation," stated a press release.

• Optical fiber network equipment provider PacketLight Networks and Japanese electronics company Toshiba together demonstrated quantum key distribution (QKD) over DWDM links.

  According to a statement, the validation was conducted over both a long-haul link in Okinawa and a multiplexed QKD link in Sapporo.

  "The integration of Toshiba's QKD technology with PacketLight's DWDM/OTN devices paves the way for enhanced secure data transmission," claimed PacketLight CEO Koby Reshef.

• IT solutions and managed service provider Logicalis revealed it united its Australia and Asia operations into one 1,600-employee entity.

  "This strategic realignment will be effective from June 1, 2024, and positions Logicalis to amplify its market presence through increased synergy within the APAC region," explained the company. ®

https://www.theregister.com//2024/05/13/apac_roundup_may13/