ASIA IN BRIEF Chinese academics have suggested nuclear weapons are the only effective way to destroy an asteroid that threatens to collide with Earth - if it's detected at short notice.

A paper published in Scientia Sinica Technologica argues that nukes are needed when humanity has little warning of an incoming space rock. If we spot such objects with time to spare, gravitational traction and laser ablation are viable alternatives.

International laws currently do not allow the use of nuclear weapons in space, though one imagines that weighed against the extinction of humanity an exception could be made.

AI will spark datacenter growth in China … soon

China's datacenter services market is "still in the recovery phase" after another year of declining revenue, according to analyst firm International Data Corporation (IDC).

The firm found the market was worth ¥125.01 billion ($17.64 billion) in 2023. Growth in public cloud services slowed dramatically, with the IaaS market's expansion rate dropping from 43.4 percent in 2021 to just 10.2 percent by 2023.

Despite a 25 percent increase in datacenter racks - primarily from projects initiated in previous years - government policies have tightened the reins on new bit barn builds, particularly in major cities.

However, Chinese authorities last week celebrated the installation of 1.95 million datacenter racks, in eight new national computing centers, under the east data, west computing plan - envisaged to shift datacenters to parts of the Middle Kingdom where renewable energy and land are plentiful.

India not in a rush to roll out digital currency

Despite the success of India's central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot, central bank governor Shaktikanta Das asserted there "should not be any rush" to extend the scheme across the entire financial system.

Das suggested that the nation should first build "a comprehensive understanding of its impact on users, on monetary policy, on the financial system and on the economy."

"Such understanding would emerge from generation of user data in pilots. Actual introduction of CBDC can be phased in gradually. Undoubtedly, CBDC has the potential to underpin the payment systems of future, both for domestic payments and also cross-border payments," he added.

India's CBDC pilot involved five million users across 16 participating banks and was rolled out in both retail and wholesale segments in late 2022.

The digital currency is programmable - a feature Das argued "could serve as a key enabler for financial inclusion by ensuring delivery of funds to the targeted user."

Alibaba supervision ends

China's State Administration for Market Regulation on Saturday annnounced its three-year "rectification" action to pull e-commerce giant Alibaba into line has ended.

Alibaba is apparently officially no longer a monopolist - but the regulator will continue to watch it in pursuit of better compliance and overall service improvements.

- Simon Sharwood

APNOG cancels Bangladesh conference

The Asia Pacific Network Operators Group Regional will choose a new location for its February 2025 Asia Pacific Internet Conference on Operational Technologies after unrest in Bangladesh made hosting the event there untenable. A new location will be selected in October.

APAC Dealbook

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

• Samsung SDI, the Korean giant's battery-making biz, has teamed with General Motors to build a $3.5 billion facility in the US state of Indiana.

  The deal is part of an effort to produce 36 gigawatt-hours worth of batteries annually, with operations set to begin in 2027.

• IT outsourcer Infosys revealed its plans to introduce generative AI-powered telecom solutions in partnership with Nvidia.

  "Infosys developed three generative AI solutions, all of which are powered by Infosys Topaz, using Nvidia NIM inference microservices, Nvidia NeMo Retriever embedding models, and NeMo Guardrails to customize and deploy generative AI telco domain-specific LLM models," stated Infosys. "Infosys Topaz also uses Nvidia Riva, for building real-time conversational AI pipelines that allow for real-time transcription and translations for call center agents."

• Fujitsu Uvance announced an initiative to digitalize clinical trials in Japan, by leveraging its AI-powered platforms in partnership with US startup Paradigm Health.

  This ecosystem will enhance the efficiency of clinical trials by integrating medical data and automating documentation, thus accelerating drug approval and availability in the island nation.

• Telco Singtel and Japanese MNC Hitachi expanded their collaboration to develop next-generation datacenters and GPU cloud solutions across Japan and Asia Pacific.

  This partnership aims to enhance enterprise digital transformation and AI adoption by combining Singtel's datacenter and connectivity expertise with Hitachi's capabilities in sustainable datacenter solutions and AI technologies.

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https://www.theregister.com//2024/09/02/asia_pacific_tech_news_roundup/