Asian Tech Roundup: Australia plans social media ban for under-16s

Plus: Taiwan investigating Musk’s alleged advice for manufacturers to move to other countries

Welcome to Computing's weekly roundup of tech news in Asia. This time we look at how Australia is planning to ban children from using social media; reports that Elon Musk is telling Starlink suppliers to move facilities out of Taiwan; and Japan’s automated cargo corridor.

Australia

• A new report shows Australian firms are becoming increasingly conservative with their tech spending. Instead of riskier or complex propositions like AI, they are looking to foundational areas like cloud. Source
• Australia is planning to ban children under 16 from using any social media apps without exception, putting the onus on the platforms to police access. Source
• Australia has scrapped a multi-billion-dollar defence geostationary satellite deal with Lockhead Martin, claiming the technology is vulnerable to attack. Source

China

• China has revised the design of its Long March 9 rocket to mimic SpaceX’s Starship, with a fully reusable first stage and almost identical second stage. Source
• Autonomous driving software developer DeepRoute.ai has raised $100 million from an unnamed, though almost certainly Chinese, automaker. It expects 200,000 cars using its technology to be on Chinese roads by the end of 2025. Source
• Canada has ordered ByteDance to close its subsidiary TikTok Technology Canada, Inc on national security grounds . Source
• And the UK government has ordered Chinese holding company FTDIHL to sell its stake in a Scottish chip company FTDI under national security and investment rules. Source

India

• India's financial crime agency has raided offices of sellers operating on Amazon Flipkart ecommerce platforms over alleged violations of foreign investment rules. Source
• The High Court in Madras has ordered Telegram to block and delete channels and chatbots impersonating fintech app PhonePe, which has filed a suit against the messaging app. Source
• WhatsApp says it banned 8.6 million accounts in India in September – some for breaking WhatsApp’s rules and some for complaints by other users. Source

Japan

• Sony’s operating profits rose 73% in the latest quarter, with strong sales in its game and network business. Source
• LignoSat, the wooden satellite Japanese researchers developed earlier this year has been launched into space on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Source
• Japan is planning to build an automated cargo transport corridor between Tokyo and Osaka to make up for a shortage of truck drivers. Trials are due to start in 2027. Source
• Singaporean asset manager Keppel has agreed to buy an “AI-ready” datacentre in Tokyo, being developed by property group Mitsui Fudosan. Source

South Korea

• The Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC), South Korea’s privacy regulator, has fined Meta KRW21.62 billion ($15.67 million) for illegally collecting sensitive personal information from Facebook users. Source
• Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has asked memory chip maker SK Hynix to supply its next-gen HBM4 chips six months early, says SK Group chair Chey Tae-won. Source

Taiwan

• TSMC has said its investment plans in the US remain unchanged, despite the election of Donald Trump, who accused Taiwan of stealing the US’s semiconductor market. Source
• Taipei is “paying close attention” to reports that Elon Musk is telling Starlink suppliers to move manufacturing elsewhere. Musk has previously sided with China over its claims to Taiwan. Source

Vietnam

• A draft law to tighten rules on data protection and limit data transfers abroad would limit growth in social media platforms and Vietnamese datacentre operators, US tech firms have warned. Source
• Shunsin, a Foxconn subsidiary, is seeking a permit to invest $80 million in northern Vietnam to produce integrated circuits. The plant, in Bac Giang, would become operational in December 2026. Source

Other Asia

• Indonesia: Indonesian sovereign wealth fund INA and Singapore-based venture capital firm Granite Asia plans to jointly invest up to $1.2 billion in Indonesia's technology sector, and in businesses with “strong ties” to the nation. Source
• Singapore: Volt Typhoon, an APT group affiliated with the Chinese government, allegedly breached Singapore Telecommunications over the summer, as part of a series of attacks against critical infrastructure operators. Source