Asia overview Indonesia, the world’s fourth most populous country, has banned imports of Apple’s iPhone 16.
Industry Minister Agus Gumiwan Kartasasmita told local media last week that Apple’s latest devices are not approved for use in Indonesia and are “illegal” to use or import.
The minister cited Apple’s unfulfilled commitment to invest in Indonesia and its failure to meet requirements for locally produced parts as reasons for the ban.
According to analyst firm IDC, Apple is not among the top five smartphone vendors in Indonesia. Rival analyst group Counterpoint rates Apple as a leader in the premium device segment, where devices cost at least $600. However, Indonesia is a developing country with a per capita GDP of $14,100, so the iPhone is not a mass-market proposition.
While the ban won’t have a noticeable impact on Apple’s revenue, Indonesia’s new government, which took office on October 20, two days before the ban was announced, appears to be stepping up early.
– Simon Sherwood
Japan, Taiwan, ask for help from above.
Last Thursday, the Ministry of Digital Affairs (MODA) and state media said Taiwan wants to rely on high-altitude balloons as a means of communication during emergencies such as natural disasters and war.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced [VIDEO] Its first balloon can fly up to 800 meters and is equipped with a mobile base station and power equipment that can provide coverage of more than 380 square kilometers. The balloon will remain in the air for two weeks and will be powered by hydrogen fuel cells.
Meanwhile, Japanese researchers are reported to have transmitted solar power generated in space to Earth.
Solar power from space provides a steady supply of energy, unaffected by weather or night cycles, but the practicality of transmitting it to Earth is daunting.
The project envisions installing stationary solar panels 36,000 kilometers above Earth by 2045, converting energy into microwaves and transmitting them to the ground.
Researchers at Kyoto University conducted an experiment and succeeded in irradiating a 70 square centimeter target with microwaves.
They plan to conduct another experiment in December, transmitting power from an airplane flying at an altitude of 7,000 meters.
Singapore unveils two new supercomputers
Singapore’s National Supercomputing Center last week announced S$270 million ($204 million) in funding to build two new machines.
The machine, named ASPIRE 2A, uses AMD’s EPYC 7713 for 105,984 cores and an EPYC 75F3 for an additional 1,024 cores. It also features 352 Nvidia A100 Tensor Core GPUs, 476TB of memory, 25PB of storage and an additional 10PB of scratch disk.
ASPIRE 2A+ uses an Nvidia DGX SuperPOD design consisting of 40 DGX H100 systems containing a total of 320 Nvidia H100 GPUs. Nvidia’s 400 Gbit/s InfiniBand is also included, and each system has 2TB of system memory, 27.5PB of storage, and an additional 2.5PB of scratch storage.
– Simon Sherwood
Will Samsung engineers jump ship?
Last week, reports surfaced that three job openings for etched semiconductor engineers at SK Hynix attracted about 200 applicants from fellow South Korean semiconductor manufacturer Samsung.
“This means that most of the engineers working on Samsung’s factory lines who are qualified for the job have applied,” local media outlet The Elec wrote.
This week, SK Hynix recorded record sales and profits. In stark contrast, Samsung executives earlier this month apologized in advance for future consequences.
Minister warns of potential cybercrime in Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Visita Heras reportedly warned of the country’s potential to become a “cybercrime capital”.
The remarks came after a raid earlier this month reportedly uncovered 230 foreign nationals, mostly Chinese, involved in fraud targeting foreign banks and financial institutions.
Lenovo appoints new head of ISG
Lenovo has appointed a new president of its Infrastructure Solutions Group (ISG).
Ashley Gorakpurwala will replace Kirk Skaugen, who left this summer.
Lenovo is quick to point out that Gorakhpurwalla is a Dell EMC veteran, but his last four years were spent in Western Digital’s HDD division. As pointed out, blocks and filesserver and storage personnel are expected to address Lenovo’s ISG profitability issues. Despite generating record revenue of $3.2 billion in the first quarter of 2025, ISG posted an operating loss for the year, marking several years of slow growth.
APAC Deal Book
Recent partnerships and deals discovered by register Here are some region-wide examples from last week:
- Australian investment management company HMC Capital has completed its $1.937 billion acquisition of data center business Global Switch Australia, aiming to establish itself as a global digital infrastructure player. This includes a 26MW colocation data center in Sydney CBD.
- Japanese multinational Fujitsu has completed field trials of its generative AI technology on Toyota Systems’ core IT infrastructure and plans to deploy the technology in January 2025.
- Keppel Data Center Fund has signed an agreement to develop an 80MW Tier III equivalent greenfield data center campus in northern Taiwan. The data center manager and operator this week signed an agreement with Woodside Energy for the supply and purchase of liquid hydrogen to power the Keppels data center in Singapore. ®
