Ant Group set for $34 billion IPO; Indonesia pushing medtech

#China #HongKong #IPO - Alibaba’s online finance spinoff, Ant Group, which offers people in China a one-stop shop for loans, investments and more, will list shares in Hong Kong and Shanghai. The Chinese financial technology titan, is set to raise around $34 billion. (New York Times - subscription)

#SouthKorea #AIvoice - Atlas Labs is a Korean startup that has developed a voice call application that utilises an AI language model and speech-to-text technology. “AI engines will eventually become able to handle more complex sentences and dialogues in the future,” says Atlas Labs CEO Robin Lyu. (Korea Herald)

#China #R&D - iFlytek’s artificial intelligence innovation platform has attracted more than 1.57 million developers from home and abroad, according to a Xinhua news report from the iFlytek global developer festival, held in Hefei last week. (Xinhua)

#Indonesia #medtech #insurtech - Online health care and medtech AI have risen in prominence in Indonesia as the government seeks more equal access to health care. Meanwhile, Indonesia’s private health care insurance market remains small and is ripe for further development. (SCMP)

#SouthKorea #robotics - While many people have learned to stay in touch with loved ones, friends, and colleagues through videoconferencing during the COVID-19 pandemic, the reduction of face-to-face interaction has boosted a market for robots providing substitutes for physical human contact. (Kyodo News)

#SouthKorea #USA #KFC - Hyundai Robotics Co. has joined hands with fried chicken franchise KFC Korea Co. to automate the cooking process. Hyundai Robotics will develop the automation process to cook chickens using robots. (Korea Herald)

#Canada #China #robotics - Alex Guo opened his restaurant in Calgary as Red Tails Cajun Seafood Bar a little over a year ago but after the COVID-19 shutdown, he knew that expensive seafood platters weren’t going to fly during a pandemic. So he set to refresh the restaurant’s décor, ordered himself some robots from China, and designed a new menu. (Calgary Herald)

#Japan #robotics - Japanese startups are getting ready to deploy a small army of remote-controlled robots in the workplace. Called avatar robots, the machines are still experimental and their initial objectives limited. However, the technology has the potential to replace humans. (Asia Nikkei - subscription)

#China #Macao #AVs - The University of Macao (UM) Friday launched an Autonomous Driving Bus Testing Platform, marking Macao’s first operational autonomous driving bus running in the campus on a trial basis. (CGTN)

#Japan AVs - SafeAI, a platform for autonomous heavy equipment, and Obayashi Corporation, a Japanese-based global leader in construction, have agreed a partnership to create autonomous construction sites, beginning with a pilot program on a US test site. (Robotics & Automation News)

#China #funding - ECARX, an auto tech startup backed by Chinese automaker Geely, has raised 1.3 billion yuan ($194 million) in its series A funding round led by Baidu. The proceeds from the financing round will be used to develop car chips, high-definition mapping technology and autonomous driving technology, (Caixin Global)

#SouthKorea #WiFi - The Seoul city government said it will launch a new public Wi-Fi service in five wards on a trial basis next month. The free service, named “Kkachi On,” will be introduced in the eastern district of Seongdong and the southwestern district of Guro on Sunday, before being expanded to the Eunpyeong, Gangseo and Dobong in mid-November. (Korea Bizwire)

#Japan #drivingtests - A driving school in Onojo, Fukuoka Prefecture, has started using an artificial intelligence-based system on a trial basis to evaluate students’ driving skills . It is the first time for a driving school in Japan to introduce such a system for evaluating skills.  (Japan Times)

#China #US #tradewar - US President Donald Trump started a trade war with China to fix what he’s repeatedly blasted as an unfair relationship between the world’s two largest economies. But he doesn’t have much to show for a bruising trade battle that has been a cornerstone of his foreign policy. (CNN)

#China #SouthKorea #Taiwan #US #chips - The industrial future of the planet rests to an extraordinary degree on two companies—Samsung in South Korea and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the go-to supplier for Apple Inc. and the focus of next-generation chipmaking. Both rely on U.S. technology. This is China’s economic choke point. (Bloomberg)

#China #US #defence - In the digital arms race with China, the only thing worse than fearing AI itself is the fear of not having it at all. China’s ambitions far outstrip merely copying or surpassing US military. (WIRED)

#China #US #tradewar - In its bid to rival the U.S., Beijing wants to establish the industrial standards that will shape future industries. Although he was sworn into his ITU role with a pledge to act “with the interest of the union only in view” while avoiding influence from any one country, head of the UN’s telecoms agency Zhao Houlin, regularly celebrates China’s growing presence in the telecoms and internet industries. (FT via Financial Post)

#SouthKorea #Samsung - Lee Kun-hee, who built Samsung into a global giant of smartphones, televisions and computer chips but was twice convicted — and, in a pattern that has become typical in South Korea, twice pardoned — for white-collar crimes committed along the way, died on Sunday in Seoul, the South Korean capital. He was 78. (New York Times - subscription)

Carrington Malin is a UAE-based entrepreneur, marketer and writer who focuses on emerging technologies.