#China #funding - Horizon Robotics, a Beijing headquartered AI chip designer, has gathered an aggregate of $350 million in its Series C3 round of financing, the investee announced this week. The Series C3 tranche brings the total corpus raised by Horizon in its Series C round to $900 million. (DealStreet Asia)

#China #funding - Self-driving truck technology developer Plus has completed its Series B funding round, pulling in $200 million from returning backers and new investors from China. In total, Plus has raised nearly $400 million. (Freight Waves)

#SouthKorea #funding - South Korea-based autonomous driving security solutions provider Autocrypt has raised nearly $13 million in a Series A funding round while private equity firm MBK Partners has joined the list of private equity firms pursuing deals of Tsukui Holdings Corporation. (DealStreet Asia)

#India #USA #funding - Venture growth investor Iron Pillar, which backs global companies that build products out of India, has led a $5 million funding round in cloud-based artificial intelligence company Ushur. This is an extension of Ushur’s $25 million Series B round in November last year. (Economic Times)

#SouthKorea #USA #M&A - Match Group, purveyors of the popular online dating site, intend to spend $1.7 billion in combined cash and stock to acquire Seoul, South Korea-based startup Hyperconnect, a firm that has won recognition for its facial recognition technology. (ZDNet)

#SouthKorea #AVs - Hyundai’s TIGER, short for “transforming intelligent ground excursion robot” rolls like an all-wheel-drive over most terrain. When that terrain becomes difficult or impossible to drive on, it extends its legs and simply walks or wobbles over the obstacles. (Slash Gear)

#India #manufacturing - Ola will utilise ABB’s automation solutions in its factory’s key manufacturing process lines, including its painting and welding lines, while the ABB robots will be deployed extensively for the battery and motor assembly lines. (LiveMint)

#Japan #USA #AVs - Aurora Innovation Inc., a Silicon Valley-based autonomous-driving startup with at least a $10 billion valuation, has agreed to a long-term strategic partnership with Toyota Motor Corp. and its supplier Denso Corp. that aims to mass produce autonomous vehicles and launch them on ride-hailing networks, including Uber’s, over the next few years. (Japan Times)

#China #AVs - Baidu has partnered with the Guangzhou Huangpu District government to roll out the world’s first multi-modal autonomous driving MaaS platform. (Traffic Tech Today)

#China #AIchips - China’s search engine giant Baidu Inc is in talks to raise cash for an artificial intelligence semiconductor company, CNBC reported on Wednesday, citing a person familiar with the matter. (Reuters)

#India #business - 83 percent of Indian consumers and business leaders now trust AI-based finance tools more than humans, according to a new study by Oracle and personal finance expert Farnoosh Torabi. (DaijiWorld)

#China #Xinjiang #facialrecognition - Revelations about ethnicity-tracking biometric systems being developed by many of the biggest names among China-based AI and facial recognition providers continue, with Dahua the latest discovered by IPVM to have developed the capability. (Biometric Update)

#China #blacklist - The Biden administration will look at adding “new targeted restrictions” on certain sensitive technology exports to China in cooperation with allies, a senior official said on Wednesday ahead of the new president’s first call with China’s leader Xi Jinping. (Reuters)

#China #US #AIrace - The Biden administration needs to develop an aggressive, coherent digital policy to counter China’s growing technological power, industry groups and former U.S. officials say. The U.S. should increase broadband access in, help U.S. companies sell abroad and take the lead on global data and technology policy worldwide - or risk U.S. tech companies being overtaken by Beijing, they say. (Reuters)

#China #USA #geopolitics - President Biden spoke Wednesday evening with President Xi Jinping of China, raising concerns about Beijing’s aggressive policies abroad and human rights abuses at home in the first conversation between the two leaders since Mr. Biden’s election. (New York Times - subscription)

#China #Tencent - Zhang Feng, an executive at China’s most valuable publicly listed company Tencent Holdings Ltd., has been held by Chinese authorities, part of a probe into a high-profile corruption case involving one of the country’s former top law-enforcement officials, people familiar with the matter said. (Wall Street Journal - subscription)

#India #patents - In the second part of “The Practitioner’s Dilemma of Patenting AI in India”, Krishna & Saurastri Associates discuss the unending conundrum faced while patenting AI related inventions in India, under the Patents Act, 1970. (Lexology)

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