Continuity of CHIPS and Science Act questioned in a Trump presidency

Asia In Brief Taiwanese silicon wafer provider GlobalWafers said last week it expects its award from the CHIPS and Science Act to continue, despite a change in the US presidency and direction.

"Multi-year and decadal programs like the CHIPS Act and the agreements we have signed are regularly continued from one administration to the next,” the firm reportedly assured investors in a statement last Thursday. "We expect the CHIPS program to be no different and run smoothly in the Trump administration."

GlobalWafers was awarded up to $400 million as part of the program to support the establishment of a silicon wafer manufacturing facility in Sherman, Texas.

Other beneficiaries whose deals are yet to be finalized may be less sure. Korean media noted that Samsung Electronics and SK hynix are among the hopefuls closely monitoring amendments to the act.

According to Reuters newswire, three deals were reported to Congress as being close to finality – a formality required of any deal over $10 million. The pace at which the formality was completed is touted as potential anticipation for the change of office.

The Commerce Department has so far allocated more than 90 percent of the $39 billion in manufacturing incentives under the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act.

The president-elect has previously criticized the program, proposing to institute more tariffs instead.

Premium wages promised to Malaysian datacenter workers

Malaysia's datacenter hub of Johor will offer a guaranteed minimum premium wage for diploma and degree holders in specific sectors, including datacenters.

That wage is RM4000 ($900) per month for diploma holders or RM5000 ($1,130) per month for degree holders.

The move is seen as necessary to fill job positions in the Johor-Singapore Special Economic Zone (JS-SEZ) when workers may be tempted to commute across the border and work in Singapore – where both salaries and cost of living are significantly higher.

"This could also ensure that the 100,000 quality job opportunities expected to be created under the JS-SEZ will be taken up," deputy prime minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi explained, speaking at the launch of the Johor Talent Development Council.

"At the moment, about 74,000 of such jobs have been made available and only some 52,000 have been filled," he added.

One reason datacenters have proliferated in Johor is due to its proximity to Singapore. The space-starved island nation even held a multi-year moratorium on building new bitbarns. In May 2024, it instituted policies to make its onshore industry more sustainable.

Johor's datacenter scene has been described as a less-green "kind of proxy for all the demand coming from Singapore."

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With unfettered internet access, North Korean troops find pornography

As North Korean troops remain in Russia to fight in Putin's illegal war against Ukraine, they have experienced for the first time unrestricted access to the internet – a freedom that has led them to gorge on online pornography, asserted a Financial Times journalist last Wednesday.

The journalist, Gideon Rachman, did not specify with what devices the members of the Hermit Kingdom were accessing their entertainment of choice. He cited the news as coming from "a usually reliable source."

The US Department of Defense spokesperson major Charlie Dietz told publication Task and Purpose he could not confirm "any North Korean internet habits or virtual 'extracurriculars' taking place in Russia."

Around 10,000 of Kim Jong Un's soldiers are believed to be headed for the front line, and some have reportedly already clashed with Ukrainian troops. Governments have expressed concern that North Korea is likely receiving a transfer of technology in exchange for its military assistance.

South Korea fines Meta for data misuse

South Korea's Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC) issued Meta a 21.62 billion won ($15.67 million) fine for collecting Korean user data without consent and sharing it with advertisers.

"The investigations showed that Meta collected sensitive data that includes religious and political views and beliefs, same-sex marital status, etc, of about 980,000 domestic users," alleged the PIPC. "The company then provided advertisers with such data, resulting in around 4,000 advertisers taking advantage of it."

The PIPC alleged some of that data contained sensitive information, such as users' religious affiliations, sexual orientation, gender identity, and information on whether or not the individual is a North Korean defector – all of which is illegal to process without obtaining sufficient separate consent and instituting safeguards.

The regulator also accused Meta of enabling an environment where personal pages could be broken into.

Meta shrugs off reports its LLM helped Chinese military

The Facebook maker has shrugged off reports that its publicly available AI model, Llama, was leveraged to develop AI tools for the Chinese military.

"America must embrace open innovation or risk ceding its AI lead to China, hurting our economy and potentially putting our national security at risk," Meta told The Register.

"In the global competition on AI, the alleged role of a single, and outdated, version of an American open source model is irrelevant when we know China is already investing more than a trillion dollars to surpass the US technologically, and Chinese tech companies are releasing their own open AI models as fast – or faster – than companies in the US," it added.

APAC dealbook

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

• Chinese tech giant Tencent and German automotive supplier Bosch signed a series of MOUs focused on autonomous driving and smart cockpit technologies. The agreements build on a previous partnership and include AI-based cockpit systems, cloud computing solutions, and mapping for autonomous driving.
• Banque de France and the Monetary Authority of Singapore announced a trial of their first use of quantum-resistant cryptographic algorithms for the signing and encryption of emails.
• Asian datacenter developer and operator GDS International said it will invest $1 billion to develop a hyperscale datacenter park in Chonburi province, southeast of Bangkok. "The Thailand Board of Investment (BOI), which promotes high-impact investments, recently approved GDS International's project as part of its push to make Thailand a regional tech hub," stated a press release. ®