High performance systems maker CIARA has announced that it will produce an AMD-based ORION HF server line, as well as customised Blockchain platforms, running on AMD’s high-performance processors, with GPU mining cards.
Author: entelechyasia
ZTE ceases activities
ZTE has hit a massive roadblock that has resulted in the cessation of its business operations. China’s number 2 telecom equipment maker was hit by the US’s seven-year blockade to vital components needed for its devices.
Alibaba acquires Daraz to extend South Asia reach
Alibaba Group has acquired Daraz, its second purchase for a Rocket Internet company following the earlier deal for Lazada in Southeast Asia.
Tech startup uses AI to correctly predict Kentucky Derby exacta
With its ability to crunch massive data and make predictions, it was only a matter of time before artificial intelligence (AI) was going to be applied to gambling, if it had not already done so.
Toyota builds autonomous vehicle test facility
Toyota Research Institute (TRI) is building a closed-course test facility for autonomous vehicles. The 60-acre site at Michigan Technical Resource Park (MITRP) in the United States is expected to be ready in October.
End of Uber in SEA
The Uber app will officially cease in Southeast Asia (SEA) on May 8, 2018. This follows the acquisition of its SEA business by rival Grab in March.
Xiaomi to list in HK
Xiaomi, one of China’s biggest smartphone makers, has picked Hong Kong for its public listing.
Coming soon: WhatsApp group call
Conference calls is coming to WhatsApp! While group chats have been around for a while, the messaging app will be adding group voice call in the coming months, according to Mark Zuckerberg, Founder and CEO of Facebook at his keynote address at F8 developer conference.
AI business value to hit US$1.2t worldwide in 2018
Artificial intelligence (AI) is on the rise with global business value expected to hit US$1.2 trillion in 2018, an increase of 70 percent from 2017, according to Gartner.
BitcoinWiki.org announces Crypto University
BitcoinWiki.org has launched Crypto University which will teach topics such as Bitcoin technology, blockchain, economy, and world affairs.
Xiaomi bucks trend as China smartphone market dips in Q1
In a quarter when the China smartphone market experienced it biggest ever decline, Xiaomi bucked the trend and grew 37 percent to 12 million units, according to Canalys.
Panasonic powers facial recognition solution with NVIDIA deep learning technologies
Security is a major concern in airports, government buildings and major infrastructures around the world. Governments need to be able to quickly identify potential threats among the many people that enter and exit their countries daily. An effective facial recognition system is critical in safeguarding the country and critical infrastructures.
Yahoo fined US$35m for security breach
Yahoo, now part of Altaba, has been fined US$35 million for failing to disclose a 2014 security breach.
Xiaomi tops India smartphone market in Q1

Building on a momentum of 155 percent annual shipment growth in India last year, Xiaomi started Q1 at the top with a whopping nine million plus units to snag 31 percent market share, according to Canalys.
DEEPCORE teams up with NVIDIA to boost AI startups
Tokyo-based startup incubator DEEPCORE is partnering NVIDIA to support AI startups and promote university research programmes across Japan.
Forensic accountants uncover potential breaches at Trek 2000
Thumb drive inventor Trek 2000 International may have breached Singapore laws, according to forensic accountants from RSM Corporate Advisory.
Fujitsu HK appoints new CEO
Fujitsu Hong Kong has appointed Leo Ng as Chief Executive Officer. An industry veteran with more than 20 years of experience in Greater China and Asia Pacific, Ng will chart the company’s direction and business strategy, steering the company on its transformation journey by supporting customers to embrace cutting edge technologies such as AI and IoT in the digital era.
Spotting insurance claim and eye anomalies using GPU-powered AI
What does a fraudulent insurance claim and eye problem have in common? Well, both can be identified, thanks to powerful NVIDIA GPUs deployed by AIDA Technologies, a Singapore-based artificial intelligence (AI) startup which began in 2016.
SmugMug acquires Flickr
SmugMug has acquired Flickr, a move that brings together two big photo-sharing sites.
Amazon Echo Spot heads to Australia
More smart speakers are heading to this part of the world. Amazon has announced that the Echo Spot is ready for pre-order in Australia.
Amazon has more than 100m Prime subscribers
The number is staggering even if the company is Amazon. Jeff Bezos has announced that Amazon Prime has more than 100 million members globally.
8m autonomous vehicles by 2025
ABI Research expects eight million consumer vehicles shipping in 2025 will feature SAE Level 3 and 4 technologies, where drivers will still be necessary but are able to completely shift safety-critical functions to the vehicle under certain conditions, and SAE Level 5 technology, where no driver will be required at all.
Google Home and Home Mini come to Singapore
Google Home lovers in Singapore, rejoice! The smart speakers — in both Home and Home Mini versions (above) — are now available at Google Store in Singapore.
Canon Medical Systems accelerates deep learning in healthcare with NVIDIA DGX
Canon Medical Systems will use NVIDIA DGX systems to process large volumes of medical data generated by Abierto VNA, its proprietary, in-house, medical data management system launched in January.
Cryptics announces world’s first AI-based cryptocurrency analytics solution
Cryptics has launched what it claims is the world’s first cryptocurrency analytics solution based on artificial intelligence (AI).
Gaming and VR focus at Computex
With the global gaming market expected to touch US$128.5 billion in 2020, this year’s Computex will have gaming and virtual reality (VR) as a focus area, alongside artificial intelligence (AI), 5G, blockchain, Internet of Things, and innovations and startups.
Friday the 13th launches on Friday the 13th
Blue Wizard Digital waited and waited for this day — Friday the 13th — to release its game Friday the 13th: Killer Puzzle worldwide on iOS, Android, and Steam.
APAC PC shipment down 3.9% from Q1

The downward trend continues for worldwide PC shipment with a 1.4 percent drop in Q1, making it the 14th consecutive quarter of decline, according to Gartner.
Razer Game Store on Lazada for Southeast Asia
Razer has teamed up with Lazada to put its newly-launched Razer Game Store on the e-commerce platform for Southeast Asia.
Doogee unleashes 4 innovative smartphones
Shenzhen-based Doogee is not one for the humdrum. While most other smartphones sport mostly similar technologies, this maker has decided to go for the different feel with four new phones — the transparent Doogee TT, flip camera Mix 3, slide phone Mix 4, and flexible screen phone.
Leadtek releases NVIDIA Quadro GV100 for workstations
Leadtek has released the Volta-based NVIDIA Quadro GV100 with 32GB of HBM2 memory, delivering more than 40 percent the double precision compute performance and over 2.5 times the deep learning procession performance of the previous-generation Quadro GP100.
Expereo and SecureOps form strategic partnership
Expereo and SecureOps have formed a strategic partnership to provide total network security for enterprises.

Ivacy releases Firefox extension
Singapore-based Ivacy VPN has released an extension for the Firefox browser with essentially the same features as its offering for Google Chrome.
Apple fully powered by clean energy

New SAS division to fight fraud with AI and analytics
SAS has formed a global Fraud and Security Intelligence Division to help organisations better detect and
SenseTime becomes most valuable AI company
China-based SenseTime Group has become the world’s most valuable artificial intelligence (AI) startup following a US$600 million from Alibaba Group Holding and other investors for a valuation of more than US$3 billion.
Razer Game Store goes live
Gaming peripheral maker Razer has launched the Razer Game Store, a digital distribution platform for PC games.
StarHub bumps 4G speed to 1Gbps
Singapore telco StarHub has upped its 4G speed to 1Gbps — giving users faster access at various parts of the island.
Spotify makes successful public listing
Spotify made its debut on the New York Stock Exchange and closed the first day at US$26.5 billion, about 30 percent above analysts’ prediction.
ANSYS to acquire OPTIS
Pittsburgh-based engineering simulation software maker ANSYS has agreed to acquire France-based optical simulation software provider OPTIS with the transaction expected to be completed in Q2.
India external storage market dips 4.7% in Q4
India’s external storage market dropped 4.7 percent year on year to US$74.1 million in Q4, according to IDC.
Spotify goes public
Leading music streaming site Spotify will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange today (New York time).
The taxi that looks for you
Where’s a taxi when you need one? That’s the bane of passengers from around the world, except possibly in Taipei where taxis somehow seem to be just where you need them.
H2O.ai optimises Driverless AI and H2OGPU for NVIDIA
H2O.ai has announced that its Driverless AI automated machine learning platform and H2O4GPU open source GPU-accelerated machine learning package are now both fully optimised for the latest-generation NVIDIA Volta architecture GPUs — the NVIDIA Tesla V100 — and CUDA 9 software.
It’s a GAG!
NVIDIA pulled a fast one on the media with the announcement of the GeForce Academy of Gaming over the weekend.
VR to impact retail and marketing
Virtual reality (VR) has been tipped to be the next innovative technology to improve and impact retail and marketing.
IoT goes deep
Arm is taking its recently-announced Project Trillium a step further with a collaboration with NVIDIA. The partners will bring the open-source NVIDIA Deep Learning Accelerator (NVDLA) architecture into Project Trillium platform for machine learning.
Adobe and NVIDIA team up to improve Sensei
Adobe and NVIDIA have formed a strategic partnership to rapidly enhance their industry-leading artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning technologies.
Nyriad and ThinkParQ to certify GPU-accelerated storage
Nyriad and ThinkParQ are partnering to develop a certification programme for high performance, resilient storage systems that combine BeeGFS with NSULATE, Nyriad’s solution for GPU-accelerated storage-processing.
Safer self-driving car tests with NVIDIA Drive Constellation
A number of self-driving cars sporting NVIDIA’s autonomous driving technologies were present at GPU Technology Conference in San Jose this week. However, none was available for a test drive — a sensible move by NVIDIA in the light of the fatal Uber self-driving car accident the week before.
VRgineers ups the notch in enterprise VR
VRgineers is harnessing the potential of the new NVIDIA Quadro GV100 GPU for its high-resolution virtual reality (VR) headset, enabling even complex 3D scenes, high-poly models and high-resolution textures to perform smoothly at full refresh rates.
Leadtek introduces new entry-level workstation GPU
Leadtek has released NVIDIA Quadro P620, an entry level professional GPU that gives designers an expansive visual workspace to view all creations in stunning detail.
Project Clara is truly amazing
One of the most eye-catching demo during NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang’s keynote address at GTC 2018 is Project Clara.
NVIDIA DGX-2: Insanely powerful

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang (above) dubbed it the “world’s biggest GPU”. And he certainly wasn’t kidding as the NVIDIA DGX-2 is a massive 350-pounder that delivers an amazing two petaflops of computational power.
GTC hits new highs

The GPU Technology Conference (GTC) has hit new highs with a record of more than 8,000 participants, and filling the entire San Jose McEnery Convention Center.
Sad day for autonomous vehicles
A 49-year-old woman has become the first pedestrian to be killed by an autonomous vehicle.
Broadcom’s takeover bid of Qualcomm takes broadside hit
Singapore-based Broadcom has been dealt a major blow in its takeover bid of Qualcomm. US president Donald Trump has issued an order against the US$117 billion deal.
Bangladesh smartphone market continues growth trajectory
Bangladesh mobile operators began offering 4G services last month, albeit in limited areas, after gaining the necessary licences.
Amazon Echo laughter freaks users
While laughter is said to be the best medicine, it can send chills down the spines of hearers, as in the case of the mysterious laughter coming from Amazon Echo.

Singtel and Razer have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to connect their respective e-payment systems into an interoperable network to reach out to up to 50 million users in Southeast Asia.