Compared to normal computers, supercomputers are able to perform high-level tasks and are often used for research and development purposes. Today, supercomputers are available in most regions around the world.

As of June 2021, statistics show that 188 of the world’s 500 most powerful supercomputers are located in China, a figure which is a third more than that of its nearest competitor, the United States, which accounted for an additional 122 supercomputers.

ARE QUANTUM COMPUTERS BECOMING MAINSTREAM?

Aaron Raj | 2 August, 2021

The performance of a supercomputer is commonly measured in floating-point operations per second (FLOPS) instead of million instructions per second (MIPS). The most powerful public supercomputer in the world is Fugaku, developed by Fujitsu and Japan’s national research institute Riken. The supercomputer has beaten competitors from both China and the U.S.

IBM which runs several supercomputers recently announced its latest quantum computing processor, the 127-qubit Eagle. However, the company said that the processor was it is first to be too complicated to be simulated by a classical supercomputer.

The rise of supercomputers in SEA

In Southeast Asia, supercomputers are also present in several countries. Thailand’s National Science and Technology Development Authority (NSTDA) is spending about US$ 17.8 million to buy the most efficient supercomputer in Southeast Asia, to promote science and technology. The Bangkok Post reported that the supercomputer is expected to start operations by the end of 2022, which is important for Thailand in terms of national disaster predictions and forecasts.

“The supercomputer will strengthen Thailand’s position in high-performance computing and research capabilities in ASEAN,” said Narong Sirilertworakul, president of the NSTDA.

Meanwhile in Singapore, which is already home to two national supercomputers, also recently announced plans to build its third national supercomputer to advance research in Covid-19 and other areas in healthcare. According to a Straits Times report, the new supercomputer is expected to train artificial intelligence (AI) to predict a patient’s future disease condition, such as Covid-19 and other diseases, within hours, instead of days as with standard computers.

The National Supercomputing Centre Singapore (NSCC) and National University Health System (NUHS) finalized an agreement to build the third national petascale supercomputer, which is expected to be ready by the middle of next year.

“NUHS sees a large number of patients per day and generates large amounts of data that can be used to train AI models that improve the quality of care. Normally, these could take days to process but the new supercomputer could help to cut our training times down to hours allowing our medical and para-medical staff to optimize patient trajectories and to improve the quality of patient care,” said Professor Ngiam Kee Yuan, Group Chief Technology Officer, NUHS.

With supercomputers enabling research in healthcare and other verticals to happen at a much faster pace, researchers will be able to come up with more use cases and solutions with supercomputers in the new future as well. For now, these machines are providing to be the best solutions to solving complex problems that no ordinary computers and technology can compete with.

The post Southeast Asia is investing in more supercomputers appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

A recently commissioned One Step study revealed that small businesses are holding back on technology investment as they face a range of barriers. It also revealed that some avoid adoption due to concerns over data security and the additional fees it would cost them.

BLOCKCHAIN ADOPTION DISCUSSED AT ASEAN SUMMIT

Aaron Raj | 1 November, 2021

The study revealed that small business owners most commonly cite the cost of technology, with almost half (48%) saying it is too expensive for them to invest in new software or hardware. 

The second most common barrier to technology adoption is the perception that there is no need for change. The third barrier is the hassle factor, as it is easier to stick with what is available, while the fourth is choice paralysis. There are just too many options, and it is overwhelming – therefore much easier to leave for another day.

However, small businesses are concerned about being left behind in a digital world and are struggling to keep up with their larger competitors. 

Singapore SMEs leading the way 

In the Xero survey, 4,200 small business owners and decision-makers in six markets found that Singaporean SMEs are digitization leaders on international ground, being: 

• Most confident embracing new technology in their business
• Most excited about the idea of embracing the latest technology 
• Most likely to have upgraded technology as a result of grants and subsidies 
• Most likely to have adopted a new technology in the last 12 months

The report titled Behavioural barriers to technology adoption amongst small businesses – and how to overcome them reported that the US and the UK are trailing behind Singapore’s SMEs, with only five in ten being most confident in embracing new technology in their business and six in ten being excited about the idea of embracing the latest technology. 

Digital technologies can offer ASEAN small-medium enterprises (SMEs) new opportunities to participate, innovate, expand and improve productivity in the global economy.

The use of digital technologies can also make it easier for SMEs to access skills and talent, for example, through better recruitment sites and outsourcing critical business functions, such as through cloud computing, all of which can help improve performance.

The study also found that small businesses worldwide that adopt new technologies quickly have an average of 120% more sales and 106% more productivity. Technology advocates or business owners are 27% more likely to wake up enthusiastic about their work, and 16% are more proud of their business.

Tech adoption woes in small businesses

A document titled Promoting the Productivity of SMEs in ASEAN Countries highlighted that SMEs tend to lag behind larger companies despite the potential advantages of tech adoption.  This is because of limited financial resources, making it challenging to adopt new technologies, including typically expensive ICT tools. 

Another critical barrier is human capital (including management expertise) and organizational capital, as investments in new technologies often require investments in complementary knowledge-based assets—workers or management who can help them get the most out of the new technology. 

Even SMEs face particular challenges when dealing with data protection and digital security risks, mainly due to a lack of sensitivity, resources and experience to effectively assess and manage the risks.

The post Research uncovers barriers to SMBs tech adoption appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

As remote and hybrid working appears to continue through 2022, one of the biggest problems workers face is how to go about with the recovery of deleted data — especially when it’s accidental.

Indeed, accidental deletion of data can and will happen when working on various devices.

And thus, a key question on the minds of a lot of people is — how can you recover accidentally deleted data?

In fact, the need for recovery of accidental data deletion is so great that a global study from Veritas Technologies showed that 57% of office workers have accidentally deleted vital data from cloud apps such as Office 365, with 14% doing so multiple times per week.

What’s more concerning is that almost all respondents (92%) incorrectly assume that their cloud provider would be able to restore deleted files for them. Also, 44% incorrectly think data in the cloud is safe from ransomware.

Accidental data deletion has also caused strong emotional distress among employees, especially when they realize their lost data is gone forever. The stress is made worse by a culture of punishment incorporating shame and fear.

As such, almost one-third of employees lied to cover up the fact they had accidentally deleted office data and 26% said they kept quiet because they were ashamed. Another 25% said they would either do nothing or pretend nothing had happened in a ransomware incident—making it difficult for businesses to limit the impact of the breach.

In today’s fast-paced environment, speed is essential, especially when it comes to data. Any delays to data access or recovery, be it by accidental deletion, or being locked out by ransomware, can lead to huge problems for an organization. Backup service providers continue to advocate the importance of having sufficient backup and recovery tools for such incidences.

To understand better about deleted data recovery, Tech Wire Asia spoke to Andy Ng, Vice President and Managing Director for Asia South and Pacific Region at Veritas Technologies. Andy explains how accidentally deleting data may not be the end of the world for employees, provided they have the right data recovery programs in place.

(source – Shutterstock)

Is it possible to recover deleted work data?

Most cloud storage services will allow users to recover deleted files within a certain time window, for example, 30 days. However, recovery is not guaranteed and varies across different cloud service providers. In general, cloud storage services will automatically clear your trash after a stipulated period to free up space. Depending on how much storage has been used up, some files might be deleted sooner than expected. Additionally, the deleted files will also be erased from the cloud the next time your system syncs.

Not all backup and recovery solutions are created equal, so organizations need to identify what they actually need. For organizations that are looking at enterprise-grade backup and recovery capabilities beyond the built-in cloud protection, they would require a comprehensive toolset that provides full-coverage backup with flexible recovery options, plus a high level of performance and scalability.

This would enable organizations to protect, recover and archive their data, including deleted work data. For example, a backup and archive solution that uses immutable storage would help to protect data against unwanted deletion and modification.

What are the biggest concerns around the recovery of deleted data?

It is disturbing that nearly all the Singapore employees (92%) polled in the Veritas study thought their cloud provider would be able to restore their files for them. This false confidence in cloud data protection is causing businesses to lose critical data.

Unknown to some, a bad deletion – either accidental or malicious – could go unnoticed past the prescribed expiry date. There is no backup copy available for these expired items. Similarly, there is no option for recovery for items that have been deleted permanently.

The challenge is further compounded by the accelerated adoption of the cloud, which leaves organizations exposed to ransomware vulnerabilities as more cybercriminals are looking to exploit proprietary data stored in cloud services due to the integral role they play in today’s business environment.

According to the latest Veritas research, many employees are not forthcoming with ransomware incidents, with just 31% in Singapore saying they would immediately admit introducing ransomware into their organizations, and another 25% saying they would either do nothing or pretend nothing had happened.

As such, without knowing the full details of a ransomware attack, it is harder for businesses to take swift remedial action to limit its impact. With the surge in ransomware attacks, this is a security gap that companies must quickly address or risk disruption and downtime for their businesses.

How can businesses ensure employees take responsibility?

Businesses should set clear retention policies to determine how long data should be retained for operational and compliance needs, who has access to the data, and classify data storage according to tiers.

Employees should be fully trained on the policies and tools that are being deployed – this will help to reduce accidental policy breaches including data deletion, and ensure employees know how to access and retrieve data that is lost or corrupted promptly.

Companies should also eliminate the culture of shame and punishment, and instead foster one where employees are encouraged, rather than blamed, for coming forward when they report data loss incidents.

Changing the dynamics of incident reporting would also help to empower businesses to take prompt remedial action in the event of data loss or ransomware incidents.

Some programs can autosave files or warn users before a file or data is deleted. Should this process be enhanced so employees understand it better?

Such features can be beneficial, but human error or malicious deletion and system downtime would still lead to data loss. Employees could potentially be the weakest link and it pays for organizations to educate employees on the importance of adopting sound data hygiene habits.

It is also important to realize that cloud service providers operate on a shared responsibility model – they provide the applications, but it is up to businesses to protect their application data. It is every business’s responsibility to protect their own data, whether in the cloud or stored on their own devices. If businesses can get that right and make it easy for workers to restore lost files, then they can take the pressure off their employees.

What does help, therefore, is deploying comprehensive SaaS data protection tools to back up data across all cloud applications. This allows businesses to recover from all data loss scenarios while also eliminating threats such as ransomware and accidental or malicious data deletion.

The post Singaporean workers distressed by accidentally deleted cloud data appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) adoption are slowly picking interest among Internet users in the last couple of months. While many still do not understand what NFTs are or how they work, users in Southeast Asia represent a high percentage of global NFT users.

According to statistics from Finder.com’s Global NFT Adoption report, Southeast Asian users make up the most NFT users based on the 20 countries surveyed. The Philippines has the most NFT owners (32%) out of the 20 countries compared, followed by Thailand (27%), Malaysia (24%), the UAE (23%), and Vietnam (17%). On the other end of the spectrum, Japan has the smallest percentage of Internet users with NFTs (2%), followed by the UK and the US (3% each), Germany (4%), Australia (5%), and Canada (6%).

NFTS AND MOVING BEYOND THE HYPE: ENTERPRISE USE CASES

Jamilah Lim | 30 November, 2021

NFTs are essentially digital tokens that carry data and are stored in an immutable blockchain ledger. Its main purpose is to represent assets and prove their authenticity and ownership.

They carry data and are stored in the immutable blockchain ledger. When an asset with the NFT token undergoes a transaction digitally or in real life, the blockchain creates a new ‘block’ with the information of the new owner.

There will be a chain of information for every transaction carried out, and traceability of ownership along the chain is easily done in order to establish the authenticity and provenance of the item. As such, NFTs can serve as a secure way to establish the authenticity of an asset that’s digitally represented.

While the Philippines has the highest number of NFT owners, the survey also showed that Nigeria is expected to have the biggest growth in NFT adoption from 13.7% to 35.3% – an increase of 22%. Other countries that are expected to see huge growth in NFT adoption include Peru, Venezuela, and United Arab Emirates.

Surprisingly, Singapore’s internet users are still far behind compared to their global counterparts. From a survey of more than 28,000 internet users, just 6.8% of Singaporean own NFTs, which is below the global average of 11.7%. Interestingly, an additional 11% plan to own NFTs in the future meaning the adoption rate will hit 17.8%.

Finder.com’s cryptocurrency editor Keegan Francis believes that it’s still very early days for NFTs in Singapore. 41% of Singaporean internet users currently know what NFTs are and the adoption is expected to grow with awareness.

“Singapore’s forecast to have the 7th biggest increase in NFT adoption among the countries surveyed, behind countries like Nigeria, Peru, and Venezuela but ahead of those like Malaysia and Hong Kong. Men are currently the biggest adopters, with 7.4% saying they own NFTs compared to 6.2% of women.”

Francis also pointed out that NFT adoption is much higher in countries that have a lower average wage of working citizens.

“In some of these countries, people are quitting their jobs because they can make money trading NFTs or earning them in games. NFTs can be a great gateway to cryptocurrency ownership, especially because many NFT games don’t require ID. If you want to buy NFTs directly then you’ll need to set up a wallet, purchase cryptocurrency, and choose an NFT marketplace”.

With cryptocurrency usage also increasing in Singapore, it won’t be surprising if NFTs follow suit in the next couple of months. Either way, the trend is increasing and users are beginning to realize the full potential the token can offer to them.

The post NFT adoption on the rise in Singapore appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

As the Asia Pacific prepares to live with COVID-19 as endemic, having the right infrastructure in place, especially in developing cities, is crucial. The use of modern technology is enabling this, especially with solutions that can address urban challenges that hinder the progress of sustainable smart cities, such as increased energy consumption, growing traffic volume, and increased public safety threats.

THE BEST SMART CITIES PUT PEOPLE NOT TECH FIRST, SAYS PANASONIC

Joe Devanesan | 21 September, 2020

According to Accenture and MIT Technology Review’s latest report 21st Century Cities: Asia Pacific’s Urban Transformation, cities across the region are exploring innovative and creative responses to social, economic, and ecological challenges. For instance, Singapore, through coordinated planning and policy innovation, has successfully transformed itself into a global metropolis with among the best livability metrics in the world.

The report also showed that:

• Leading Asia Pacific cities are pioneering sustainable innovation, offering ideas to their peers in the region and globally – APAC cities are pioneering new approaches to city planning to leverage nature-based resilience, such as China’s “sponge cities” and the urban forests of Melbourne. Innovators are using cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and big data to enable circular economy supply chains, optimize traffic, and track extreme weather disasters to ensure a swift and effective response.
• Inclusive tech can make cities better for everyone – Geospatial innovation is helping citizens who live in areas of unplanned development or without a formal address to access employment opportunities, facilities, and emergency services. This is done via consumer apps that are adapting their offerings to support vulnerable groups, including live location sharing, female-specific ride-sharing, and crowdsourcing data for safety assessments on potentially risky areas.
• Despite positive initiatives and projects, there are gaps between the ideal of more sustainable, inclusive cities and reality on the ground – As the first wave of “smart city” thinking tended to be overly technology-centric, more constructive approaches with a deeper understanding of the experiences and desires of the varied urban communities are needed to focus on the key challenges. Once these have been established, then appropriate solutions can be deployed, with the right technology.

(source – Accenture)

“A smart city strategy needs to be anchored in what experiences you want to enable in all your stakeholders: citizens, tourists, and business travelers. Then you can start thinking about the commercial models, but they must be anchored in experience, as opposed to technology,” said Jurgen Coppens, Managing Director, Accenture Strategy.

In Singapore, Accenture unveiled the Singapore Innovation Hub which will focus on pillars such as adaptive cities planning, mobility, safety and security, and sustainability. The aim is to have future cities relying on technologies like digital twins and AI models to simulate a range of environments and scenarios. Urban planners can assess and optimize the effectiveness of building designs and evacuation Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) even before a critical incident occurs.

“The impetus is now here for countries to take transformative actions towards creating cities that are more sustainable and resilient. At the same time, the intersection of digitalization and energy transition is providing an opportunity for cities to reimagine how services can be delivered and paving the way for game-changing innovations that will revolutionize citizen engagement” said Ng Wee Wei, country managing director, Accenture in Singapore.

With future cities anchored in the collective experience for the people who will participate in it, the Singapore Innovation Hub is built as a collaborative space enabling residents, communities, industry, academia, and governments to participate and immerse themselves in digital possibilities and bring about innovative urban solutions that are inclusive and accessible for everyone. Ng hopes the hub can nurture future-ready talent and cultivate the sustainability mindset which is the heart of true smart city success.

The launch of the Singapore Innovation Hub was officiated by the Senior Minister of State, Ministry of Communications and Information & Ministry of Health, Dr. Janil Puthucheary.

“The cliché is not to use technology for technology’s sake, but it must deliver real-life benefits to the people. We need to make that cliché live. And while many of us are fortunate to live out and experience those benefits, we have to make sure that the journey is an inclusive one, that we become an increasingly inclusive nation where it is not just the most digitally savvy, the most digitally privileged that have access to these benefits, but all Singaporeans have access to, understand, and know how to use digital tools,” said the minister.

The post Planning future cities in APAC appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

But it’s not just cybercriminals enjoying crypto payments. Several organizations are now offering crypto payment rewards through various programs and offers. For example, MasterCard recently announced that it would allow partners on its network to enable their consumers to buy, sell and hold cryptocurrency using a digital wallet, as well as reward them with digital currencies under loyalty programs.

CHINA’S LATEST RULING QUASHES ALL HOPE OF CRYPTOCURRENCY ACTIVITY IN THE COUNTRY

Jamilah Lim | 28 September, 2021

Another example is Geolancer, an application to collect manually verified Point of Interest (POI) data on the ground by Quadrant.  It provides cryptocurrency rewards for Geolancers who collect POIs in their neighborhood.

Earlier last month, El Salvador became the first country in the world to adopt bitcoin as legal tender as well.  The Economic Times also reported that Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Filipino expats in Qatar are increasingly experimenting with cryptocurrencies to remit money to their families back home and save on commissions charged by wire transfer companies and other middlemen.

The situation may not be the same in China though. The government declared all financial transactions involving cryptocurrencies illegal. This move finally brings the final hammer down on the digital trade in China after years of salvos on the volatile currencies.

The rise of crypto payments in Singapore

In Singapore, more Singaporeans have been reported to be investing in cryptocurrencies or using them to pay. In fact, 37% of Singaporeans %) were found to be paying or interested in paying for purchases with cryptocurrencies, according to the latest Worldpay from FIS’ Generation Pay research.

The research explores the spending habits, purchasing experiences, and payment preferences across different generations, from Gen Z to baby boomers. While it may still be a long way to go for cryptocurrencies to become a mainstream mode of payment, the high adoption rate proves that more people are beginning to understand how crypto payments work.

A considerable percentage of Singaporeans (37%) were found to be paying or interested in paying for purchases with cryptocurrencies, according to the latest Worldpay from FIS’ 2021 Generation Pay research, which explores the spending habits, purchasing experiences, and payment preferences across different generations, from Gen Z to baby boomers. Gen Y (58%) is the most open and boomers (16%) are the least open in crypto payments.

On the whole, findings showed that central bank digital currencies CBDCs (23%) are preferred over cryptocurrencies (11%) when it comes to using digital currencies as a form of payment. Another 22% indicated they have no preference and are willing to use both to pay. At a generational level, Gen Zs (18%) is the least interested in CBDCs. 24% said they have no preference and will use both CBDCs and cryptocurrencies. Similarly, a high number of Gen Ys (29%) said they have no preference and will use both CBDCs and cryptocurrencies.

For those who prefer to use cryptocurrencies, the primary reason is that it is decentralized and gives them more autonomy with their money (67%). This is a particularly compelling reason for Gen Y (74%). On the other hand, the main reason cited by those who prefer to use CBDCs is that it would be more secure being backed by the government (64%). Other reasons turning them away from cryptocurrencies include their perception that crypto wallets are more vulnerable (31%) and that cryptocurrencies might be used in illegal activities (30%).

Creating a crypto ecosystem 

Phil Pomford, General Manager for Global eCommerce, APAC, WorldPay from FIS believes that the world is currently in the second wave of wide crypto buying, with quite a bit of institutional money entering the market, but still a few years out from mainstream cryptocurrency usage.

However, he pointed out that there are still various challenges still exist within the ecosystem. For instance, in APAC, Phil explained that crypto merchants are struggling to navigate new regulations or find a partner bank in the region. Some settlement banks are also not willing to process transactions for crypto merchants through their banking facilities.

“Nonetheless, we see demand for crypto rising in certain sectors such as NFT marketplaces which are built on DLT and require the usage of cryptocurrencies. It is also worth noting that there are key players in payments and banking cementing their confidence in the crypto space, such as DBS Bank who is launching its crypto exchange,” said Phil.

Highlighting the excitement in digital currencies, Phil added that FIS is making crypto more accessible to consumers by enabling card-to-crypto payments on exchanges. There is an uptake in card payments by crypto exchanges versus traditional reliance on bank transfers. As crypto continues to gain traction, consumers are increasingly seeking simple, convenient payment methods for making crypto-based purchases using cards and other familiar financial products.

“Our global partnership with crypto merchants (some of the recent ones include CEX.IO, Moonpay, and OKCoin) is also in part driving how other retailers view crypto. Retailers currently want fiat cash backing crypto if they are going to accept it, and this depends on the exchanges to settle transactions,” concluded Phil.

The post Crypto payments becoming a trend among Singaporeans appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

Some of the recent cyberattacks in Singapore include a data breach at an employment agency and a massive ransomware attack on a specialist medical clinic, the Eye & Retina Surgeons.

INCREASING CYBERATTACKS TARGETING THE CLOUD SECURITY NETWORK IN SINGAPORE

Aaron Raj | 8 October, 2021

According to the Cybersecurity Agency of Singapore, ransomware incidents, online scams, and Covid-19-related phishing activities dominated the cyber landscape of 2020. The agency also feels the cyber pandemic will persist to affect organizations in 2021, as cybercriminals continue to find ways both new and old to wreak havoc on organizations.

Several security vendors have warned that organizations in the region particularly in Singapore are at imminent threat of cyberattacks, especially with many organizations still not implementing enough cyber security protection, as well as not updating their solutions as much as they should.  Cisco’s Cybersecurity for SMBs: Asia Pacific Businesses Prepare for Digital Defense study showed that two in five Singaporean SMEs have suffered a cyber incident in the past year, with more than half (56%) of these incidents seeing customers lose information to the hands of malicious actors.

And just as predicted, the Singapore healthcare industry has suffered another breach. This time, personal details of Fullerton Health customers, a leading integrated healthcare platform provider, was stolen by hackers and hawked online — after a vendor of the private healthcare group suffered a breach earlier this month.

The Straits Times reported that the data was put up for sale on hacking forums from Oct 11 and could be bought for US$600 in Bitcoin. Hackers have since removed the data sale set, indicating someone may have bought it, or to avoid the authorities. The hackers claimed they managed to steal the data of some 400,000 people, including the insurance policy details of many Singaporeans.

Singapore media also reported that the data uploaded included customer names, identity card numbers, information about bank accounts, employers, and medical history as well as the personal details of the customers’ children.

Reports show that the breach was of a server used by Agape Connecting People, a social enterprise that provides contact center services. Agape was engaged as a vendor to handle bookings by Fullerton Health customers. The medical service provider discovered the breach shortly before informing Agape on Oct 19.

Kamal Brar, Vice President and General Manager, Asia Pacific and Japan at Rubrik shared his views on the data breach with Tech Wire Asia. For him, any organization that falls victim to a cyberattack, is just a victim.

“The truth is, there is no silver bullet to stop 100% of all cyberattacks. Some of the world’s largest businesses and government agencies have also been compromised and they would have had all the latest anti-malware and perimeter security solutions. The challenge is that the fight against cyber attackers is asymmetric. An organization needs to stop all attacks to be successful, while a hacker only needs one malicious email to be clicked to completely compromise an organization,” said Kamal.

With this in mind, Kamal believes organizations need to look beyond their perimeter defenses and consider how quickly they can remediate and their business back up and running following an attack.

“The Singapore Computer Emergency Response Team explains that businesses need to maintain backup copies of their database and files regularly. They further advise that businesses regularly monitor and review administrator-level accounts and privileges for access and activities,” added Kamal.

As such, with the cyber pandemic still a pervasive concern in Singapore and the ASEAN region as well, enterprises need to ensure they have sufficient backup and recovery solutions in place, to ensure their services and operations are not disrupted for any meaningful length of time.

The post Cyber pandemic drags on in Singapore with another healthcare data breach appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

The densely-populated Southeast Asian nation only has 1% of land dedicated to agriculture. However, it does have a surprisingly thriving agricultural sector, despite the lack of land — much less arable land — for farming crops. 

Tech advancements coupled with sensible strategies to develop the agricultural sector are poised to bear fruit over time.

Specifically, the government wants the republic to become Asia’s “urban agrifood tech hub”, and also aims to achieve its “30 by 30” goal — which is to produce 30% of the population’s nutritional needs locally, by 2030. 

To achieve this, the government has been investing in intensive research and development (R&D) into agritech and high-productivity innovation. 

SINGAPORE UNIS LAUNCH A “COOL” TESTBED FOR DATA CENTERS IN THE TROPICS

Dashveenjit Kaur | 12 July, 2021

As expected of a cosmopolitan, technologically advanced nation, the growing agritech industry in Singapore is taking a cutting-edge twist to food production. 

According to the UNDP, the application of modern technologies aims to increase production yield, improve food quality, and promote sustainability in the agri-food value chain in Singapore.

Efforts to boost agritech in Singapore 

Last month, the NUS Agritech Centre was established by the Singapore Science Park. Powered by NUS Enterprise, it is the latest in its slew of innovation and incubation facilities

The NUS (National University of Singapore) Agritech Centre, housed in the Cavendish building, is a place where researchers and entrepreneurs, among others, can work on challenges, experiments, and market-based solutions to develop Singapore’s agricultural sector.

The NUS Agritech center is designed to support start-ups from growth to post-harvest, building capabilities in serving up urban farming food options from lab to table. 

NUSoil’s co-founder, Dr Tan Wee Kee (pictured left, in purple mask) and REAPED’s founder, Mr Lim Yong Kiat (pictured right) introducing their technologies to NUS President Professor Tan Eng Chye.
(IMG/NUS Agritech Center)

The center is one of the first in NUS to offer specialized support for agritech startups focused on using technology and tools to develop and create a conducive infrastructure and environment that promotes urban farming innovation and production.

Another NUS Enterprise incubation facility, the NUS Enterprise@Singapore Science Park, will further support Singapore’s agritech dreams through supporting agritech startups and enterprises with specific foci.

These include food technology, connected devices, and environmental and health solutions, with a “demo deck” to accommodate prototyping.

The NUS Agritech Center 

The 800 square meter center comprises five “Grow Zones” in various sizes; two “Precision Climate Zones”, a “Multipurpose Zone” that can be converted in-situ to recycle wastewater or as a cultivation area; a “Technical Zone” with germination chambers and specialized lab equipment for high-accuracy analysis, as well as “Wet and Dry Washing Zones”. 

Its features are aimed at accelerating competitive research and technology translation by startups, and include:

• A combination of support for applied plant science, IoT, data analytics, and engineering
• Facilities for multispectral imaging 
• Sustainability in urban agriculture
• Enablement of wastewater recycling

Parameters such as temperature, humidity, CO2, oxygen, pH, plant nutrients, and lighting can all be precisely controlled and monitored from anywhere with an internet connection. Real-time quantitative description of a plant’s physiological, anatomical, biochemical, and ontogenetic properties may also be accessed.

The center will also facilitate the collection and monitoring of power consumption data for individual subsystems. This is especially important for machine learning — for example, to detect opportunities for energy savings and training AI to detect early failure warnings in the subsystems. 

Its enablement of wastewater recycling will also promote water conservation for the validation and translation of filtration technology.

The Singapore story

Looking to ameliorate its lack of resources with strategies of self-sufficiency, the incumbent government has, since its independence from Malaya in 1965, adopted primarily collaborative and peaceful foreign relations to ensure the needs of its people are met.

This can be clearly seen from not just its longstanding stance on neutrality viz foreign relations and compulsory conscription of adult males, but also in how it has invested in technology to augment its flow of an essential resource — water. 

SINGAPORE’S FIGHTING FINANCIAL CRIMES THROUGH A CENTRALIZED DIGITAL PLATFORM WITH ANALYTICS

Jamilah Lim | 7 October, 2021

Nearly 20 years ago, the city-state developed and implemented ‘Newater’, which uses reverse osmosis, among other technologies, to reclaim wastewater in order to reduce its reliance on its neighbor, Malaysia.

For the land and resource-scarce island of nearly six million, this approach centered around self-sufficiency isn’t exactly revolutionary.

Prior to its separation from Malaya, Singapore depended primarily on its ASEAN neighbors, especially Malaysia up north, for natural resources — including food and water. Nevertheless, the forward-looking, strategic mindset of its leaders of yore has led to speedy, yet highly impactful transformations over the decades.

This dogged resilience supplemented by investment in technology and people has made the unlikely island become a highly-developed nation in as little as 50 years — making it stand apart from its ASEAN peers.

Within the Southeast Asian region, Singapore is the only one to boast a highly-developed economy, on par with its colonialist counterparts in the West.

The post Singapore advances agritech yet again with newest NUS facility appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

Last month, reports were circulating on the launch of a recruitment campaign for sellers to sell on “Shopee India”. It was an indication that the Southeast Asian e-commerce giant is preparing to launch in another international market, shortly after expanding to several Latin American nations.

A Reuters report stated that the Singapore-headquartered Sea Ltd’s Shopee had launched a recruitment campaign for vendors to sell on what it called “Shopee India” and is ramping up hiring in the country. The report was based on Youtube videos and job postings. Besides the video and job postings, there were no other official announcements made by Shopee.

The video that was posted in August this year, describes that “Shopee is coming to India!”, and it promises free shipping and no commission fees for sellers and buyers. It was also linked to a recruitment form for sellers.

CAN SHOPEE SURPASS THE INTERNATIONAL E-COMMERCE BUSINESS OF ALIBABA?

Dashveenjit Kaur | 31 August, 2021

“A company source said the company was cautiously preparing to expand operations in India, with no finalized launch date yet. While Sea has a team in India, it does not currently offer e-commerce services in the country,” Reuters further added. To top it off, a slew of India job ads were also posted in recent weeks for positions ranging from seller operations to compliance.

There is however no localized app or website available till date.

What would a ‘Shopee India’ mean to the Indian e-commerce market?

At this juncture, the India Brand Equity Foundation data shows that the Indian e-commerce market is expected to grow to US$111.40 billion by 2025 from US$46.2 billion in 2020. As many would have anticipated, much of the growth for the industry has been triggered by an increase in internet and smartphone penetration.

For context, as of April 2021, the number of internet connections in India significantly increased to 782.86 million, out of which, 61% connections were in urban areas. With a turnover of US$50 billion in 2020, India also became the eighth-largest market for e-commerce, trailing France and a position ahead of Canada.

Hence, to strive in India, Shopee will not only have to compete with Amazon India and Walmart’s Flipkart, but incoming competition from local heavyweights such as Reliance Industries and Tata Group is to be considered as well. Both Reliance and Tata are looking into penetrating the local e-commerce market through JioMart and Tata Digital, respectively.

Then, there are also infrastructure challenges to be considered which could affect transportation and logistics for Shopee. Reaching out to the rural market that has low mobile and internet penetration, would also be a daunting task. 

In Shopee’s perspective however, the Indian market remains as a huge and an untapped market. As of now, the US$172 billion Southeast Asian group has already found success in India with its game Free Fire, which it describes as the highest-grossing mobile game in the country.

The post Is India the next destination for Shopee? appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

For CSPs like Singtel, to support the massive growth of data expected from 5G applications and services, moving to compute infrastructure to the edge and looking to integrate a broad ecosystem of software vendors to capture new revenue opportunities is key.

SINGTEL’S 5G TO COVER MORE PARTS OF SINGAPORE

Jamilah Lim | 2 September, 2021

New technologies like Open RAN (ORAN) are giving CSPs a broader set of options for deploying network infrastructure to support future growth. However, this trend is leading to a large, geographically distributed, open compute deployment that can be difficult to deploy and manage.

In Malaysia, the country is expected to see approximately 80% of the populated areas with 5G network coverage as part of the Government’s measures to address the near-term efforts to place the country’s reopening on a stronger footing. Phase 1 with 10% 5G coverage will be in Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya, and Cyberjaya by the end of 2021. Malaysian CSPs are also looking to accelerate their open, cloud-native network deployments and create new revenue opportunities at the edge.

To help CSPs achieve this, Dell Technologies have unveiled new telecom offerings that automate the deployment and management of open, cloud-native network infrastructure to fast-track opportunities at the edge.

“As server technology proliferates through increasingly open telecom networks, the industry sees an immediate and growing need for remote lifecycle management of a highly distributed compute fabric,” said Dennis Hoffman, senior vice president, and general manager, Dell Technologies Telecom Systems Business.

(Photo by Roslan RAHMAN / AFP)

Creating new opportunities on the Edge with 5G in Singapore and the region

Dell Technologies Bare Metal Orchestrator telecom software offers the breadth and scale to automate the deployment and management of hundreds of thousands of servers across geographic locations to support ORAN and 5G deployments.

The company’s first software to come from its Project Metalweaver initiative, Bare Metal Orchestrator gives CSPs the tools to discover and inventory servers, bring them online, and deploy software, regardless of where they reside in the network.

With declarative automation, Bare Metal Orchestrator tells the targeted server what to do, so that tasks and workflows – such as deploying software stacks and workloads – can be completed quickly and efficiently without human intervention. The software combines open standards technology with Dell Technologies’ intellectual property.

With Bare Metal Orchestrator, CSPs can eliminate days or weeks of configuration and provisioning to bring network hardware into a workload-ready state. This reduces the time it takes for an open network to deliver differentiated, profitable services at scale.

Over time, the software can reduce operational costs by orchestrating server lifecycle management and minimizing errors and reliance on IT expertise. ACG Research estimates up to 57% OpEx savings for CSPs deploying Bare Metal Orchestrator in their networks.

“Singapore is working towards island-wide 5G coverage by 2025. As we prepare for this future, local CSPs are seeking ideas and solutions to support 5G innovation, while reducing the risks and complexities in evolving their network infrastructure,” said Andy Sim, vice president, and managing director, Singapore, Dell Technologies.

For Caroline Chappell, Research Director, Analysys Mason, the industry is making progress toward Open RAN networks, but network operators are challenged with how to operate them cost-effectively at a massive scale.

“To keep pace with innovation, telecom operators require more agile ways to deploy and manage their network infrastructure. Bare metal orchestrators, such as Dell Technologies’ software, will be key to the flexible and efficient automation of the heterogeneous bare-metal environments operators tell us they need to underpin cloud-native open RAN functions.”

With the rollouts accelerating in the region, the possibilities for opportunities on the edge will only enable CSPs to provide the best solutions and services to enterprises, especially in perfecting the 5G use cases they plan to leverage in the future.

The post Dell fast-tracks opportunities on the edge as 5G rollouts in Singapore and SEA gain momentum appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.