Australia to datacenter operators: BYO energy, pay your way, build green, or stay home
PLUS: Singtel’s triple outage; 17,000 counterfeit hard drives seized; Tech wages shift across Asia; And more!
ASIA IN BRIEF Australia’s government on Monday announced a set of datacenter “expectations” to guide would-be bit barn builders who contemplate breaking ground down under.
The expectations strongly suggest that datacenter builders create their own electricity generation capacity, and pay for energy transmission and infrastructure costs. “Energy-intensive data centre proposals not closely aligned with the expectations will not be prioritised by Commonwealth regulatory assessments,” states the formal expectations document.
The expectations also call on datacenter operators to prioritise Australia’s national interest, use water sustainably and responsibly, invest in local skills and jobs, and do all that while strengthening the nation’s “research, innovation and local capability.”
Industry lobby group the Tech Council of Australia welcomed the expectations, as did the Electrical Trades Union.
Hong Kong raid nets 14,000 counterfeit hard disks
Hong Kong’s customs agency last week raided a local distributor and seized around 17,000 data storage devices – ~14,000 hard disks and ~3,000 memory cards – suspected of being counterfeits.
The agency’s announcement of the raid says Customs “received information from the trademark owner representative” ahead of the raid, which resulted in one arrest.
Images provided by Hong Kong’s government show devices branded as Samsung, SanDisk, and Western Digital.
Singtel CEO apologizes after triple outage
Singapore’s dominant telco, Singtel, last week experienced three outages.
As explained in an apologetic Facebook post, on March 16th a “mechanical fault” meant around 15 percent of customers struggled to connect their mobile phones to the company’s network. Full service returned over eight hours later.
On the 17th, a badly-implemented software upgrade took out 2,000 mobile customers.
“This issue was not immediately apparent as it coincided with the earlier incident,” Singtel admitted.
In the wake of those incidents, the carrier reconfigured its networks. That effort led to a spike in network traffic that caused an hour of service difficulties on March 18th.
CEO Ng Tian Chong reportedly apologized for the instances.
“We know how important it is to stay connected and recognize the impact these incidents may have had on our customers. This should not have happened. We sincerely apologize," he said.
Japan’s tech workers are now cheap
Some Japanese tech workers now earn lower salaries than those filling the same roles in Malaysia, according to a survey conducted by recruitment outfit Hays.
“In the case of highly skilled professionals, such as top IT talent and C-suite executives, salaries in China, Hong Kong, and Singapore often exceed those in Japan,” the survey found. “Certain manufacturing roles and top IT professionals in Malaysia were also found to earn more than Japan.”
Wages in Japan are generally double those paid in Malaysia, so the results of this survey are an eye-opener.
One possible reason for the finding may be that 30 percent of Malaysians surveyed reported receiving a pay rise of six percent or more last year, yet 37 percent still reported being unsatisfied with the size of their pay packets. 56 percent of Japanese respondents said the same, as did 44 percent of Chinese, 39 percent of Singaporeans, and 38 percent of Hong Kongers.
Samsung hikes R&D spend, gets acquisitive
Samsung last week revealed plans to increase R&D spending and seek merger and acquisition opportunities.
The Korean giant’s plans emerged in a stock market filing that states the company plans to invest “over KRW 110 trillion ($73 billion) in facilities and R&D in 2026 to secure leadership in the AI semiconductor era.” That‘s around $10 billion more than the company’s past advice.
The filing also reveals Samsung’s intention to “Pursue meaningful M&As in future growth sectors including advanced robotics, MedTech, automotive electronics, and HVAC.”
Tech CEO sells shares to help with divorce
The CEO of Australian tech company Electro Optic Systems, a manufacturer of advanced weapons systems, last week sold AUD $13.9 million ($9.75 million) worth of shares. According to a company filing, CEO Dr Andreas Schwer will use the sale to fund construction of a family home and to settle a divorce. ®