AI + ML

PLUS: Toyota wheels out basketball bot; Arm scores AI server win with SK Telecom; India ponders payment pauses to foil fraudsters; And more!

ASIA IN BRIEF China’s National Data Administration last Friday published its action plan for AI in education which calls for upskilling of the nation’s citizens to ensure they can put the technology to work.

The plan calls for classes on AI to become part of the curriculum at all levels of the education system, including vocational education.

Beijing also wants teachers taught how to use AI, and imagines AI will help them in the classroom by offering them support to prepare lessons and material for students.

China hopes AI can “Assist teachers in managing homework, and promote intelligent grading, Q&A, and tutoring. Utilize intelligent technology to analyze classroom teaching behavior, conduct evidence-based teaching research practices using artificial intelligence, construct a teacher training model adapted to the intelligent era, and help teachers improve teaching quality.”

In the future, China hopes AI can “Pilot the development of digital textbooks, launch a new generation of smart MOOCs, deepen the construction of virtual simulation experiments, enrich the forms of digital education resources, build immersive teaching spaces, and build a new human-machine collaborative teaching model.”

China’s publications of this sort always mention the need for secure implementation, and this one is no different as it calls for development of “security evaluation standards for AI applications in education” and “ensuring that the application of technology conforms to educational principles.”

Doing so will mean promoting use of “genuine software to ensure the safety, reliability, and controllability of AI applications” and working to provide “emergency response to effectively prevent problems such as fraud, academic misconduct, exam-oriented learning, and privacy leaks caused by AI.”

India proposes payment pauses

India’s Reserve Bank last week published a discussion paper on how to reduce digital payment fraud, and one of the ideas it suggests is an hour-long period in which payers can cancel a transaction.

“Introducing a lag at the payer’s end is important, as this is the stage at which the decision to transfer funds is made and where social-engineering tactics are deployed,” the paper explains. “A short delay before execution of the debit can act as a preventive control by disrupting the fraudster’s psychological influence over the victim and by giving the payer an opportunity to reconsider the transaction.”

The proposed pause would only apply to transactions of ₹10,000 (~$105) or more.

“The proposed one-hour window is consistent with the ‘golden hour’ principle in fraud-risk management, under which the initial period following a fraudulent transaction is critical to prevent the dissipation of funds,” the Bank argues.

Another idea suggests appointing a “trusted person” to authorize transactions above ₹50,000 for “vulnerable customers” including those aged 70 or more, or people with disabilities. The proposal would see banks required to seek consent from the trusted person before allowing a transaction to proceed.

Korean telco teams with Arm for inference server

Korean carrier SK Telecom (SKT) last week announced it plans to use Arm’s AGI chips to develop a new server for inferencing workloads. The two companies will also collaborate with rack-scale AI hardware outfit Rebellions by using its forthcoming “RebelCard” accelerators.

SK Telecom says its planned boxes will “achieve lower power consumption, higher efficiency, and reduced costs compared to GPU-based solutions.”

“SKT plans to deploy servers equipped with this solution in its AI data centers to validate performance and stability,” the company’s announcement states. “In particular, the company is reviewing the possibility of operating its sovereign AI foundation model, A.X K1, on these servers. Through this collaboration, SKT aims to secure low-power, high-efficiency AI inference infrastructure and further strengthen its competitiveness in the AI data center business.”

Taiwan fears China stealing silicon secrets

Taiwan’s National Security Bureau last week briefed lawmakers on China’s ongoing efforts to infiltrate the island nation’s semiconductor industry.

The Register has confirmed a meeting took place, but is relying on local reporting that states the Bureau warned Chinese operatives are trying to steal secrets from Taiwanese chipmakers, and lure away their staff, to advance development of the Middle Kingdom’s semiconductor industry.

China is also trying to encourage Taiwanese businesses to establish operations on the mainland.

Here’s why: TSMC is flying

Taiwan’s most advanced foundry, TSMC, last week announced March revenue of NT$415.2 billion ($13 billion), a sum 45 percent higher than its revenue in March 2025 and 30 percent up over February’s cash haul.

Quarterly revenue for the first three months of 2026 rose 35.1 percent year-over-year.

Toyota wheels out new basketball robot

Toyota on Sunday wheeled out Cue7, its latest robot capable of dribbling and shooting a basketball.

The company’s previous basketball bots shuffled around on large mechanical feet. Cue7 balances on a pair of wheels and seemingly skates around the court.

As you can see in the video below, it can’t hit every shot.

According to Japanese outlet Nikkei, Cue7 is 219 cm tall, weighs 74kg, and uses reinforcement learning to sink buckets. ®