China's Ministry of Commerce announced the restrictions in mid-October when it revised its Catalogue of Technologies Prohibited and Restricted from Export. New entrants on the list included "23 technologies related to large-scale models, intelligent agents, computing clusters, and information processing." Chinese companies must now apply for a licence to export the listed technologies, although technology issued under open source licences is exempt.
Last Friday, Chinese state media reported that two companies, identified in other reports as DeepSeek and MiniMax, received authorisation to continue exports. Both are credible challengers to American AI vendors, and allowing them to sell abroad aligns with Beijing's goals of building export industries and enhancing its tech sector. The expanded catalogue also gives the government the power to stop exports of AI it considers important sovereign capacity, such as tools that are potent bug-finders or have military uses. The United States, meanwhile, has imposed on-again, off-again bans on sales of advanced GPUs to China.
Signs of strain have appeared in Australia's AI datacenter sector. On October 9, operator Firmus called off its initial public offering after would-be buyers reportedly asked it to lower its share price and valuation by perhaps a quarter, fearing the prospectus made very optimistic revenue predictions. The float would have been Australia's largest for 20 years, aiming to raise around $5 billion and giving Firmus a valuation over $40 billion. Meta had committed to spend over $700 million with the company, and private investors had already ploughed over $2 billion into it. This week, established datacenter operator NEXTDC cut its revenue forecast after its power supplier suspended work "because of community and stakeholder opposition" to poles and wires needed for an expansion. Protestors have blocked access to the site, and the local council has decided not to allow the power company to use relevant roads while community consultation continues. NEXTDC's share price slumped almost 40 percent, and the company told investors its power supplier will not resume work before February.
Elsewhere: Singapore-based Grab has suggested data from its GrabMart grocery app could supplement clinical disease surveillance by tracking changes in demand for symptom-related products such as fever remedies and cough medicines. It says any such system should use aggregate trends only, be government-approved, targeted and time-limited, and should not expose raw transactions or personally identifiable information. The company says it has not deployed such a system.
South Korea's science minister, Bae Kyung-hoon, has promised to accelerate development of regulations for smart glasses, citing risks of unauthorised filming and misuse during academic exams. He said guidelines would be developed at a "pan-ministerial level."
India's largest telco, Jio Platforms, begins its IPO this week, selling about a three percent stake. The offer is reportedly 22 times oversubscribed, with institutional investors 70 times oversubscribed. The IPO values the company at just over $100 billion and aims to raise around $3 billion.