Indonesia arrests Gojek founder in digital education corruption case
Ex-minister Nadiem Makarim accused of bypassing rules to push Google Chromebooks in nationwide schools program
Welcome back—Indonesia has been rocked by the arrest of Nadiem Makarim, the Gojek founder who served as minister of education during the Jokowi government. Police detained him for 20 days as prosecutors investigate claims he rigged a $120 million school laptop programme, an offense that carries a potential life sentence.
At the heart of the case is a nationwide push to digitise schools in remote areas. Prosecutors allege Makarim ordered his team to adopt Google Chromebooks and Chrome OS before a proper tender process, violating procurement rules and locking the project into one ecosystem prematurely.
Makarim met with Google’s Indonesia team six times, raising suspicion of collusion, but the laptops were sourced through six local manufacturers. Five people have now been implicated, including one suspect who fled abroad and had her passport revoked.
Makarim’s lawyer insists his client made no personal profit and he cites two government audits that cleared the procurement.
Given his profile in the tech world and government connections, his detention has been a major talking point. Already, we are at the point that some Indonesian startup founders have rattled the nationalism cage and decried criticism from foreigners.
The case is likely to drag on, with Makarim’s detention marking just the beginning of what could be one of Indonesia’s most high-profile corruption trials in years.
On that note, have a great week,
Jon
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Anthropic bans Chinese companies from using its Claude AI service
The US has made efforts to cut Chinese access to products from American technology companies, but now the companies themselves might be locking their services up from users on Chinese soil, too.
That’s because Anthropic, an AI firm started by ex-OpenAI staff which recently raised a massive $13 billion funding round, announced it will stop allowing Chinese companies or businesses owned by Chinese entities from using its Claude AI service. In a note announcing the change, Anthropic noted that the Chinese government has the power to request data from domestic companies or force co-operation or more.
It also said Beijing could use its service for its military or intelligence service. Now that becomes harder with this cutoff, which also impacts “adversary” countries like Russia, Iran and North Korea.
US AI services are banned in China, but they’re commonly used by major Chinese companies and others through a VPN or entities in jurisdictions like Singapore. The new policy could affect ByteDance, Alibaba, Tencent and other big tech companies in China that use US AI services. ByteDance’s AI code editor Trae, for instance, relies on access to Claude models.
Already, Zhipu—one of China’s top AI startups—has offered users migration from Claude to its own service. You can expect to see more reaction this week.
Related: Rest Of World has a fascinating story on how a cancer patient in a remote Chinese city finds solace in using DeepSeek, despite caution around its advice
Meta is building local chatbots for Indonesia, India and other emerging markets
Chatbots from Meta have been a disaster, ripping off famous people and being far too flirtatious. Now, the company is looking to develop “culturally tailored” AI chatbots for emerging markets. It is paying up to $55 an hour for storytelling and creative roles designed at bringing these visions to life across Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp. Given Facebook’s reach in the markets, we can only hope these creations will be much, much improved.
China
A surge in revenue from AI-related services and rumours of a new AI chip saw Alibaba’s stock rocket 19% to give its market capitalization a $50B rally link
Ant Group acquired a stake in Chinese memory chip firm InnoStar link
Tencent continued the Chinese AI transparency push by open sourcing two high-performing translation models that beat Google and OpenAI link
WeChat and Douyin are among the Chinese platforms to introduce features to comply with a new law requiring all AI-generated content to be labeled link
Tencent launched HunyuanWorld-Voyager, an open-weights AI model that turns a single image into 3D-consistent video clips link
Delivery giant Meituan released an open source AI model to rival on Alibaba, DeepSeek and others—it acquired an AI startup for over $250M two years ago link
DeepSeek is building an AI model with advanced agent capabilities to rival US players like OpenAI, sources say link
SMIC plans to buy and fully own all of the chip foundries it uses, as consolidation begins link
China’s domestic robot makers are fueling a surge in low-cost automation, enabling factories to boost output and cut costs, factors that are strengthening the country’s export edge—China is responsible for half of the world’s new industrial robot deployments, around 280,000 per year link
Robot developer Hangzhou Unitree is reportedly poised to list on a Chinese stock exchange as soon as next month link
The valuation of Xiaohongshu, loosely seen as a Chinese-equivalent to Instagram, surged 19% to $31B in recent transactions—the company is set to triple its profit to $3B this year and its RedNote app claims 300M MAU link
TikTok now counts over 200m monthly users in Europe, up from 175m last year, reaching about one in three people across 32 countries. Globally, the ByteDance-owned app has more than 1bn monthly users. link
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on Monday touted a Huawei foldable smartphone gifted by China’s Xi Jinping, calling it “the best phone in the world” and claiming the US cannot hack it—ok… link
India
Amazon completed the acquisition of fintech lender Axio, which is reportedly worth $200M and one of its largest acquisitions in India so far link
Apple’s India sales hit a record $9B in the past fiscal year, up 13% thanks to strong iPhone and MacBook sales and an expanded retail presence in the country link
Uber is enlisting its 1.4M drivers in India to power a new AI data-labeling business—drivers can make extra cash by tagging images and completing other tasks in the Uber driver app link
OpenAI plans to build a 1-gigawatt data center in India and is seeking local partners—this news is just weeks after it launched an India-focused subscription products and plans for an office link
Eight US and Indian investors, including Accel, Blume Ventures, Celesta Capital and Premji Invest, have pledged over $1B in the next decade to back Indian deep tech startups and strengthen US-India tech ties link
ASML is looking to expand in India as Prime Minister Narendra Modi pushes to build local chipmaking capacity. link
Tokyo Electron, which makes equipment for semiconductor production, says it plans to set up offices to support Tata Electronics' upcoming fab and assembly and test units link
India and Singapore signed new agreements to boost cooperation in AI and semiconductors, as New Delhi seeks closer trade ties to offset US tariffs link
India plans to begin pilot production at three semiconductor projects this year, marking progress in its four-year-old effort to build a local chip industry—the initiative has attracted $18B in commitments, over $7B in subsidies, 23 sanctioned design projects, and training programs covering 60,000 students link
Tessolve raised $150M from TPG’s growth arm to fund acquisitions, expand test labs, and strengthen global delivery centers link
Indian gaming startup MPL plans to cut around 60% of its local staff after the government banned paid games, the first major set of layoffs after the news link
BigBasket is planning to hire a new CEO as current boss nears completion of his five-year tenure link
Offgrid raised $15M to make lithium optional for battery storage link
Citymall, a grocery delivery startup for smaller towns, raised $47M in Series D funding led by Accel—that’s $165M to date but valuation remains flat at $320M since last raise in 2021 link
Seekho, a short video platform focused on educational content, raised $28M led by Bessemer link
Elev8 Venture Partners closed its first round at $160M—it plans to focus on consumer internet, fintech and enterprise software link
Flipkart acquired a majority stake in content platform Pinkvilla, at a $15M valuation, in an effort to increase its reach with Gen Z shoppers link
Quick commerce is still hot after First Club raised $23M in a deal that tripled its valuation to $120M in 8 months link
Freshworks founder Girish Mathrubootham plans to step down as executive chairman and leave the company 4 years after IPO link
Southeast Asia
E-commerce in Southeast Asia is back to pre-Covid growth levels after a flattening that followed the pandemic’s online commerce surge, according to Cube Asia link
Bloomberg looked at Network School, a so-called crypto techno-utopia that’s being built in an abandoned city in Malaysia through the leadership of Silicon Valley executive and ex-Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan link
Singapore-based Venturi Partners closed $150M for its second fund, targeting $225M within a year link
Malaysian authorities summoned TikTok's top management over the social media company's alleged delays in tackling fake news on its platform link
Thailand is positioning itself as a major hub for printed circuit boards, seeking to become the largest producer outside China as manufacturers diversify supply chains link
JD.com plans to expand in Malaysia and explore the logistics sector, according to the country’s PM link
Singapore ordered Meta to implement anti-scam measures on Facebook to tackle accounts and ads impersonating senior officials link
ByteDance shifted its 1,000-person semiconductor team to Singapore unit Picoheart, according to reports link
Philippines’ gambling industry is moving online, with former fertilizer business DigiPlus Interactive leading the charge link
At a Singapore cyber fraud summit, more than 50 attendees fell for a staged QR phishing scam meant to show how easily anyone can be duped link
South Korea
SK Hynix and Samsung are now squarely in the crosshairs of US-China tech tensions as their memory chip businesses have become a core part of the AI race, with high bandwidth memory (HBM) powering the latest models link
Shares of SK Hynix and Samsung fell after the US government revoked license that allowed them to transfer US chipmaking technology and equipment to their Chinese subsidiaries link
SK Hynix’s union approved a landmark deal tying 10% of annual operating profit to employee bonuses, plus a 6% wage hike—its 33,600 staff could each receive about $80,000 this year, costing the chipmaker an estimated $2.7B and averting a strike link
Japan
LayerX, a 7-year old AI Saas startup, closed a $100M Series B funding round link
Tokyo-based Sakana AI, valued at over $1B, is pushing to build AI tailored to Japan by drawing on US and Chinese technologies link
Japanese and Indian authorities, with help from Microsoft and others, busted an India-based fraud ring that posed as Microsoft reps in tech-support scams—6 people were arrested for defrauding about 200 victims in Japan of $1.2M link
Taiwan
The US has revoked TSMC’s clearance to freely ship equipment to its Nanjing plant, restricting operations at the Chinese facility link
TSMC’s foundry dominance hits new heights as global revenues smash records, and its market share rose past 70% link
High-paying tech jobs are driving a small baby boom in Taiwan’s chip hub, even as the island’s overall fertility rate sinks and more young women opt to stay single link
Rest of Asia
Nepal blocked Facebook, X, YouTube and other social media companies for failing to register with the government link
Quicktron, an robotics business backed by Alibaba, filed for a Hong Kong IPO next year that could raise at least $100M link
President Trump’s World Liberty Financial project hit a sour note after notable crypto figure Justin Sun, who invested at least $75M in the project, claimed his tokens were frozen after the cryptocurrencies was released for trading—tokens belonging to hundreds of other wallets also appeared to be frozen link