Lenovo denies using banned Chinese SSDs where they're not allowed

ASIA IN BRIEF Lenovo has denied it sells laptops that include banned Chinese storage devices where they're not allowed. An outlet called Notebookcheck recently reported that it a ThinkBook 14 G9 IPL and found a solid-state disk made by Chinese company YMTC inside. Some observers joined the dots and decided the laptop could be a problem for Lenovo because a Biden administration decision saw the US ban the company on national security grounds. Lenovo dug into the matter and found the laptop in question was not sold into the US market, but was a model destined for Germany. As Notebookcheck's headquarters is Romania, and the team responsible for the review are in Austria, a made-for-Germany laptop crossing one of the European Union's internal borders is a long way short of a scandal. Lenovo's use of a Chinese SSD is, however, notable for two reasons. One is that Beijing encourages Chinese companies to buy from their local peers. The other is that the AI boom has sent prices for memory and storage devices soaring, and YMTC is one of few alternatives to leading suppliers Samsung, Micron, and SK Hynix. Apple reportedly wants the Trump administration to reconsider the USA's ban on YMTC, to help it find the parts it needs to keep cranking out iThings. China recovers a rocket for the first time China's National Space Agency (CNSA) last Friday recovered the first stage of a rocket for the first time. The Agency announced it used a ship-borne net to catch the first stage of a Long March-10B carrier rocket that launched a satellite, then guided itself to safety. SpaceX has been doing this for years, because re-using the first stage of a rocket saves a lot of money. China naturally wants the same capability as it will advance its commercial and national security interests. Japan has the same ambition and on Saturday conducted a successful test of a rocket that took off, reached an altitude of 11 meters and hovered there briefly before settling back to Earth without incident. In other China space news, CNSA announced its Tianwen-2 probe arrived at asteroid 2016HO3, pulling to within 20 kilometers of the space rock on a mission that aims to retrieve a sample of the object and return it to Earth. Australia signals strong AI regulation - including copyright protection Australia's prime minister Anthony Albanese will this week deliver a speech outlining a revised AI policy. The PM's speech will come a week after Andrew Charlton, assistant minister for science, tech, and the digital economy, observed AI's social licence is precarious" and added The point of AI safety is not to slow the future down. It is to make sure the future remains human, aligned with our values, and advancing our interests." Albanese has also mentioned social license ahead of his speech. One issue the PM is expected to address is amendments to Australian copyright laws that would allow AI companies free access to content to train their models. Musician Holly Rankin today told Australian radio she has had assurances such amendments are not part of the government's AI plan - setting a stage for a showdown with Big Tech. A datacenter for Bhutan, serving India, via Canada The AI datacenter boom has reached the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan. The tiny landlocked nation, population 750,000, is blessed with impressive hydro-electric power resources. The developer of this project, Canadian company Sato, plans to use renewable energy generated by those resources to power a datacenter in the Gelephu Mindfulness City (GMC), a district located just over the border from India. The local authority that runs GMC will reserve 100MW of firm power for the project, and could in future allocate 500MW. Sato will use the juice to power a datacenter that serves clients in India, a nation the Canadian company says has huge appetite for AI, but struggles to develop datacenters due to electricity supply constraints. The Project is anticipated to deliver low-latency AI compute to India's major demand centres," Sato says. APNIC to Malaysia: Your own NIR would change nothing The Asia Pacific Network Information Center (APNIC), the regional internet registry for the region, has published [PDF] its submission to the Malaysian government's consultation on forming a new national internet registry (NIR) and argued that doing so would essentially be futile. Cybersecurity, IPv6 acceleration, cost, and local support are not dependent on, and in several respects would not be advanced by, the establishment of a Malaysian NIR," the submission argues. APNIC also argues that if Malaysia were to establish a NIR it would not increase the availability of IPv4 addresses in Malaysia, or change the criteria for allocation of IPv6 addresses or autonomous system numbers. Nor would it confer any preferential access to resources for Malaysian-based parties. APNIC makes these observations not to oppose the establishment of a Malaysian NIR, but to assist MCMC and Malaysian stakeholders in calibrating the expected outcomes of such a step," the submission states. Crims targeting Chinese VPN users Infosec outfit Threatlocker last week identified malware disguised as an installer for Kuailian VPN (aka LetsVPN), a package often used by Chinese netizens who want to subvert the nation's Great Firewall. Threatlocker says the malware drops and executes an encrypted RAT that provides attackers with complete control over a victim's machine and its data." China's National Computer Virus Emergency Center (CVERC) has also spotted malware targeting local users in the form of a fake Android education app. CVERC says the malware is a new variant of a financial theft-related mobile Trojan virus, and can intercept users' text messages, steal contacts and phone passwords, use a device's cameras, record the screen, and even use a phone's microphone to record ambient audio. Links to the malware spread through text messages and social media software. (R)