Intel reportedly investigates return to memory biz with Japan’s SoftBank

PLUS: Equinix Singapore outage; Japan and India explore geocoding; APAC datacenter shortage predicted

Asia In Brief Intel and Japan’s SoftBank have reportedly teamed up to develop low-power memory for AI.

Japanese outlet Nikkei last week reported the two companies created an entity called “Saimemory” to develop stacked DRAM that can match the performance of high-bandwidth memory but consume less than half the energy today’s products require.

The Register has found a company registration record that states a company changed its name to Saimemory in late 2024.

The Nikkei report states that if Saimemory succeeds, SoftBank will be a priority customer for its products.

If correct, the report is notable as Intel in 2022 quit the memory business and has since tried to focus on its core products. Nikkei reports SoftBank and Intel expect Saimemory to spend $70 million in pursuit of its memory breakthrough, a sum even a financially strained Intel can probably afford.

Post offices in India, Japan, adopt geocoding schemes

India Post, the nation’s postal service, last week introduced “DIGIPIN”, a scheme that divides the nation into a grid of 4m x 4m squares, each identified by a ten-digit number.

The numbers will complement traditional addresses by offering what India Post described as “an additional digital layer of precision.” In parts of India that lack street names and property numbers, authorities hope DIGIPIN will make it easier to find addresses.

Government agencies will also use the identifier to determine the location of natural resources.

Japan Post’s service uses a seven-digit alphanumeric code to describe all of the nation’s addresses. The outfit provides an API to convert addresses into the codes, which it hopes residents will use instead of addresses when filling out online forms.

Google already offers a similar geocoding service, called Plus Codes, and apps like What Three Words offer a unique string to describe any location.

Worker exploitation alleged across Taiwan’s tech manufacturing industry

Taiwan’s semiconductor industry relies on foreign workers, who are sometimes exploited and mistreated according to an investigation by an outlet named Rest of World.

The outlet reports that labor hire brokers recruit tens of thousands to work in Taiwanese factories, then charge workers monthly fees that can amount to a fifth of their salaries, plus additional charges for very modest housing and food.

Indian PC market pops, but remains tiny

India is home to over 1.4 billion people, but according to analyst firm IDC just 3.3 million PCs shipped in the country during the first quarter of 2025.

HP Inc led the pack with just under a million shipments, ahead of Lenovo’s 626,000 shipments, Dell’s 518,000, Acer’s 510,000 and ASUS’s 197,000 units.

The Indian PC market grew 8.1 percent year over year, with laptop shipments jumping 13.8 percent and workstations surging by 30.4 percent. Desktop shipments dropped by 2.4 percent.

Navkendar Singh, IDC’s associate vice president for device research in South Asia & ANZ, said India’s IT sector “has remained relatively subdued so far, reflecting a cautious approach and a focus on optimizing existing IT investments,” but predicted increasing use of AI will see AI PC sales grow. He also pointed to demand for gaming notebooks spurring growth in the consumer PC market.

Asia faces datacenter shortage

Real estate services outfit CBRE last week published research in which it found that Asia may face a 15–25 gigawatt (GW) datacenter capacity shortage by 2028.

The company’s research found Asia currently hosts 13.3 GW of datacenter capacity, and that 30 GW will be available in the next two to three years – but that demand will reach 45-55GW in the same timeframe.

The firm said energy supply constraints are one reason for the shortfall, while existing investments haven’t focused on AI-capable facilities. It therefore urged investors to consider “advanced datacenter assets” capable of hosting in-demand AI workloads.

Equinix Singapore outage

Two data halls in one of Equinix’s Singapore datacenters went down for almost 90 minutes on Saturday.

The Register understands that the datacenter giant temporarily reduced power supply resilience to allow maintenance, but that all power was lost.

Internet service providers and online businesses were disrupted by the incident. ®