Raffaele Huang / Wall Street Journal: Alibaba, Huawei, and Tencent each run more Southeast Asia availability zones than AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud, and are investing hundreds of millions of dollars  —  China’s Alibaba, Huawei and Tencent are investing hundreds of millions of dollars in developing markets including Thailand, Indonesia Lees verder op Tech Meme

Olivia Poh / Bloomberg: Aspire, which provides Southeast Asian SMBs with international payments and other financial services, raised a $100M Series C led by Lightspeed and Sequoia  —  Aspire Pte, a fintech startup serving businesses, raised $100 million in a round that more than doubled its valuation, defying a market downturn for young tech firms. Lees verder op Tech Meme

Financial Times: Sources: Apple’s India expansion has been slow due to logistics, tariffs, infrastructure, suppliers and officials lacking a “sense of urgency”, and other issues  —  Apple is hitting stumbling blocks in its effort to increase production in India, as the US tech giant faces pressure to cut its manufacturing reliance on China. Lees verder op Tech Meme

Yogita Khatri / The Block: Geneva-based Taurus, which offers digital asset infrastructure to European financial institutions, raised a $65M Series B led by Credit Suisse  —  – Swiss digital asset infrastructure company Taurus raised $65 million in a Series B round led by Credit Suisse. Lees verder op Tech Meme

Varsha Bansal / Wired: A look at the Modi administration’s attempts to strengthen government control over the internet in India and its battle with Big Tech, which keeps giving in  —  The Modi administration keeps giving itself new powers, and Big Tech keeps giving in.  —  Akash Banerjee isn’t sure whether he’s allowed … Lees verder op Tech Meme

Medha Singh / Reuters: CryptoSlam: Ethereum NFT sales jumped from $546.9M in December 2022 to $780.2M in January 2023, well down from ~$5B in January 2022; average prices were ~$372  —  It’s alive!  The NFT market is twitching out of its torpor, defying reports of its demise.  —  Total NFT sales on the ethereum blockchain … Lees verder op Tech Meme

Dave Lee / Financial Times: Amazon CEO Andy Jassy says the company plans to “go big” on physical retail stores in 2023, blaming a lack of “normalcy” during the pandemic for its stumbles  —  Andy Jassy says ecommerce giant will double down on grocery despite recent stumbles Lees verder op Tech Meme

Rosie Perper / CoinDesk: NFT marketplace Magic Eden partners with payments service MoonPay to let users buy digital collectibles using credit or debit cards, Apple Pay, or Google Pay  —  MoonPay has a similar partnership in place with NFT marketplace LooksRare.  —  Join the most important conversation in crypto … Lees verder op Tech Meme