Indian Strategic Studies: 12/19/24

19 December 2024

India’s Spending on Defense to Deter China

Wilson Beaver and Elizabeth Lapporte

In a move that signals India’s growing commitment to strengthen its own security, the country’s Cabinet Committee on Security, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, recently approved two new deals that will significantly enhance its defense capabilities.

These deals include the construction of two nuclear-powered attack submarines (SSNs) and the acquisition of 31 Predator drones (MQ-9B) from U.S. defense-contractor General Atomics. Both are smart strategic decisions that underscore India’s willingness to safeguard its interests, strengthen its capacity, and modernize its defense architecture.

New Delhi has an eye on China, of course. As Beijing continues to assert its influence and military presence across the Indian Ocean and beyond, India’s investments in undersea warfare and unmanned aerial systems are timely and necessary. However, the procurement of SSNs and the acquisition of MQ-9Bs are more than just a response to China’s rise. They represent India’s broader ambition to act as a key player in the Indo-Pacific's security architecture.

The Indian Navy, already operating nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines, has long advocated for the additional procurement of nuclear-powered attack submarines. This project, which is estimated to cost an initial $5.4 billion, will make the Indian Navy far more capable of defending its interests in the Indian Ocean.

India, US need each other to combat China. Don’t let domestic politics come in the way

Aparna Pande and Sarthak Pradhan

As recent events in Syria, eastern Europe, and South Korea demonstrate, the incoming Trump administration will face an even more uncertain world in 2025 than in 2017. Several of these geopolitical challenges are centred around and impacted by the rise of China. To combat these manifold challenges, the US and its allies will benefit from working with friends, like India, which has its own reason for wanting to push back against China.

China’s desire to replace the US-led post-World War II order with Chinese characteristics is centred upon building economic, technological and military power. To face the China challenge, the US and partners, like India, need to further deepen their people-to-people ties and economic partnerships. India has a huge human capital dividend, especially in fields of high technology, that is critical to US research institutions and businesses.

The US has capital and technology that, in turn, would help India build its potential to match China’s. While President-elect Donald Trump shared a strong personal bond with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his first term, Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) from the US to India were quite low. To counter China’s economic rise, the US would benefit by supporting India’s economic potential.

Securitization in the Indo-Pacific: A Comparative Discourse Analysis of India’s and Japan’s Responses to the “China Threat”

Dr. Chotani Vindu Mai

Introduction

In 1998, India’s defense minister, George Fernandes, publicly stated that “China, not Pakistan, is India’s ‘potential threat No. 1.’”1 Over two decades later, in 2021, India’s defense chief stated that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is the “biggest security threat.”2 Japan, by contrast, has since the 1970s exercised more restraint when it comes to expressing its concerns over China’s actions. A study by Oren and Brummer shows that Japan’s three key documents (Defense of Japan, National Defense Policy Guidelines, and the Diplomatic Bluebook) have referred to China as a “concern.”3 Indeed, the caution exercised in not referring to China as a “threat” was captured in a 2013 mishap, when then–Minister of Foreign Affairs Kishida Fumio on a Sunday Japan Broadcasting Corporation appearance called China’s military expansionism a “threat.” However, two days later, he stated that, “in my remarks, I meant to say ‘concern,’ not ‘threat.’”4 Tokyo continues to use this term.

Language indicates a certain degree of change,5 and these statements, in their respective capacities and differing intensities, are significant speech acts that enable us to put two things in perspective. First, notwithstanding the use of different terminologies, they demonstrate that both countries were/are feeling threatened by Chinese actions. Second, despite this, Japan and India in the Indo-Pacific region have still gone on to take starkly differing policy actions regarding certain Chinese policies and initiatives in the region.

Taiwan and Mahan: What Determines Seapower?

Julian Spencer-Churchill

A survey of every war with a significant naval campaign since 1200 validates the theory of nineteenth-century naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan that a decisive naval battle dramatically increases the prospects of winning a war. Mahan emphasized that a nation’s success is achieved by focusing on sea control and spurning distractions, such as the loss of insecure island bases. Naval historian Admiral Herbert Richmond agreed with Mahan that once sea control is attained, islands can be easily recaptured.

For the United States, this means that it must resist the temptation to use its blue-water fleet to intercept a sudden Chinese amphibious assault on Taiwan proper and instead concentrate on luring China’s fleet into a decisive battle under more favorable circumstances. Although the amassing of a Chinese escort fleet in the Taiwan Strait, made vulnerable by its need to optimize the protection of an amphibious force, is a tempting target for a concentrated attack of carrier air wings and sea and sub-based stand-off weapons, it will be a battle at a time and place of China’s choosing, and therefore a likely trap. Furthermore, the United States should not risk its blue water fleet, which needed to enforce a blockade, against a regional brown water fleet, the possible outcome of which could be a Chinese victory and the United States’ loss of naval supremacy in the Pacific.

Between cooperation and competition: The struggle of resistance groups in Myanmar

Su Mon

Myanmar has been mired in conflict for decades, but its direction changed dramatically after the 2021 coup and the proliferation of new armed groups resisting military rule. ACLED records over 2,600 new non-state actors participating in Myanmar’s conflict since April 2021 — accounting for 21% of all ACLED-recorded non-state armed groups worldwide. Most of these groups or their forerunners were formed by anti-coup protesters who could no longer peacefully resist the military’s increasingly systematic detention, torture, sexual assault, and killings of protesters. While many individuals consciously fled the military’s subjugation for arms training in other parts of Myanmar, local defense forces also grew organically in communities at risk of military reprisals and attacks. These groups were formed by people from all walks of life: local politicians, national party members, public servants, students, farmers, and more. After six weeks of escalating military repression, including police snipers shooting unarmed youth in the head, the first battle between the military and an armed resistance group organized by civilians was reported in Sagaing region: On 26 March 2021, the residents of Tamu town defended their protest sites with single-shot hunting rifles. The subsequent proliferation of new armed groups formed by civilians under hundreds of different local banners is now often collectively termed the ‘Spring Revolution.’1 The revolution has led to a new, fragmented conflict landscape in which the Myanmar military has struggled to check the advance of both new and old armed groups, and only retains control of the country through its unrivaled air power.

PLA releases electronic warfare ‘kill list’ for US carrier groups

Stephen Chen

A Chinese report has revealed a catalogue of US naval targets including radars and sensors to be attacked in any future conflict

The People's Liberation Army's (PLA) electronic warfare unit has produced a list of targets for a coordinated attack against US aircraft carrier strike groups.

In a potential conflict, these precisely labelled US military radars, sensors and communication systems are likely to take concentrated fire from China's electronic warfare weapons, according to a researcher involved in the project.

This unprecedented revelation was made in the latest issue of Defence Industry Conversion in China, a magazine supervised by the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence. The publication aims to encourage civilian institutions and companies to participate in research on military technologies and weapon production.

Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team.

China’s Amphibious Warfare: History, Doctrine, and Forces

Andrew S. Erickson

As China surrounds Taiwan with warships, it’s time to consider what military operations Xi Jinping may be preparing for. This first part of a two-part series, based on the Naval War College’s China Maritime Studies Institute’s new edited conference volume, “Chinese Amphibious Warfare: Prospects for a Cross-Strait Invasion,” distills key findings from the book, covering history and doctrine, China’s joint amphibious force, and its supporting enablers.

In what is also a warning to the incoming Trump administration, Beijing pressured Taipei with military exercises yet again this week, along new dimensions. This latest iteration of China’s all-domain pressure campaign involved deployment of many government-controlled vessels from China’s Navy, Coast Guard, and “civilian” sector in the East and South China Seas: waters near Taiwan and Japan’s southwest islands, with unprecedented coverage of the First Island Chain.

There, according to Taiwan Defense Ministry spokesman Sun Li-fang, China undertook its largest maritime operations since 1996. Roughly 60 naval warships, 30 Coast Guard vessels, and several thousand personnel were directly involved. China has “extended their military strength outward,” senior Taiwan Defense Ministry official General Hsieh Jih-sheng told reporters. “The numbers are indeed astonishing.”

Chinese hackers are deep inside America’s telecoms networks

NEWS OF THE hack began trickling out in September, but the American government waited weeks to confirm the reports. Only this month did it begin briefing members of Congress and the media. Officials say a Chinese hacking group dubbed Salt Typhoon compromised at least eight of America’s telecoms networks. The intruders stole the call-record metadata of a “large number” of Americans. They gained access to the wiretap requests of security agencies—meaning they could work out if any Chinese spies or agents were under American surveillance. And they targeted phones used by officials and politicians, reportedly including Donald Trump, J.D. Vance and members of the Biden administration and the Harris-Walz campaign.

US sanctions China cyber firm for potentially deadly ransomware attack

A Chinese cybersecurity company and one of its researchers have been sanctioned by the United States over a 2020 cyberattack that sought to exploit a computer software vulnerability in company firewalls, potentially resulting in deaths from system malfunctions, the US Treasury Department has announced.

Guan Tianfeng, an employee of Sichuan Silence Information Technology Company, deployed malicious software to 81,000 firewalls run by thousands of companies worldwide in April 2020, including 23,000 in the US, the Treasury Department said in a statement on Tuesday.

The US Department of Justice also unsealed an indictment on Guan on Tuesday for his role in the cyberattack. Additionally, the US Department of State is offering a $10m reward for information about Sichuan Silence or Guan.

Sichuan Silence is a cybersecurity government contractor located in the city of Chengdu in central China whose main clients are Chinese government intelligence services, the Treasury Department said.

“Sichuan Silence provides these clients with computer network exploitation, email monitoring, brute-force password cracking, and public sentiment suppression products and services,” it added.

Knowledge and Skills in China’s K-12 Population: An Inquiry into “Knowledge Capital” in the PRC

Nicholas Eberstadt, Patrick Norrick, Radek Sabatka & Peter Van Ness

Introduction

In this study, we analyze evidence on the performance and capabilities of the cohort of young Chinese in primary and secondary schooling. It is a huge population: nearly 300 million boys and girls under the age of 18 live in China today, and something like 180 million of them are 6-15 year olds, for whom the PRC’s nine years of schooling is obligatory.

The training, scholastic preparation, and academic achievement of this rising generation will bear directly on China’s future economically, and indirectly on Beijing’s strategic options and possibilities. To go by internationally standardized tests of achievement for pupils from this age group, China would look to be very favorably positioned indeed.

According to successive rounds of global testing in reading, mathematics and science, pupils from China are Number One in the world—and across the board. These stunning, but recurrent, findings come from PISA, the Programme for International Student Assessment (conducted under the aegis of the OECD, or Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) and tests 15 year olds from over 100 countries, places and sub-territories. 3 In the most recent round of PISA testing in which it participated, China pupils came in first in all three subjects among the nearly 80 participating countries and economies. 4 China’s tested students outperformed counterparts in famously high-performing Singapore in every field, and left Estonia, PISA’s top non-Asian performer, even further behind

The Growing Militarization of China’s Africa Policy

Paul Nantulya

China’s 2-week military exercises with Tanzania and Mozambique in July and August 2024 marked a significant expansion of People’s Liberation Army (PLA) engagement in Africa. The battalion-sized Chinese deployment (approximately 1,000 troops) conducted land- and sea-based training involving maritime patrols, search and rescue, and live-fire drills with their Tanzanian and Mozambican counterparts in exercises labelled “Peace Unity-2024.” Some two dozen different types of weapons and equipment, including small arms, heavy artillery, micro unmanned aerial vehicles, and various reconnaissance and infantry vehicles were involved.

PLA ground, naval, air, and marine forces participated. Troops and armaments from the PLA Joint Logistics Support Force, created to streamline the PLA’s expeditionary capacity, were featured for the first time as was the PLA’s Information Support Force.

Chinese troops were transported from mainland China in a variety of transportation vehicles, including navy and air force strategic lift assets like the Y-20 strategic transport aircraft and Yuzhao-class amphibious landing docks.

Turkey's Syrian Jihadists Take Over Syria: Kurds, Half a Million Christians Under Intolerable Threat

Uzay Bulut

The Assad family's rule of Syria, which lasted more than 50 years, collapsed on December 8. Jihadist forces took control of Damascus after President Bashar al-Assad escaped to a luxurious life in Moscow. Today, roughly half a million Christians and 2.5 million Kurds in Syria face a future of persecution and abuse at the hands of jihadist terrorists.

The offensive launched by the jihadists of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), formerly the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda, began on November 27. These terrorists, backed by Turkey, first captured Aleppo and a string of other towns and cities in a matter of days, before converging on Damascus.

Since 2017, HTS has been the dominant Islamist militia in Syria. A former branch of Al Qaeda, in 2018, HTS was officially designated a terrorist organization by the US government. The group's name, Hayat Tahrir al Sham, means "Organization for the Liberation of the Levant," meaning much of the Middle East, including Israel, Lebanon and Jordan. Since 2019, HTS, working with Turkey, has controlled northern Idlib through the so-called "Syrian Salvation Government" (SSG). Now, as Turkey and the HTS plan to "reshape Syria," both Kurds and Christians find themselves under siege.

Trump’s Economic Policies: The Good, The Bad, And The Uncertain – OpEd

Jon Wolfenbarger

The US economy is ultimately driven by millions of people working hard to create and trade goods and services, but the US federal government can impact the economy in three main ways: 1) fiscal and regulatory policy: impacts production and who benefits and loses; 2) foreign policy and war: impacts production, life, and quality of life; and, 3) monetary policy: impacts inflation/deflation and boom-bust cycles.

The key lesson of economic science was articulated well by Adam Smith in 1776 and has been repeated by all knowledgeable economists since then, including Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard: free the economy!

That means to avoid any counterproductive government interventions in voluntary trade and private property rights. Economic science teaches us that good fiscal and regulatory policy is to minimize government taxes, spending, and bureaucratic red tape. Good foreign policy is to pursue diplomacy, peace, and free trade with all countries whenever possible. Good monetary policy is to prevent artificial expansion of the money supply, which causes price inflation and the boom-bust cycle.

The United States Must Revisit the Basics of Geostrategy

Andrew A. Michta

It has become something of a cliché in Washington policy debates that the world today is more unstable and dangerous than at any time since the end of the Cold War. But even this statement doesn’t fully capture the gravity of the situation, for the reality is that at no point during the post-Cold War era have we witnessed a surge of direct and proxy great power conflicts comparable to what we have seen in the past decade. Nor has deterrence failed so often in such a short period of time.

A Challenging Time in Global Affairs

In only the past three years, Russia invaded Ukraine for the second time, Hamas attacked Israel – the closest US ally in the Middle East – while Iran proceeded to launch an unprecedented direct attack on Israel. Today, the North Korean military is deployed in Ukraine – an Asian power and officially a non-combatant fighting in the largest war Europe has seen since 1945, with Washington seemingly at a loss as to how to respond.

More than Half of Senior Army Officers Are Turning Down Command Consideration

Steve Beynon

More than half of the Army's senior officers are turning down opportunities to command, choosing instead the stability of staff roles over the high-stakes demands of leadership, or retiring, according to internal service data.

The Battalion Command Assessment Program, or BCAP, a cornerstone of the Army's effort to evaluate leadership readiness, assesses 800 to 1,000 lieutenant colonels annually through interviews, psychological tests and physical fitness evaluations.

Historically, 85% of those participants have been deemed fit for command. Yet this year, 54% of eligible officers voluntarily chose not to participate -- a significant uptick from the 40% average opt-out rate seen since 2019.

"The predominant reasons were personal and family circumstances, such as retirement eligibility and family stabilization," Maj. Heba Bullock, an Army spokesperson, told Military.com in a statement.

The rank of lieutenant colonel carries unique prestige, offering officers the chance to command units of roughly 1,000 troops and to play pivotal roles in Pentagon plans for preparing forces for war. The position sits at the intersection of the Defense Department's big picture and the daily life of rank-and-file troops.

What Hamas wrought

Frida Ghitis

Frida Ghitis is a world affairs columnist. She is a CNN contributor, the senior columnist at World Politics Review and a contributing columnist for the Washington Post.

No one would accuse Hamas leaders of being the first to make a strategic miscalculation of epic proportions in the Middle East. After all, from Napoleon to former U.S. President George W. Bush, the region’s history is strewn with the calling cards of leaders whose ambitions turned to disaster.

Even so, the collapse of Syria’s Assad family dynasty — a more than half-century-old enterprise of brutality, repression and corruption — places Hamas’ plans to reshape the Middle East in firm contention for the title of (to paraphrase another contender, Iraq’s former dictator Saddam Hussein) the Mother of all Miscalculations.

Hamas did mean to cause regional upheaval. But surely, the last thing it wanted was to trigger the unraveling of the so-called “Axis of Resistance,” Israel’s encirclement engineered by Iran. Yet that’s exactly what it did.

Exploring Cyber-Darkness: How Moscow Undermines The West Via The Dark Web – Analysis

Manucharian Grigoriy

Russian hybrid warfare is an intricate field where elements of cyber and physical operations intertwine seamlessly. According to the 2024 report by Cyber Diia Team, there is a consistent, nearly month-long time gap between Russian cyberattacks and subsequent missile strikes, observed between 2022 and 2024. This calculated sequential approach highlights a strategy aimed at undermining infrastructure resilience prior to physical strikes, which, over the last two years of hot war, has evolved into a hallmark of Russian cyberwarfare.

This article builds upon Cyber Diia’s research and expands its Russian cyberwarfare ecosystem tree as shown below, namely the red-framed branch. More specifically, we examine how peripheral and core cyber-operations merge under the Kremlin’s hybrid military doctrine, exploring the Kremlin-backed entities, as well as the independent key groups like Qilin and Killnet.

Core Kremlin Entities

The 2022 report on the Russian use of offensive cyber-capabilities by the Regional Cyber Defence Centre, a subsidiary of the National Cyber Security Centre under the Ministry of National Defence of the Republic of Lithuania, identified six key entities within Russia’s cyber-intelligence apparatus.

Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines are one big step closer to merging

William Gavin

The proposed merger between Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines just got one step closer to completion.

Alaska late on Monday said the time period for Department of Justice (DOJ) antitrust regulators to investigate the deal ended without a lawsuit seeking to block the $1.9 billion combination. Now, the airlines will need to win approval from the Transportation Department in order to seal the deal.

Their tie-up would become the largest merger of U.S. carriers in eight years, when Alaska combined with Virgin America for $2.6 billion.

“This is a significant milestone in the process to join our airlines,” Alaska said in a statement, noting that it worked with Hawaii’s attorney general to “reinforce and expand upon our commitments for the future of Hawaiian Airlines (HA) and to Hawai‘i consumers.”

Hawaii Gov. Josh Green said in a statement that the merger would “vastly expand” the number of destinations throughout North America for his state’s residents, while preserving and increasing the number of union jobs. He added that he is confident that the combined — “stronger” — airline will enhance competition in the industry.

Exploring Cyber-Darkness: How Moscow Undermines the West via the Dark Web

Manucharian Grigoriy

Russian hybrid warfare is an intricate field where elements of cyber and physical operations intertwine seamlessly. According to the 2024 report by Cyber Diia Team, there is a consistent, nearly month-long time gap between Russian cyberattacks and subsequent missile strikes, observed between 2022 and 2024. This calculated sequential approach highlights a strategy aimed at undermining infrastructure resilience prior to physical strikes, which, over the last two years of hot war, has evolved into a hallmark of Russian cyberwarfare.

This article builds upon Cyber Diia’s research and expands its Russian cyberwarfare ecosystem tree as shown below, namely the red-framed branch. More specifically, we examine how peripheral and core cyber-operations merge under the Kremlin’s hybrid military doctrine, exploring the Kremlin-backed entities, as well as the independent key groups like Qilin and Killnet.

Pretexts for War and the Preinvasion Crisis in Ukraine

Ron Gurantz

A central concern for American policymakers during the Cold War was crisis strategy. In this context, crisis refers to a period when countries are on the verge of military conflict, but a state of war does not yet exist. The United States repeatedly confronted the Soviet Union in episodes like the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Berlin Blockade, in some cases facing a serious risk of military conflict. The United States had to navigate these showdowns without either yielding to aggression or stumbling into a nuclear war. As competition intensifies with China and Russia, these kinds of crises are likely to return. The preinvasion crisis in Ukraine may have been a preview of future showdowns in Taiwan and elsewhere.

The main goals of crisis strategy are usually understood to be deterring aggression and managing escalation. Less well studied is the goal of counterjustification. Crises are often used as opportunities to justify war. States make efforts to gain public and allied support for possible military action, and aggressors often engage in deceptive activities to create pretexts for war. Before the Ukraine invasion, Russia made outrageous claims and unrealistic demands to shift blame for the crisis and tried to provoke or stage incidents that would justify a military response. Countering efforts like these and denying the adversary casus belli is an important, and underappreciated, objective in crisis strategy.

Stratcom Summit’24 addresses the use of artificial intelligence in cyber security

At the fourth International Strategic Communication Summit (Stratcom Summit'24) organised by our Presidency's Directorate of Communications under the theme "AI in Communication: Trends, Traps and Transition," a panel titled "AI-Driven Cybersecurity in Communication: Protecting Integrity and Trust'' was held.

The panel, moderated by journalist Miranda Schunke, featured Abdullah Yasin Nur from the University of New Orleans, Head of the Research Group of the Johanneum Research Andreas Windisch, Founder of the Marlinix Mahir Yüksel, Monika Manolova from Digital National Alliance Bulgaria, and Founder and President of Trocadero Forum Institute (TFI) Ellen Wasylina.

Speaking at the panel, Abdullah Yasin Nur from the University of New Orleans underlined that artificial intelligence represents present time, not the future, and that it exists in all aspects of life, saying, ''It exists in the fields of security, defence, and attack. Both sides will deploy artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence will provide solutions for overcoming them."

Noting that privacy is the primary concern in cyber security, Nur warned, "There is a recent trend of creating pictures with artificial intelligence. People shared these pictures. However, you should consider how hackers would use it.''

Nur pointed out that artificial intelligence is capable of persuading people and channelling their concerns as it accesses their information and thoughts.

Spatial Computing: Redefining the Reality of Future Warfare

Shah Muhammad

Imagine being transported into a world where battle plans unfold in vibrant holograms, and strategy feels like second nature. Back in 2013, Ender’s Game dazzled audiences with its futuristic take on soldier training – using breathtaking holographic simulations to prepare for a fight against an unstoppable enemy. Fast forward to today, and we’re already stepping into a similar reality. Games like Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon let players dive into virtual battlefields, plotting moves and outmaneuvering enemies with augmented precision. What once seemed like pure science fiction is now shaping the tools of modern conflict and decision-making. This phenomenon of blending the physical and virtual world through an interactive interface is part of ‘spatial computing’ that allows machines to comprehend our physical environment – a combination of Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) technologies.

VR and AR are no longer just buzzwords; they’ve become essential tools in modern warfare. VR immerses soldiers entirely into alternative virtual environments, creating hyper-realistic scenarios for simulated training or mission planning. AR, on the other hand, enhances the real world by overlaying additional virtual layers – be it visual, acoustic, or haptic – on the physical environment, sharpening the sensory perception of soldiers, sailors, and pilots. In 2019, Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) trained for tunnel warfare against Hezbollah without physically being underground. The trainings were conducted through VR headsets that transported the soldiers to a simulated tunnel environment, and may have been instrumental vis-á-vis IDF’s mission planning for subsequent military operations against Hezbollah.

What's ahead for tech in 2025, according to an IBM executive

Britney Nguyen

Since the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT two years ago, the tech industry has been consumed by generative artificial intelligence — and the next year will see more businesses adopt the technology, one tech executive predicts.

Enterprises are already looking for technology to scale and implement AI, and the focus in 2025 will be on more efficiency and less risk, Hillery Hunter, chief technology officer and general manager of innovation at IBM (IBM) Infrastructure, told Quartz.

With cost efficiency in mind, enterprises will likely look for smaller, more targeted generative AI models, Hunter said. Businesses could also turn to ensembles — or combining multiple machine learning or deep learning models for more accurate and robust results — that will allow them “to optimize latency, efficiency and accuracy across their AI workloads,” Hunter said.

“For example,” Hunter said, “enterprises would have the option to use smaller, faster and more energy-efficient models on a CPU [core processing unit] as a starting point for data analysis and processing and then use larger models on a GPU [graphics processing unit], as needed, for more complex workloads that require extra performance, all within the same AI Workflow.”

Big Tech Will Scour the Globe in Its Search for Cheap Energ

AZEEM AZHAR

On the southern tip of Malaysia lies the state of Johor, renowned for its beaches and mountainous jungle. But Johor has a new boom industry: data centers to power generative AI, with Microsoft committing more than $2 billion on just such a data center. For the tech giants, electricity has become the new oil. A state-of-the-art AI data center might need 90 megawatts, enough to power tens of thousands of American homes. With AI applications proliferating, from chatbots to AI agents, needs are growing. One industry consortium is planning for data centers requiring 10 gigawatts (more than a hundred times the demand of today’s largest). Securing cheap, reliable power is now as crucial to tech firms as silicon chips.

In 2025, the big tech firms will scour the globe for kilowatts, megawatts, and gigawatts. In board meetings, discussions about server capacity are increasingly overshadowed by discussions on grid capacity and energy futures. Nations blessed with abundant low-cost energy are leveraging this newfound advantage and crafting policies to attract AI investments with the zeal once reserved for manufacturing.

Regions that have historically won the data center ark, such as Ireland and Singapore, have found their capacity strained to bursting before the GenAI boom. This has created opportunities for unlikely competitors, not just Malaysia but Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Chile. Latency is less important than keeping the electrons flowing.

'Brain rot' has overtaken social media. Here's why we should guard against it

Tracy Lee

If you passed by a stranger on the street handing out free garbage, would you take it all home with you?

No? So why do so many of us indiscriminately consume copious amounts of “mindless” content on social media each day, allowing a constant deluge of random and trivial information to inundate our headspace and suck away our time and energy?

The usage of the term “brain rot” surged 230 per cent between 2023 and 2024, particularly among Gen Z and Gen Alpha communities on TikTok. “Brain rot” has even been named the Oxford Word of the Year for 2024, capturing concerns about “the impact of consuming excessive amounts of low-quality online content, especially on social media”, said the Oxford University Press.

Singaporeans spend an average of six hours and 49 minutes online daily, most of which are spent on their mobile phones. Of this, two hours and 14 minutes are spent on social media, according to a 2024 report by Meltwater and We Are Social.

Singaporeans, like many others around the world, are also showing an increasing preference for video-centric platforms. The average TikTok user logs in about 19 times a day, spending a cumulative 95 minutes a day on the app.

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