Asia In Brief Staff at services giant DXC’s Australian outpost will go on strike this week after 14 months of negotiations over a new pay agreement failed.
The union representing the workers, Professionals Australia (PA), told The Register “Many DXC employees have not received a pay rise in five years” and pointed out that the cost of living in Australia has increased “by more than twenty-four per cent” over that time.
The Union also pointed out that Australian banks and government agencies outsource IT work to DXC, meaning the strike action is potentially disruptive to the public.
A DXC spokesperson sent The Register the following statement: “We respect the right of our employees to participate in protected industrial action. We continue to bargain in good faith and look forward to finalising the new agreement.”
Iran war and inflation may slow APAC IT spend
The war in Iran may slow IT spending across the Asia-Pacific region according to analyst firm Forrester.
Frederic Giron, a VP and senior research director at the firm last week forecast that tech spending in the region will grow 9.3 percent in 2026, “driven by software, services, communications equipment, and tech outsourcing.”
The analyst also predicted hardware sales would lead growth, surging by 13.7 percent thanks to hyperscalers building AI-optimized data centers.
But Giron also worries that exchange rate fluctuations will hurt APAC buyers.
“In Australia, software inflation is running at nearly four times the general consumer price index,” he observed, before noting that tariffs and component shortages are sending hardware prices higher.
“The 9.3 percent growth figure includes these price increases, which means the real volume of technology acquired is growing more slowly than the headline suggests,” he said.
Giron also warned the war in Iran may further slow spending, because 75 percent of the oil that flows through the Strait of Hormuz goes to China, India, Japan, and South Korea.
“If the disruption persists beyond Q2 2026, the GDP compression across energy-importing APAC markets will tighten IT budgets – particularly in Japan, South Korea, Thailand, and parts of South Asia,” he warned.
Rival analyst firm IDC has already predicted spending on PCs will decline in the region.
IDC last week found shipments of PCs across Asia last year grew by 11.6 percent to reach 106.6 million units.
This year, the firm expects shipments to decline 13.7 percent due to component shortages.
Maciek Gornicki, IDC’s APAC senior research manager for devices said memory-makers’ move to prioritize datacenter products “is disrupting PC supply, with vendors struggling to secure the memory components needed to build new systems.”
“We expect these shortages to drive prices higher and soften overall demand,” he said. “In Asia-Pacific, vendors are anticipated to prioritize mature markets with higher ASPs to protect margins, while emerging economies – particularly Southeast Asia – will face the greatest impact from both product shortages and rising prices, as these markets are more reliant on low-end devices and consumers are especially sensitive to cost increases.”
Japanese giants may combine power chip businesses
Toshiba, Mitsubishi, and ROHM have started talks to combine their semiconductor businesses.
As explained in a statement from Toshiba, the three companies think collaboration might “realize a business scale and technological foundation capable of competing in the global market … maximizing the corporate value of the integrated entity.”
In 2023, Toshiba and ROHM started talks about collaborating on power semiconductors – chips that manage energy in electronic devices – and after Japan’s government approved those talks on grounds that joint work would stabilize supply chains. The two are now “advancing discussions on collaborative manufacturing initiatives.”
The three companies are at pains to point out that last week’s announcement of talks is just that – no decisions have been made, and a tie-up is not certain.
NEC dilutes datacenter strategy
Japan’s tech services giant NEC has decided to adjust its datacenter strategy.
The company owns and operates around ten datacenters, mostly in Japan. In other countries, NEC deals with local players.
Last week, the company announced announced it will move to a “best-mix model that appropriately combines self-ownership and partnerships.”
The company has also spun out two of its Japanese datacenters into a joint venture with the DigitalBridge Group and Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank’s infrastructure investment arm JEXI.
NEC says it will still build its own bit barns because the ability to offer secure hybrid clouds is an important part of its value proposition.
Superfast networks for fusion plasma control
Japan’s NTT last week detailed [PDF] work it’s done with Japan’s National Institutes for Quantum Science and Technology to deliver “fast, frequent, real time communications essential for the rapid prediction and control of plasma in fusion reactors.”
Experimental fusion reactors heat fuel to over 100 million degrees Celsius and subject it to high pressure, conditions that can produce plasma.
Keeping plasma stable is not easy because all solids melt if they come in contact with the super-hot stuff. Fusion reactors therefore keep it suspended within magnetic fields.
The research NTT described last week explains how it developed networks that allow high frequency communication with a cycle time of less than 100 microseconds, speed that allows control of systems driving magnetic fields inside fusion reactors so they can sustain operations “without disruption.”
Sustaining fusion is not easy: the current record for controlling plasma is just 22 minutes.
South Korea’s DEEPX getting edgy and inferential
South Korean chip designer DEEPX says it’s scored 27 orders for its DX-M1 edge inferencing chip in the seven months since it launched the device.
The company claims the chip produces 25 TOPS of INT8 performance while consuming just three watts of power in typical use, and says its devices are ideal for inferencing workloads on the network edge.
DEEPX has set itself the goal of establishing its NPU as “the default physical AI inference chip for embedded developers worldwide.” ®