Category: Asia Focus

Alibaba Cloud has been named a Leader in Omdia’s Market Radar for Agentic AI Cloud Titans in Asia & Oceania, 2026, strengthening its position in a fast-expanding field where cloud providers are racing to turn generative AI into autonomous enterprise systems.

The ranking places Alibaba Cloud among the region’s most advanced providers of agentic AI infrastructure and development platforms. The company achieved the highest scores across six of nine evaluation dimensions, with its full-stack agentic AI approach highlighted as a key

Hong Kong’s wealth management industry placed renminbi internationalisation, enterprise expansion and ageing-linked investment demand at the centre of its growth agenda as Bank of China and Television Broadcasts Limited held the Wealth Management Expo 2026.

The event, staged on 27 June under the theme “Empowering Enterprises to Go Global, Pioneering the Blue Ocean of Silver Economy”, brought together senior government officials, banking executives, fund specialists and business figures at a time when Hong Kong is sharpening its role as an

Singapore’s push to embed artificial intelligence across business is moving from operational efficiency to the boardroom, forcing companies to confront a harder question: how far can machines assist corporate leadership before accountability becomes blurred?

The debate has sharpened as enterprises test AI systems for strategy modelling, risk alerts, market forecasting, compliance reviews and scenario planning. These tools promise faster decisions and broader analysis, but they also raise questions over directors’ duties, audit trails and responsibility when algorithmic advice shapes corporate choices.

Singapore

Singapore-based used-car marketplace Carro is considering a confidential filing for an initial public offering in the United States as early as this month, signalling renewed confidence among Southeast Asian technology companies seeking access to deeper global capital markets.

The SoftBank-backed company has been evaluating a US listing that could raise as much as $500 million and value the business at more than $3 billion, though the size, timing and venue of the offering remain subject to market conditions. A confidential filing

Oman and Sri Lanka have opened a new channel of investment cooperation centred on special economic zones, free zones and industrial cities, adding momentum to efforts by both countries to attract long-term capital into logistics, real estate, services and manufacturing.

Qais Mohammed Al Yousef, Chairman of the Public Authority for Special Economic Zones and Free Zones, held talks in Muscat with Harsha Amarasekera, Chairman of the Colombo Port City Economic Commission, on opportunities to link the two countries’ zone-development strategies. The

President Lee Jae Myung has invited Pope Leo XIV to visit South Korea next year for World Youth Day in Seoul, using his first Vatican audience as president to seek support for efforts to lower tensions with North Korea and revive dialogue on the Korean Peninsula.

Lee met the Pope at the Apostolic Palace on Monday during the Vatican leg of a wider European tour, accompanied by first lady Kim Hea Kyung. The meeting placed religion and diplomacy at the centre

Foreign investors delivered their strongest one-day purchase of Vietnamese equities in nearly six years on 15 June, signalling a sharp improvement in risk appetite after fears over Middle East energy disruption eased.

Overseas funds bought a net US$160.4 million of Vietnamese shares on Monday, the largest daily inflow since 10 September 2020. The buying helped steady a market that had been under pressure from rising oil prices, global risk aversion and sustained foreign withdrawals despite Vietnam’s long-awaited move towards emerging-market status.

The

Taiwan is moving to anchor its alliance with Paraguay through a data-centre project expected to require at least $200 million in its first phase, tying diplomatic survival to artificial intelligence, clean energy and strategic infrastructure.

The plan, centred on a sovereign AI computing facility in Paraguay, gives Taipei a rare large-scale investment platform in South America as Beijing intensifies pressure on Asunción to cut formal ties. Paraguay remains Taiwan’s only diplomatic partner on the continent and one of just 12 governments

Shin-Etsu Chemical plans to build a new rare-earth refining facility in Fukui Prefecture as Japan accelerates efforts to protect critical mineral supply chains from disruption caused by China’s export controls.

The project marks the company’s first new rare-earth refining facility since 2008 and comes as demand for high-performance magnets rises across electric vehicles, hard disk drives, robotics, wind power systems, defence equipment and advanced electronics. The investment is expected to exceed ¥35 billion, with ¥17.5 billion to be covered by government

Japan recorded a sharp rise in arrivals from GCC states in 2025, as affluent Gulf travellers turned increasingly to long-haul holidays built around luxury stays, food, culture, snow escapes and nature-led itineraries.

Visitor arrivals from the six GCC countries reached 55,924 in 2025, up 25.2 per cent from the previous year, outpacing Japan’s wider inbound tourism growth. The increase came as total international arrivals hit 42.683 million, a record annual figure and a 15.8 per cent rise from 2024, when Japan

Nvidia has signed a wide set of artificial intelligence and data centre agreements with major South Korean companies, placing the country at the centre of its next phase of AI infrastructure expansion across Asia.

The agreements involve SK Telecom, SK Hynix, Naver, Doosan Group, LG Group, Hyundai Motor Group and continued discussions with Samsung Electronics, linking Nvidia’s graphics processors, AI factory architecture and robotics platforms with South Korea’s strengths in memory chips, telecoms, manufacturing, cloud services and industrial automation.

The deals were

China’s aluminium exports accelerated in May as overseas buyers turned to the world’s biggest producer to offset supply disruption triggered by the Middle East war, while crude oil imports dropped to their lowest level in eight years in a sign of strain across the country’s commodity flows.

Customs figures showed a sharp rise in outbound shipments of unwrought aluminium and aluminium products, extending the strong performance seen in April, when exports reached 598,000 metric tonnes. The increase underlined China’s role as

South Korea has moved to contain pressure on the won after the currency fell towards its weakest levels since the global financial crisis, with authorities warning that speculative trading and herd behaviour in the foreign exchange market would face firm intervention.

The response came after the won slipped past psychologically important levels against the dollar, intensifying concern among policymakers over inflation, capital flows and financial stability. Finance Minister Koo Yun-cheol convened senior economic officials and signalled that Seoul would act quickly

Japan is preparing to replace as many as 14 ageing nuclear reactors by the 2050s, marking one of its clearest moves yet towards restoring atomic power as a central pillar of national energy security after more than a decade of post-Fukushima restraint.

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has set out a policy proposal calling for the rebuilding of between two and five reactors by the 2040s and up to 14 by the 2050s. The plan would add about 16

Thailand’s richest man Sarath Ratanavadi is preparing a 140 billion baht expansion through Gulf Development Pcl over five years, placing data centres, digital infrastructure and power supply at the centre of one of Southeast Asia’s most ambitious corporate bets on artificial intelligence demand.

The plan, worth about $4.3 billion, reflects a sharp turn by Gulf from its traditional base as a power producer into a broader infrastructure group linking electricity generation, telecommunications, cloud services and industrial logistics. The investment push comes

Persistent dollar strength pushed the yen back towards 160 per US dollar on Wednesday, reviving concern that Tokyo may step into the foreign exchange market as renewed Gulf hostilities drove investors towards the US currency.

The yen traded near 159.92 per dollar in Asian dealings, close to the level widely viewed by traders as a possible trigger for official action. The move erased much of the currency’s rebound after Japan’s ¥11.7 trillion intervention campaign earlier this year, leaving markets alert to

Kioxia Holdings has moved within striking distance of Toyota Motor’s market value, underscoring how the artificial intelligence boom is reshaping Japan’s corporate hierarchy and lifting a memory-chip maker that listed in Tokyo less than two years ago into the country’s market elite.

The Tokyo-based maker of NAND flash memory and solid-state drives has become one of the most closely watched stocks on the Tokyo Stock Exchange after a sharp rally tied to demand for data-centre storage, AI servers and high-performance memory

Mainland Chinese investors have turned net sellers of Hong Kong-listed equities through Stock Connect, marking a rare reversal in cross-border flows as enthusiasm for onshore artificial intelligence shares draws capital back towards Shanghai and Shenzhen.

The shift reflects a sharp change in investor preference after months of underperformance by Hong Kong equities against mainland peers. Mainland investors sold about HK$3.6 billion of Hong Kong shares through the trading links last month, the first monthly net outflow since June 2023 and one

Tencent Holdings shares posted their strongest intraday gain in more than three years in Hong Kong after details emerged that the company is testing an artificial intelligence agent for WeChat, raising expectations that China’s most powerful consumer internet platform may become a launchpad for mass-market AI services.

The stock climbed about 6 per cent on Tuesday as investors reacted to signs that Tencent is moving closer to embedding a task-performing assistant inside WeChat, the messaging, payments and social platform used by

Beijing’s new trade secret rules have taken effect, bringing data, algorithms, computer programs and source code explicitly within the country’s administrative protection system as China moves to curb technology leaks during a sharper contest with the United States over artificial intelligence, advanced computing and strategic know-how.

The Provisions on the Protection of Trade Secrets, issued by the State Administration for Market Regulation under Order No. 126, came into force on 1 June 2026 and replace rules first introduced in 1995. The

SoftBank Group has overtaken Toyota Motor as Japan’s most valuable company, underlining a sharp shift in investor preference from the country’s traditional manufacturing champions towards businesses seen as central to the global artificial intelligence build-out.

Shares in Masayoshi Son’s technology investment group surged in Tokyo trading, lifting its market value to about ¥47.2 trillion, or roughly $296 billion, ahead of Toyota’s ¥45.7 trillion after the carmaker’s stock fell nearly 5 per cent. The move placed SoftBank at the top of Japan’s

Malaysia began enforcing new online safety rules on Monday that bar children younger than 16 from owning social media accounts, placing responsibility on major platforms to verify users’ ages and block underage account registration.

The measures apply to online platforms with at least 8 million users in Malaysia, bringing Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube within the scope of the rules. Companies must introduce age-verification systems for new users and checks for existing account holders, while strengthening safeguards against harmful content, cyberbullying,

Sri Lanka raised fuel prices by up to 6 per cent on Sunday, days after securing a $695 million instalment from the International Monetary Fund, as Colombo moved to align energy pricing with bailout conditions aimed at reducing subsidies and restoring fiscal discipline.

The state-run Ceylon Petroleum Corporation increased the price of 92-octane petrol to 434 Sri Lankan rupees a litre from 410 rupees, while auto diesel rose to 407 rupees from 392 rupees. The revision adds to household and transport

Malaysia has sharpened its criticism of Norway’s cancellation of export licences for Naval Strike Missiles, casting the dispute as a test of whether international contracts and security partnerships still carry weight when smaller states deal with stronger powers.

Defence Minister Mohamed Khaled Nordin said Oslo’s decision had moved beyond a procurement setback and raised wider questions about trust in global relations. He argued that rules and agreements lose credibility when advanced economies can withdraw from signed deals after payments, integration work