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Yoong had been one of the named leaders on UBS Global Wealth Management’s Indonesia market structure unveiled after the Credit Suisse integration. In that 2023 reorganisation, Conrad Huber was appointed head of Global Wealth Management Indonesia and Japan International, with Lionel Yoong listed among the Indonesia market team leaders. That structure reflected how central the Indonesia book had become to UBS’s Southeast Asia wealth ambitions, particularly from Singapore, a long-established hub for serving affluent Indonesian clients offshore.

The latest exit follows earlier turnover in the same coverage area. Industry publication Hubbis reported in July 2025 that two Singapore-based bankers focused on Indonesia, Lionel Poh and Edy Panggabean, were set to leave UBS Global Wealth Management, describing the departures as part of ongoing restructuring within the Indonesian market team. That report said UBS declined to comment at the time and noted that both bankers specialised in the Indonesia market, underscoring how staff churn has persisted well after the initial merger phase.

Additional reporting circulating on Friday indicated that Yoong was the third market head for Indonesia to leave UBS since the beginning of last year. While Bloomberg’s full report was not accessible through the browsing tool, that detail appeared consistently in syndicated summaries of the story, aligning with the pattern already visible from prior trade reporting on the unit. The broad direction is clear even if some specifics around internal timing remain private: UBS is still contending with personnel changes in a business line that sits at the intersection of Southeast Asian entrepreneurial wealth and Singapore’s offshore private banking market.

That matters because Indonesia has long been one of the more attractive yet more delicate pools of wealth in the region. Reuters Breakingviews wrote in 2023 that Credit Suisse had been particularly strong in Indonesia and neighbouring countries before the rescue takeover by UBS. Reuters also reported that Southeast Asia was among the regions where UBS and Credit Suisse had some of their greatest overlaps in wealth management and investment banking after the emergency deal in March 2023. Those overlaps made departures and selective restructuring all but inevitable as UBS sought to fold rival teams, cut duplication and keep high-value client relationships intact.

UBS’s challenge is not simply to stop people leaving. It is to do so while preserving momentum in an Asian wealth market that remains strategically important to the group. Chief executive Sergio Ermotti said in March 2024 that UBS planned to increase assets sourced from clients in Asia by 20% over five to six years, highlighting wealth and asset management as a core pillar of growth. That ambition helps explain why departures from specialised country teams are watched closely by rivals and recruiters: in private banking, senior relationship managers often carry client loyalty, local networks and revenue visibility that are not easily replaced.

At the same time, UBS has signalled that it is willing to invest where it sees stronger near-term return. Bloomberg reported in February that the bank planned to hire about 50 bankers for its Hong Kong wealth business after record revenue in North Asia, with a greater focus on high-net-worth clients. That hiring drive suggests the group is not retreating from Asian wealth management as a whole. Rather, it appears to be recalibrating where resources are deployed, even as parts of Southeast Asia continue to absorb the after-effects of the Credit Suisse acquisition.

There is also a broader industry angle. Asian Private Banker wrote this month that the region’s private banking sector saw a spike in exits over the past month as hiring slowed in March, a reminder that movement among senior bankers is not confined to UBS. Still, turnover draws sharper scrutiny when it affects a market as valuable as Indonesia, where wealthy entrepreneurial families often require cross-border booking, succession planning and sophisticated capital-markets access. Singapore remains a key booking centre for that business, so departures there can reverberate beyond one desk or one reporting line.

1. Constituent Review – ixCrypto Index Series

1. 1. ixCrypto Index (“IXCI”)
The number of constituents will remain at 19 with no additions and deletions.

Additions:
No addition

Deletions:
No deletion

The free float adjusted market capitalization coverage is 84.26%* (excluding stablecoins, which represents 10.90% of the total crypto universe), while the 90-day-average volume is 77.36%*. The recapping at 40% will take effect on the effective date.

Since the last review, there has been a decrease in the crypto total market capitalization from USD3.38T to USD2.62T (-22.53%)^#, and a decrease in the daily volume from USD157.69B to USD108.17B (-31.40%)^#. Bitcoin remains the largest crypto in the constituent list, with its price decreased by 24.58% since the last review.

1.2. ixCrypto Portfolio Indexes

1.2.1 ixCrypto 5 Equal Weight Index (“IXEW5”) and ixCrypto 5 Square Root Index (“IXSR5”)

Additions:
No addition

Deletions:
No deletion

1.2.2 ixCrypto 10 Equal Weight Index (“IXEW10”) and ixCrypto 10 Square Root Index (“IXSR10”).

Additions:
No addition

Deletions:
No deletion

1.2.3 ixCrypto Altcoin 10 EW Index (“IXAEW10”) and ixCrypto Altcoin 10 Square Root Index (“IXASR10”).

Additions: Monero

Deletions: Chainlink

1.3. ixCrypto BTC/ETH Indexes
As of the cut-off date on 31^st March 2026, the ixCrypto BTC/ETH 50/50 Index (“IX5050”) maintains a 50%/50% weighting for the ixBitcoin Index “IXBI” and ixEthereum Index “IXEI”. The ixCrypto BTC/ETH Proportional Index (“IXPI”) has a weighting of 83.12% and 16.88% for IXBI and IXEI, respectively.

At the upcoming effective date, IX5050 weightings will remain unchanged at 50%/50%. IXPI weightings will be adjusted to 84.53% and 15.47% for IXBI and IXEI, respectively, reflecting the market capitalization proportions of Bitcoin and Ethereum at the cut-off date.

1.4. ixCrypto Stablecoin Index
The number of constituents will remain at 6 (Appendix 5). Stablecoin comprises 10.90% of the total crypto universe, and ixCrypto Stablecoin Index covers 98.26% of the 90-day average market capitalization in the stablecoin universe.

2. Exchange Review
To ensure the fairest price objective, all indexes are calculated based on average of multiple exchanges. As a result of exchange review, 10 exchanges passed the review process, which are as follows:

1. Binance
2. Pionex (ADDITION)
3. BitMart (ADDITION)
4. MEXC
5. LBank
6. Bybit
7. Gate.io2
8. Kucoin
9. Crypto.com Exchange
10. Coinbase Exchange

Deletion

1. Huobi Global
2. OKEx

The selected 10 exchanges will be used to generate each of the fair average prices for the IX indexes’ constituents. The exchange review covers volume rankings, exchange background checks, founders’ background checks, USD/USDT/USDC/BTC pair coverage, overconcentration rules, exchange API coverage checks, and stability, among other aspects, for an exchange.

For more details about our exchange selection criteria, please email info@ix-index.com. More information on the ixCrypto Indexes, including their constituents and constituents’ weights, is provided in the Appendices, or refer to the website https://ix-index.com/.

*Exclude stable coins and coins that trigger conflict of interest (based on conflict-of-interest rule methodology 3.9, effective on Oct 2, 2020)
#As of 31^th March 2026, based on the past 90 days average
XXXX ^(ADDITION)Newly introduced exchanges as of 2026 Q1

Appendix 1

Appendix 2

As of 31 March 2026

# Weighting (%) after 40% Cap is adjusted according to the cut-off price, the arrangement of order may not the same as 90-day-average-Market Cap

Selection of index constituents is based on the past 90-day-average market capitalization and volume.
For the calculation methodology of the index, please refer to the “ixCrypto Index Methodology Paper” on our website

Appendix 3

As of 31 March 2026

Appendix 4

As of 31 March 2026

Appendix 5

As of 31 March 2026

Appendix 6

Real time indexes are disseminated every 5-second interval for 24×7 since 23 June 2022. The real-time indexes are available for viewing on the IX Crypto Index official webpage and Bloomberg Page IXCI <GO>. For IXCI, IXBI and IXEI, the indexes are also available through Nasdaq Global Index Data Service (GIDS) with the tickers “IXCI”, “IXBI” and “IXEI”, with dissemination interval kept at 15-second unchanged.

The vendor tickers are shown below:

For further information about ixCrypto Index and other available indexes including IX Crypto spot price index series and EOD indexes, please visit company official webpage https://ix-index.com or subscribe to LinkedIn: IX Asia Indexes

For data licensing and product, please contact us at licensing@ix-index.com.

For free API use on academic research or trial, please contact enquiry@ix-index.com



Hashtag: #ixCryptoIndex

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

About IX Asia Indexes and IX Asia Index Advisory Committee

IX Capital International Limited is an award-winning index and investment advisory company. The index business arm- IX Asia Indexes, providing real-time digital asset and innovative indexes, disseminated 24×7 globally and built on robust infrastructure. Since the launch of the first crypto benchmark index (“IXCI”) launched in Hong Kong in December 2018, the ixCrypto index series expand into over 40 indexes designed for exchange futures products, mark-to-market, and fund managers’ portfolio construction purposes. To ensure the professionality and impartiality of the index methodologies and operations, IX Asia Indexes has established its index advisory committee with representation from different industries, including fund management, exchanges, brokerage, financial blockchain experts, crypto service providers, etc. The committee will meet quarterly a year to discuss matters relating to the IX Asia Indexes, including to review and to comment the data sources, methodologies, and operations of IX Asia Indexes, to provide guidance to the future development of new IX Asia Indexes and to handle other issues and decisions on an as-needed basis.

IX Asia Indexes was awarded the Fintech Award (wealth investment and management) 2019 and 2021 organised by ETNet. It as well won an award for Startup of the Year and Basic Technology (Big Data) from Hong Kong Fintech Impetus Awards 2022 by Metro Broadcast and KPMG. It also won Asia Pacific Enterprise Achievement Award 2024 by Echolade. IX Asia Indexes completed its IOSCO compliance statement and obtained ISO/IEC 27001:2022 UKAS certification.

Website: https://ix-index.com/

Advisory Committee: https://ix-index.com/committee.htm

About IX Crypto Indexes

The ixCrypto index (“IXCI”) is the first crypto index launched in Hong Kong. It was launched on 12 December 2018. It is denominated in USD with a base value of 1000 and a base date on 3 December 2018. Designed to be easy to understand while providing a good representation of the crypto market, ixCrypto index aims to cover the top 80% of the cumulative free-float adjusted market capitalization in the crypto universe and, at the same time, the crypto currencies should fall within the top liquid cryptos ranked by trading volume in the 90 days preceding the review date. The index is to be reviewed quarterly and with a fast entry rule. Real time indexes are disseminated every 5-second for 24×7 since 23 June 2022. Real time index data together with ixBitcoin Index and ixEthereum Index can be obtained from IX Asia Indexes Data Services and Bloomberg terminal on IXCI <GO>. For IXCI, IXBI and IXEI, the indexes are also available through Nasdaq Global Index Data Service (GIDS) with the tickers “IXCI”, “IXBI”, “IXEI”, with dissemination interval kept at 15-second unchanged. Wechat: 信昇亞洲指數.

The dispute sits inside a broader U. S. tariff reset. In March, the USTR opened Section 301 investigations into structural excess capacity in manufacturing across 16 economies, including Singapore, and launched another set of probes into whether about 60 economies have failed to prohibit or effectively enforce bans on imports made with forced labour. Reuters reported that the Trump administration moved down this route after a Supreme Court ruling in February struck at the legal basis of a large part of its earlier tariff framework, prompting Washington to search for narrower but still forceful trade instruments. USTR said comments were due by April 15, with hearings on forced labour beginning on April 28 and on overcapacity from May 5.

Singapore’s central argument is that the U. S. portrayal of the bilateral trade balance is flawed. In its submission, the Ministry of Trade and Industry said the United States has run a consistent overall trade surplus with Singapore for more than two decades. Data cited by Singapore from U. S. agencies show America posted a goods trade surplus of US$1.9 billion and a services trade surplus of US$25.1 billion with Singapore in 2024, with those surpluses rising in 2025 to US$3.6 billion and US$29.6 billion respectively. Singapore also said the U. S. recorded sectoral surpluses in semiconductors and electrical equipment as well as petrochemicals, undercutting the suggestion that exports from Singapore into the American market are being fuelled by a broad pattern of manufacturing distortion.

That matters because Washington’s overcapacity inquiry is built around the idea that some trading partners maintain large or persistent surpluses, idle production or both, allowing them to push artificially cheap goods into world markets. Singapore’s reply does not deny that the U. S. is entitled to examine trade imbalances, but it says its own industrial base does not fit that template. Officials pointed to manufacturing-space occupancy holding around 90 per cent over the past five years, which they said is consistent with advanced-economy norms and inconsistent with the claim of large underused capacity. Singapore further argued that, given land scarcity, it would run against policy and economic logic for industrial land to be left substantially idle.

On the labour side, Singapore’s response is equally direct. The government said it does not condone forced labour in supply chains and has legal and enforcement mechanisms to address such practices. Channel NewsAsia reported that Singapore told U. S. investigators it has a comprehensive domestic framework against forced labour and against the importation of goods produced through it. That is an important distinction, because the U. S. probe is not confined to labour abuses inside a country’s own factories; it is also examining whether governments adequately prevent tainted goods from entering their markets and then moving through global trade channels.

The business implications extend beyond Singapore. The U. S. investigations cover major manufacturing and export economies across Asia and Europe, and any eventual remedies could include new duties or other restrictions before temporary tariffs expire in July, according to Reuters and trade-law analyses tracking the dockets. For companies, that raises the prospect of higher compliance costs, closer supply-chain screening and a wider blending of trade policy with labour-rights enforcement. Singapore’s case is being watched because it is a high-value manufacturing and logistics hub with deep exposure to electronics, pharmaceuticals, petrochemicals and re-export trade, sectors where even modest tariff changes can alter sourcing decisions.

Politically, the row is awkward for both sides. Singapore is not only a long-standing U. S. economic partner; its free-trade agreement with Washington remains America’s only such pact with a South-east Asian trading partner. Singapore has said bilateral trade and investment support around 350,000 jobs in the United States, while its direct investment stock there reached US$71.7 billion in 2025. That does not shield it from a more aggressive U. S. trade climate, but it does give Singapore a stronger basis than many others to argue that the relationship is balanced, rules-based and mutually beneficial.

China’s economy expanded faster than expected in the first quarter, giving Beijing a firmer platform as it confronts the fallout from the war involving Iran, but the details beneath the headline number pointed to a recovery still leaning heavily on industry and exports while households remain cautious. Official data released on Thursday showed gross domestic product grew 5.0% from a year earlier in January to March, above the 4.8% forecast in a Reuters poll and up from 4.5% in the final quarter of 2025. Quarterly growth came in at 1.3%, slightly ahead of the previous quarter.

The stronger reading suggested that the first shockwaves from the conflict in the Middle East have not yet knocked China off course. Markets took the figures as a sign of resilience. Mainland share indices rose after the release and the yuan held near its strongest levels in three years, reflecting confidence that the world’s second-largest economy has, for now, absorbed higher energy risks better than some had feared.

Yet the composition of growth was less reassuring. March industrial output rose 5.7% from a year earlier, beating expectations, but retail sales slowed to 1.7%, well below forecasts and down from 2.8% in the first two months of the year. Fixed-asset investment in the first quarter rose 1.7%, also missing expectations, while property investment fell 11.2%. Those figures reinforced a pattern that has defined China’s economy for months: factories, infrastructure and technology manufacturing are carrying more of the load than domestic consumption or housing.

That imbalance matters because Beijing has repeatedly signalled that stronger household demand is essential to putting growth on a steadier footing. Economists cited in the reporting on Thursday said the first-quarter strength was driven largely by momentum built in January and February, especially through exports and industrial activity, while March showed signs of softer conditions. The slowdown in shop spending is particularly sensitive because consumer confidence has remained fragile even as policymakers talk up support for incomes, jobs and services-led demand.

The war has complicated that task without yet derailing it. Since hostilities erupted on 28 February, China has faced a familiar vulnerability: it is the world’s largest energy importer and still relies on stable global shipping and manageable oil prices to protect factory margins and household purchasing power. Reuters reported that economists believe China has so far weathered the shock because of large oil reserves, a diversified energy mix and price controls, but they also warned that persistently higher oil costs are beginning to filter through supply chains and squeeze profits.

Evidence of that pressure is already visible. Reuters noted this week that factory-gate prices in March rose for the first time in more than three years, a signal that energy-driven cost increases are feeding into production. Export growth, which had been one of the brighter spots, also lost momentum in March after a very strong start to the year, raising the possibility that manufacturers will find it harder to sustain their pace if shipping costs stay elevated and overseas demand weakens.

Beijing’s response is likely to stay measured unless the conflict worsens. Policymakers have already set a budget deficit of about 4% of GDP for 2026 and planned heavy bond issuance to support activity. Analysts polled by Reuters expect the central bank to keep the one-year loan prime rate steady through the year, with only a modest cut to reserve requirements anticipated later on. A stronger first quarter gives officials more room to avoid large-scale stimulus at this month’s Politburo meeting, though that calculus could change if oil prices climb further or exports weaken more sharply.

The broader international backdrop is not especially forgiving. The IMF said in its April World Economic Outlook material that the Middle East conflict is lowering growth expectations for advanced economies in 2026, even if the aggregate effect is described as modest. For China, that matters less through direct battlefield exposure than through energy costs, shipping uncertainty and the health of major overseas markets. A prolonged conflict would test the durability of China’s export-led strength at the same time as its consumer recovery remains incomplete.

Following the rollout of AI Compute Service in Hong Kong (China), Thailand, Indonesia, and Singapore in 2025, Huawei Cloud MaaS (Model-as-a-Service) is now available, leveraging Huawei’s in-house acceleration engine to support mainstream models and provide customers with stable and high-quality token services.

Huawei Cloud continues to strengthen its collaboration with high-quality open-source models in the industry. Six models from three categories—GLM, DeepSeek, and Qwen—are the first to be supported by MaaS. These models are designed for two major application scenarios: intelligent Q&A and AI coding. They offer one-click access and out-of-the-box model hosting services, covering the entire lifecycle of model management from deployment to inference, fine-tuning, and evaluation. With elastic compute and pay-per-use billing, enterprises and developers can quickly integrate AI capabilities into their service systems without having to worry about the underlying infrastructure. This makes AI accessible to everyone.

Notably, this release includes support for the latest GLM-5 model. GLM-5 has attained state-of-the-art (SOTA) performance in coding and agent capabilities, making it an ideal general-purpose agent foundation for complex system engineering and long-text agent tasks in enterprise environments.

Huawei Cloud’s long-term strategic investment in AI has resulted in a comprehensive suite of AI solutions, including CloudMatrix AI Infra, MaaS, ModelArts (a model training and inference platform), CodeArts (a coding agent), AgentArts (an agent platform), and DataArts (a data agent).

CodeArts and AgentArts will be launched outside the Chinese mainland in the second half of 2026.

Huawei Cloud has established an optimized cloud infrastructure network in the Asia Pacific region. This network comprises five Regions and 18 availability zones (AZs) located in Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong (China), Indonesia, and the Philippines, ensuring a 50 ms access latency. Additionally, in Malaysia, Huawei Cloud and partners have jointly built a local cloud.

Huawei Cloud AI Compute Service have helped many Asia Pacific customers elevate their cloud journey from simply migrating to the cloud to using AI well. They have benefited from improved productivity and better adaptation to changing environments.

iFLYTEK, a leading intelligent voice and AI company, selected Singapore as the first destination for its global expansion strategy in 2023, naturally extending its collaboration with Huawei Cloud from China to a global scale. Huawei Cloud AI Compute Service helped iFLYTEK quickly deploy their large language model training resources within two weeks. The training remained stable for 60 days without interruption, ensuring zero faults during the release of major versions.

In Vietnam, Green and Smart Mobility (GSM), an emerging green mobility platform, migrated its core operations platform to Huawei Cloud to reduce costs, enhance efficiency, and achieve multi-cloud flexibility. GSM has developed a comprehensive fleet management platform using AI and IoT. By utilizing Huawei Cloud IoTDA and ModelArts AI technologies, GSM analyzes violations and generates risk alerts to ensure driver and passenger safety, thereby fulfilling its mission of promoting green and safe transportation.

Huawei Cloud will continue to invest in AI innovation and provide a secure, stable, and intelligent cloud foundation to help enterprises in Asia Pacific achieve sustainable business growth in the AI era.



Hashtag: #HuaweiCloud #MaaS #AI #Token

https://www.huaweicloud.com
https://www.linkedin.com/company/huaweicloudapac
https://x.com/huaweicloudapac
https://www.facebook.com/HuaweiCloudAPAC
Wechat: 亚太华为云

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

About Huawei

Founded in 1987, Huawei is a leading global provider of information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure and smart devices. We have 207,000 employees and we operate in more than 170 countries and regions, serving more than three billion people around the world.

Our vision and mission is to bring digital to every person, home and organisation for a fully connected, intelligent world. To this end, we will work towards ubiquitous connectivity and inclusive network access, laying the foundation for an intelligent world; providing diversified computing power where you need it, when you need it, to bring cloud and intelligence to all four corners of the earth; build digital platforms to help all industries and organisations become more agile, efficient, and dynamic; and redefine user experience with AI, making it smarter and more personalised for people in all aspects of their life, whether they’re at home, on the go, in the office, having fun, or working out. For more information, please visit Huawei online at www.huawei.com

The rally reflected a market view that the worst-case economic fallout from the conflict may yet be avoided if negotiations regain momentum. Investors were encouraged by signs that talks between Washington and Tehran could resume after earlier efforts faltered, easing some fears over energy supply disruptions and allowing attention to swing back to earnings, economic data and the resilience of household demand in the United States and Asia. That shift in mood helped lift US stock futures and underpinned broader gains from Tokyo to Mumbai.

Japan led the advance, with exporters and technology names benefiting from stronger risk appetite and the market’s belief that any easing in Middle East tensions could reduce pressure on fuel costs and shipping. The Nikkei’s record level also reflected investor confidence that large Japanese companies remain well placed to benefit from global demand for semiconductors, automation and artificial intelligence infrastructure. Elsewhere, South Korean and Hong Kong shares also moved higher, while mainland Chinese markets were supported by data showing the economy expanded by 5.0 per cent in the first quarter, beating expectations and offering some reassurance that domestic activity has retained momentum despite the geopolitical shock.

Wall Street’s lead mattered. The S&P 500 closed at 7,022.95 on Wednesday, a record that marked a full recovery from losses triggered after the conflict began in late February, while the Nasdaq posted another record finish and extended a powerful winning streak. Strong results from major banks, including Bank of America and Morgan Stanley, reinforced the idea that corporate America is entering the earnings season on firmer footing than many investors had feared when oil prices spiked and risk assets sold off. Reuters reported that 84 per cent of companies that had reported by then had beaten expectations, helping to steady nerves about margins and consumer activity.

The earnings story is now sharing the stage with geopolitics. Markets are effectively pricing a narrower range of negative outcomes than they were only weeks ago, but that optimism remains conditional. Oil prices, while off their most alarming levels, are still elevated by historical standards, and every diplomatic headline continues to carry outsized weight because the Strait of Hormuz remains central to global crude flows. Reports that Iran may allow shipping through the waterway helped calm traders, though supply risks have not disappeared, especially with refinery disruptions in Australia and the threat of fresh sanctions or military miscalculation still present.

That tension between relief and caution is visible across asset classes. The dollar was broadly steady, the euro stayed firm, gold edged up and cryptocurrencies drifted lower, all signs that investors have not fully abandoned hedges even as they add exposure to equities. In India, shares opened higher as lower oil prices and hopes of renewed dialogue supported all major sectors, with the Nifty 50 and Sensex building on gains from the previous session. For economies that import large volumes of energy, any sustained cooling in crude would ease inflation pressure, support currencies and give central banks more room to focus on domestic growth rather than external shocks.

Technology remains a central pillar of the market’s confidence. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. was in focus ahead of results that investors expected to show a sharp profit jump, driven by demand tied to artificial intelligence chips. That anticipation has fed into a broader belief that the AI investment cycle can continue to offset weakness elsewhere in the global economy. Yet the strength of that narrative also creates a vulnerability: richly valued technology shares leave little room for disappointment, and any sign of slowing orders or tighter capital spending could quickly change the market tone.

Regulatory milestone paves the way for launch of Aspire Yield, enabling businesses to earn attractive returns on idle cash balances

HONG KONG SAR – Media OutReach Newswire – 15 April 2026 – Aspire, the finance stack for global founders, today announced that its subsidiary, AFT HK Treasury Limited, has been granted Type 1 (dealing in securities), Type 4 (advising on securities), and Type 9 (asset management) licences by the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) of Hong Kong.

Hashtag: #Aspire

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

About Aspire

Singapore leads the region in maturity but faces critical scaling bottlenecks.

SINGAPORE – Media OutReach Newswire – 15 April 2026 – ST Telemedia Global Data Centres (STT GDC), one of the world’s fastest-growing data centre colocation service providers headquartered in Singapore, today announced the findings of a new regional research study, Mind the Gap: Bridging the AI Infrastructure Readiness Divide, examining how organisations across Asia are progressing from AI ambition to execution. Commissioned by STT GDC with research partner Ecosystm, the study surveyed more than 600 enterprise and digital-native leaders across nine Asian markets: India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam.

High adoption, limited readiness across Asia

The report reveals that AI ambition across Asia is high, with nearly 90% of organisations having embarked on their AI journeys. However, a significant 71% remain in the “Builder” stage of maturity, where initial AI pilots struggle to scale into production environments capable of delivering consistent and measurable return on investment (ROI). In contrast, only 17% of organisations are considered “future ready”, having invested in scalable infrastructure, mature data governance and specialised operational expertise, highlighting a widening readiness gap across the region.

Challenges faced by the Builders

Across Asia, the research identifies a reinforcing cycle that keeps many organisations stuck in pilot mode. AI initiatives are often launched on infrastructure that cannot scale to production, limiting their ability to demonstrate measurable ROI and making it harder to justify further investment in purpose-built, high-density environments. This challenge is compounded by gaps in in-house expertise, with many organisations lacking the specialist operational skills required to manage increasingly complex AI infrastructure at scale.

“Across Asia, organisations are moving quickly from experimentation to implementation, but many are discovering that AI success now depends less on training models and more on foundations,” said Chris Street, Group Chief Revenue Officer of ST Telemedia Global Data Centres. “Without scalable infrastructure and operational readiness in place, it becomes difficult to convert early AI ambition into consistent business value.”

The Sustainability Blind Spot

Despite rising energy and cooling demands driven by AI workloads, sustainability considerations remain secondary for most organisations when evaluating infrastructure options. Although 27% of organisations say ESG goals will actively shape or be central to their future plans, 64% of organisations across Asia continue to prioritise performance or cost, even as power density, thermal efficiency and long‑term total cost of ownership become increasingly critical factors in scaling AI responsibly.

A disconnect between what organisations want and what they need

The study also highlights a persistent disconnect between how organisations evaluate infrastructure partners and the capabilities they actually need to scale AI. Across Asia, organisations continue to prioritise baseline requirements like security and reliability, despite identifying operational expertise, scalability and cost efficiency as their most significant challenges.

Singapore: ahead of the region, but facing a new constraint

These challenges are visible across the region, but they manifest differently in more mature markets. Singapore stands out against the regional baseline with a significantly larger share of organisations having progressed beyond early-stage pilots. While only 17% of organisations across Asia are considered future‑ready, 40% of Singapore organisations have reached the Integrator stage, reflecting stronger early execution and deployment capability.

However, the study also finds that the final step to leadership remains the most difficult. Only 3% of Singapore organisations have reached the “Leader” stage of AI infrastructure maturity, signalling that even in Asia’s most mature AI market, the transition from integration to full leadership remains difficult.

Scaling, not adoption, is now the key challenge

In Singapore, where adoption is more advanced, the constraints have shifted. Limited infrastructure headroom, shortages in specialised operational expertise and continued investment discipline are now emerging as the primary barriers to scaling AI workloads and sustaining leadership.

“For Singapore, AI adoption is relatively mature; the defining challenge now is scaling deployments fast enough to support real‑world demand,” said Mingcheng Lim, Country Head – Singapore, ST Telemedia Global Data Centres. “Whether the country can maintain its lead in the region will depend on whether infrastructure capacity, specialist expertise and investment approaches can evolve at the same pace as AI workloads.”

Sustainability awareness has yet to shape infrastructure choices

In Singapore, regulatory expectations have driven relatively high awareness of sustainability issues. However, sustainability continues to rank among the lowest priorities when organisations evaluate infrastructure providers, highlighting a gap between awareness and action, even as power density, thermal efficiency and long‑term cost efficiency become increasingly important to scaling AI responsibly.

The mismatch between wants and needs persists

As with the wider region, Singapore organisations continue to evaluate infrastructure providers based on familiar baseline criteria, even as their scaling challenges point to a growing need for specialist expertise, speed to scale and sustainable, high‑density infrastructure capability.

These findings suggest that Asia’s next phase of AI progress will be defined not by ambition alone, but by execution capability. For Singapore, sustaining regional leadership will depend on infrastructure strategies that support scale, resilience and speed, enabling organisations to convert early AI momentum into enduring competitive advantage.

To download the report, Mind the Gap: Bridging the AI Infrastructure Readiness Divide, please visit: https://www.sttelemediagdc.com/resources/ai-readiness-assessment-report.Hashtag: #STTelemedia #STTGDC

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

About ST Telemedia Global Data Centres

ST Telemedia Global Data Centres (STT GDC) is one of the fastest-growing data centre providers with a global platform serving as a cornerstone of the digital ecosystem that helps the world to connect. Powering a sustainable digital future, STT GDC operates across Singapore, the UK, Germany, India, Italy, Thailand, South Korea, Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, Malaysia and Vietnam, providing businesses an exceptional foundation that is built for their growth anywhere. For more information, visit https://www.sttelemediagdc.com/.

China is set to issue 15.5 billion yuan in sovereign bonds in Hong Kong on 22 April, marking its largest offshore yuan government bond sale in the city since 2023 and adding to the pool of renminbi assets available to global investors at a time when geopolitical strain and inflation fears have unsettled many other markets. The Ministry of Finance disclosed the plan on 15 April, with detailed tender arrangements to be published through Hong Kong’s Central Moneymarkets Unit.

The move comes as China’s bond market has drawn fresh attention from overseas investors looking for relative stability. Foreign investors put about $2.5 billion into Chinese debt in March, while other emerging markets as a group suffered roughly $16.7 billion of outflows, according to Reuters data. That divergence has sharpened interest in yuan assets, helped by lower inflation in China, a still-supportive monetary stance and a yield curve that has behaved differently from those in the United States and Europe.

For Hong Kong, the planned sale also reinforces its role as the main offshore centre for renminbi financing. Regular sovereign issuance from Beijing has long been used to deepen the city’s yuan liquidity pool, extend the offshore yield curve and provide benchmark pricing for other issuers. Hong Kong authorities have made expansion of the offshore renminbi ecosystem a policy priority, linking bond issuance with broader efforts to promote cross-border settlement, trading and investment products tied to the Chinese currency.

Beijing has already tapped the Hong Kong market once this year. In February, the Ministry of Finance sold 14 billion yuan of sovereign bonds in the city, split across two-year, three-year, five-year, 10-year and 30-year maturities, with the offering drawing nearly four times subscription. That strong demand provided an early signal that institutional investors still had appetite for Chinese sovereign paper despite uncertainty over domestic growth and external trade conditions. The new 15.5 billion yuan deal will exceed that February size and also top the 12.5 billion yuan tranche sold in Hong Kong in April 2025.

Timing is central to the significance of the sale. Global investors have been reassessing where to park money as the war involving Iran has pushed up oil prices, clouded the inflation outlook and stirred volatility across currencies and bonds. The International Monetary Fund warned this week that the conflict is raising broader financial stability risks, especially if funding conditions tighten or inflation expectations become more entrenched. Against that backdrop, China’s comparatively subdued inflation and its ability to avoid the kind of aggressive rate response seen elsewhere have made its debt market look more defensive than many peers.

That does not mean investors are ignoring the risks. China remains a large energy importer, and any sustained period of high oil prices could feed through into producer costs, growth expectations and longer-dated bond yields. Reuters reported that investors have favoured short- and medium-dated Chinese bonds more than the long end, even as demand for the asset class has improved. There are also broader questions around China’s economy, including softer credit demand, pressure on exports from weaker global activity and the continuing need for fiscal support. March bank lending rose from February levels but still missed expectations, highlighting the uneven nature of the recovery.

The bond sale also fits within a wider fiscal picture. China’s 2026 budget includes 1.3 trillion yuan of ultra-long special treasury bond issuance, matching the previous year, and the Finance Ministry is due to brief underwriters on the broader government borrowing plan. Investors have been closely watching how Beijing balances support for growth with concerns about duration risk and market absorption, especially after expectations of a smaller allocation of 30-year special bonds helped pull those yields lower.

For Hong Kong’s market, a larger sovereign bond sale offers both symbolism and practical benefits. Sovereign paper from Beijing serves as a high-grade reference point for pricing dim sum bonds and other offshore renminbi instruments, while also supporting repo activity and secondary-market development. The more frequently and predictably such bonds are issued, the easier it becomes for asset managers, banks and reserve holders to build yuan exposure outside the mainland. Hong Kong officials have repeatedly framed that process as essential to strengthening the city’s function in renminbi internationalisation.