Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN+), which includes Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, Hong Kong and Taiwan, leads in hybrid artificial intelligence (AI) adoption at 68 percent, surpassing global and Asia Pacific (AP), Lenovo study showed Wednesday.
The firm said in its latest study with IDC that business leaders and information technology (IT) decision-makers confirm the accelerating shift toward return of investment (ROI)-driven-AI investments as organizations increase AI spending by 3.3 times in AP and 2.7 times in ASEAN+.
Despite the gradual rise in AI spending, AI adoption in ASEAN+ remains in the early stages, with 47 percent of organizations either evaluating or planning to implement AI within the next 12 months.
This is lower than both AP (56 percent) and global (49 percent) averages, with ROI challenges emerging as a key barrier to faster adoption.
Singapore leads as the regional hub with advanced AI maturity and infrastructure, while other ASEAN+ nations are still in the early stages of adoption due to constraints in resources and expertise.
Delivering ROI for AI is a long-term endeavor that requires balancing AI experiments with those that can be scaled.
Interestingly, AP organizations expect a 3.6 times ROI on average from their AI projects, which requires a measured approach to scaling AI and building internal capabilities.
ASEAN+ gradual pace reflects a focus on optimizing supply chain, improving regulatory compliance, and boosting employee productivity while overcoming business challenges such as data management, AI expertise, and data security.
Meanwhile, evolving business priorities each year reflect a deeper understanding of what it takes to drive AI growth, along with a growing awareness of its risks.
Ethical issues and biases remain the top AI risks this year, yet only 24 percent of organizations globally and 25 percent in AP have fully enforced AI governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) policies.
In ASEAN+, 24 percent of Chief Investment Officers (CIOs) report having fully implemented enterprise AI GRC policies, aligning closely with global and AP trends.
This underscores the urgent need for a structured approach to what has become the #1 priority for businesses in AP.
“Business priorities are shifting in Asia Pacific. For 2025, governance, risk, and compliance have jumped 12 spots to become the top priority, highlighting the focus on secure and responsible AI,
“Employee productivity has also climbed from #7 to #2, underscoring its growing importance,” said Sumir Bhatia, President, Asia Pacific Infrastructure Solutions Group, Lenovo.
According to the study, Generative AI (GenAI) is set to transform enterprise workflows, commanding 42 percent of AI implementation spends in 2025 in ASEAN+.
In AP, IT Operations emerged as the top use case, while in ASEAN+, customer Service took the lead.
There is more focus on cybersecurity (#2) and software development (#3) in AP.
For ASEAN+ IT Ops (#2) and Engineering / R&D (#3) take precedence.
The report also revealed that 65 percent of organizations in AP are opting for on-premise or hybrid solutions to power AI workloads.
This preference is driven by the need for secure, low-latency environments, and operational flexibility.
Meanwhile, 19 percent still rely on public cloud services.
ASEAN+ reflects a similar trend, with 68 percent using hybrid or on-prem GPUs and CPUs for AI, while the remainder depend on public cloud.
“Globally, 63 percent of organizations choose on-premise and hybrid infrastructures for AI, and ASEAN+ is leading with a higher adoption rate,
“This demonstrates a clear focus on driving innovation while ensuring security and compliance for the unique demands of AI,” said Kumar Mitra, Managing Director and Regional General Manager, CAP & ANZ, Lenovo ISG.
Meanwhile, AI-powered personal computers (PCs) are gaining traction in AP, with 43 percent of organizations seeing significant productivity gains.
While awareness is increasing, local adoption remains slow across markets.
In ASEAN+, 65 percent of organizations are already in the planning stage for AI-powered PC adoption.
As the technology matures and demonstrates ROI, the adoption curve will accelerate driving more digital workplace solutions.
With organizations scaling their AI efforts, 34 percent of AP CIOs and 44 percent of ASEAN+ CIOs are actively leveraging professional AI services to navigate complexities in data management, talent shortages, and cost efficiency.
Interestingly, an additional 56 percent of CIOs in ASEAN+ are exploring or planning to engage these services in the near future.
These collaborations help bridge internal capability gaps, enabling organizations to focus on upskilling their teams and building long-term resilience.
“AI adoption is not just about the short-term gains. Organizations need to invest in the efficiency of the design, deployment and integration of AI solutions to their operations that enable tracking of the impact,
“Professional AI services play a key role here and help organizations successfully adopt AI through outcome-led approach,” said Fan Ho, Executive Director and General Manager, Solutions and Services Group, Lenovo Asia Pacific.
This study is based on a global study of 2,900+ respondents, including 900+ IT and business decision-makers (ITBDMs) from 12 AP markets.