Duc Dao

Malaysia's digitalization agency Digital Penang and Indonesia's startup ecosystem KUMPUL have renewed their memorandum of understanding for 2026 to 2027, reaffirming their commitment to strengthening the startup, innovation, and entrepreneurial ecosystem across Malaysia and the region.

Anthropic's Claude has rapidly gained ground on OpenAI's ChatGPT among Singapore startups, with its customer base growing 258 percent year-on-year and total spend increasing 17 times, according to new data from Singapore-based financial platform Aspire.

Japan's Murata Electronics and Signapore-based Tribe, an open innovation platform, have launched KUMIHIMO Tech Camp Singapore 2026, an open innovation programme inviting MedTech startups across ASEAN and India to co-develop healthcare solutions addressing the region's most pressing medical challenges.

Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison, Adobe, and Indonesia's Ministry of Creative Economy will jointly help Indonesians turn digital access and creativity into economic opportunity, combining Indosat's nationwide reach, Adobe's AI-powered creative tools, and the Ministry's creative economy ecosystem.

Choco Up, Asia's leading growth financing platform, has raised a $15 million credit facility from private credit investment company AlteriQ Global to expand access to growth capital for Singapore's small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), with the first drawdown already completed.

Europe's largest asset manager Amundi, asset servicing group CACEIS, and Ant International have launched their tokenized share classes for the Amundi Money Market Fund – Short Term, denominated in Euro and US dollars, developed for Ant International's intra-group liquidity management needs.

API-first, SaaS platforms are the right foundation for payments modernization, fraud prevention, and cross-border scaling in Southeast Asia, David Becker, Managing Director for Asia Pacific at Mambu, said to TNGlobal.

Taiwan's Foxconn and France's Schneider Electric will co-develop integrated solutions for AI data centers, combining Foxconn's expertise in advanced compute platforms and AI rack integration with Schneider Electric's power systems, cooling, and energy management capabilities.

Chipmaker Austria Technologie & Systemtechnik Aktiengesellschaft (AT&S) will expand production capacity for high-end IC substrates for artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing, with investments spanning its Kulim facility in Malaysia and its Chongqing plant in China, totaling €1.5-2.0 billion ($1.74-2.32 billion).

Singapore-based enterprise AI startup Pints AI has raised $5.6 million in a pre-Series A round led by Tin Men Capital, with SBI Ven Capital co-leading and participation from SEEDS, NTUitive, SUTD Venture Fund, and Tenity,