Asia

Mobile technologies and services are projected to contribute $1.4 trillion to the Asia Pacific economy by 2030, a 40 percent increase from the US$1 trillion generated today, according to the GSMA’s new Mobile Economy Asia Pacific 2026 report revealed on Thursday.

TNGlobal spoke with Jin Kim, Co-founder and Head of Forward Deployed Engineering at LinqAlpha, about how AI is reshaping institutional investing, the company's regional strategy, and what an "army of AI agents" means for the analysts who use them.

Japan's Honda Motor is set to book ¥1.97 trillion ($12.5 billion) in EV-strategy losses across fiscal years 2026 and 2027, equal to roughly three years of operating profit and more than a full year of total R&D spending.

Japanese technology firm Macnica, Inc has acquired a major stake in Orangeleaf Consulting Holdings Co. (OLC), a Singapore-registered, Malaysian-founded digital transformation and enterprise software consultancy with operations across Malaysia, Japan and Singapore.

Tencent Hy3 (formerly known as Tencent Hunyuan), the latest large language model developed by China's Tencent, is now available for international access, following the model's official release on July 6.

By combining Jumpstart's deep roots in Hong Kong with TNGlobal and TechNode's extensive network across Greater China, Southeast Asia, Japan, South Korea, and global innovation hubs, the combined organization will strengthen Hong Kong's role as a gateway connecting Asia's technology ecosystem with the world.

Tokyo-based workforce platform X Mile has raised JPY 3.17 billion ($20 million) in a Series C round led by Vertex Growth, the growth-stage platform of the Vertex global venture capital network, bringing the company's total funding to JPY6.96 billion.

Only 29 percent of Singapore businesses can produce an audit trail to prove AI-driven decisions to regulators, shareholders, or customers, trailing the Asia-Pacific average of 38 percent who hold a tamper-proof audit trail.

Malaysia is the only market among eight surveyed in Asia where 100 percent of respondents plan to increase AI investment, according to a survey of 1,000 IT decision-makers commissioned by China's Alibaba Cloud and conducted by NielsenIQ.

Half of CEOs in Southeast Asia say innovation is critical to their business strategy, yet 32.5 percent of employees say they do not feel confident in innovation, influence, and cross-functional collaboration, according to a report of AI-powered payroll platform Omni HR.