SEA

The United States is investing more than $2.5 billion in Southeast Asia, headlined by a new artificial intelligence (AI) initiative to export American AI technology across the region and a $1.5 billion platform to build out energy infrastructure.

Maybank Investment Bank said Monday that it sees Singapore's largest mobile network operator a communications technology group Singtel as a long-term beneficiary of Physical AI in ASEAN, while its data centers, GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS) offering and connectivity assets position it well to capture near-term growth from digital artificial intelligence (AI).

ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic Research Office (AMRO) said Monday it is projecting the ASEAN+3 region to grow by 4.1 percent in 2026, up from its June forecast of 4 percent, reflects sustained momentum in the region’s technology sector, particularly robust demand for semiconductors and other artificial intelligence (AI)-related products.

New U.S. Section 301 tariffs took effect on Friday (July 24) across 60 economies, hitting seven Southeast Asian nations: Malaysia, Cambodia, and Indonesia with a 10 percent additional duty, while Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, and Singapore face the higher rate of 12.5 percent.

Japan's JCB International and Malaysia's Fiuu, a payment processing platform formerly known as Razer Merchant Services, have entered into a direct acquiring partnership covering Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines, enabling JCB card payments across online and offline merchant channels in the three markets.

Singapore's Ant International has added Hong Kong's Hang Seng Bank to its Alipay+ payment network as the gateway's first banking partner in Hong Kong, allowing Hang Seng Mobile App users to make QR code payments at more than 100 million merchants across more than 55 countries and regions.

Canada-based NEO Battery Materials has received a purchase order for 10,000 units of its 34Ah drone battery cells from South Korea's battery pack manufacturer PM Energy Solution, the former said in a statement on Thursday.

Berlin-based multimodal travel booking platform Omio has raised $10 million in a strategic investment from Granite-Integral to accelerate its expansion in Japan and strengthen its presence across Southeast Asia.

Uber’s proposed $15 billion acquisition of Delivery Hero could mark the ride-hailing giant’s return to Southeast Asia eight years after exiting the region, potentially reshaping competition across ASEAN’s on-demand services market, Maybank Investment Bank Research said Monday.

Generative AI (GenAI) tools ranked as the single most critical future skill among finance professionals in Southeast Asia, yet 72 percent of respondents globally reported only basic or no GenAI proficiency.