Singapore

Vietnam and Singapore will deepen cooperation in technological areas, including semiconductors, artificial intelligence (AI), quantum technology, biotechnology, advanced manufacturing, and the data economy.

Bioactivx, a Singapore deep-tech startup developing synthetic materials for wound care, has raised $3 million in a pre-Series A funding round co-led by the venture firm Cocoon Capital and Martin Krupp, managing director of the Swiss family office ContInvest, with other new and existing investors.

Granite Asia, a Singapore-based investment firm, has surpassed the $500 million target for its Pan-Asia private credit fund, Libra Hybrid, drawing new commitments from a leading insurer, DBS Private Bank, and other institutional investors.

The United States-based payment network Visa has joined BLOOM, an initiative led by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to enable interoperability between traditional payment systems and stablecoin-based payment rails.

STMicroelectronics, an European chipmaker, and the National University of Singapore (NUS) launched a research lab to develop energy-efficient semiconductors for edge AI, the processing of AI tasks on or near a device rather than in the cloud.

Jardine Cycle & Carriage (JC&C), a Singapore-incorporated company, will sell its Cycle & Carriage automotive business in Singapore and Malaysia to CCHPL Holdings, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Indonesia's PT Chandra Asri Pacific, for an estimated S$265 million ($207 million).

DayOne Data Centers, a Singapore-headquartered digital infrastructure company, has secured a four-year, S$530 million ($415 million) green loan from the Singapore banks DBS, OCBC and UOB to fund its first data center in the country.

The Singapore Police Force (SPF) has disrupted more than 30,000 Apple iMessage accounts linked to a scam campaign that has caused about S$2.2 million ($1.7 million) in losses.

In an interview, Ropedia Co-Founder and CTO Fangzhou Hong told TNGlobal about why Asia is emerging as a hub for Physical AI, how Singapore can take the lead, whether data or hardware will determine the winners, and how robots entering everyday life could reshape employment.

TenPay Global, Tencent's cross-border payment platform, and ShopeePay, the digital payment arm of Singapore's Sea Ltd and associated with the e-commerce platform Shopee, have jointly launched a cross-border payment service connecting Southeast Asian users with merchants in China.