Amid US export controls on advanced AI chips, Chinese firms are turning to Southeast Asia to maintain their AI development momentum. According to The Wall Street Journal, some Chinese companies have routed operations through subsidiaries in Singapore and Malaysia to rent Malaysian data centers equipped with Nvidia's high-end GPUs. These efforts reflect growing attempts to circumvent restrictions and meet surging demand for computing power

Baidu's Apollo Go autonomous taxi service is poised to enter Singapore and Malaysia by 2025, expanding its reach beyond China. The company is currently in talks with potential partners to establish commercial partnerships in these Southeast Asian countries, according to Bloomberg

The Vietnamese National Assembly has approved an extension of the value-added tax (VAT) cut, reducing the rate from 10% to 8% until the end of 2026 to support domestic economic growth. This measure, first introduced in 2022 to aid post-pandemic recovery, received over 90% approval for continuation, reports Reuters and The Investor

Chinese AI firms are reportedly utilizing AI compute resources in Southeast Asian nations to bypass US sanctions, exploiting regulatory frameworks that align with local laws and limit governmental intervention

Coretronic held its shareholders' meeting on June 18, 2025, successfully passing all proposals. The company expects that under its display business group, shipments of energy-saving, imaging, and immersive products will increase by 10-15% in 2025 year-over-year

Global Brands Manufacture (GBM), a PCB and EMS subsidiary of Walsin Technology, recently held a shareholders' meeting led by chairman Yu-Heng Chiao to discuss acquiring Japan's Lincstech. The deal aims to boost the company's presence in AI servers, semiconductors and expand production in Singapore

Chinese EV maker Neta Auto faces a severe financial crisis, raising concerns in Thailand, where it operates a local subsidiary. Neta claims its overseas operations remain unaffected, but Thai officials are monitoring the situation closely, according to the Bangkok Post and The Nation

Data center construction is accelerating in Malaysia's Johor state as Singapore charts a sustainable digital infrastructure strategy. Singapore's Infocomm Media Development Authority unveiled its Green Data Center Roadmap, targeting at least 300 megawatts of additional capacity in the near term while promoting energy-efficient technologies

The AI data center industry encompasses advanced semiconductor manufacturing, high-end chips (GPU, CPU, ASIC), and system integration (SI). As countries push for "sovereign AI," regional supply chains are gradually replacing globalization. Taiwan, with its robust electronic hardware manufacturing capabilities, has played a pivotal role in this industrial transformation

Samsung Electronics is entering a new phase of strategic transformation, shifting its focus away from China and toward emerging markets such as India and Vietnam. According to South Korean media outlet Financial News, Samsung will begin actively recruiting "regional experts" for these countries starting in early 2025. This move marks a notable departure from previous practices, which primarily centered around China

The grand trend of history is that unity follows division, and division leads to unity again—this perfectly applies to Johor and Singapore

The artificial intelligence (AI) wave led by Nvidia has continuously driven rapid development in data centers and advanced semiconductor supply chains in recent years. As Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang stated, the company is no longer just a chip design firm but an integrated hardware-software solution provider. The rise of sovereign AI has become a core strategy for countries competing on the global AI stage. DIGITIMES recently conducted an in-depth field investigation in Singapore to observe its AI ecosystem development and government strategies, trying to provide deep insights into the AI race through the Taiwanese perspective

Just across the narrow Johor Strait from Singapore lies Malaysia's Johor state, a region that for decades has shared deep economic ties with the city-state. Yet despite their geographic closeness and complementary strengths, integration between the two economies has remained superficial — a missed opportunity that, until now, has prevented the area from reaching its full industrial potential

Taiwan's Zhong Yang Technology is pivoting from smartphones to automotive applications, betting on mandatory driver monitoring systems to fuel growth as the mobile market saturates