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Oct 04, 2024

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Countries in Asia are adopting AI at an accelerated rate and, if that trend continues, we’re likely to see AI-related investments in the region surpass $100 billion by 2028, according to IDC. To get a better sense of the numbers, I scanned through the archives of Computerspeak over the past six months to see where these investments are going and who is making them:

In May, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced a significant investment plan during his tour of Southeast Asia. The company intends to invest $1.7 billion in Indonesia and $2.2 billion in Malaysia over the next four years, focusing on AI and cloud services, including the construction of data centers. Additionally, Microsoft plans to provide AI training for 2.5 million people across the region by 2025.
Not to be outmatched by Microsoft, Amazon committed in May to investing nearly $9 billion to expand its cloud computing infrastructure in Singapore by 2028, bringing its total planned investment in the region to over $16.9 billion. Furthermore, Amazon announced investments of $5 billion in Thailand and $6 billion in Malaysia as part of its broader strategy to enhance cloud services across Southeast Asia.
Just this week, Oracle revealed plans for a $6.5 billion investment in a public cloud region in Malaysia. This investment is aimed at enabling Malaysian organizations to leverage AI services and supports the country's goal of establishing 3,000 smart factories by 2030.
Last month, Google announced a $1 billion investment to build a new data center and expand its cloud infrastructure in Thailand. This initiative is part of a broader commitment to enhance AI capabilities in the region
According to reports, Meta is also looking to expand its data center operations in Asia, with new projects in India and Taiwan. These data centers will support Meta’s global AI research and development efforts.

Two countries immediately stand out from this list: Malaysia and Thailand. Both are centrally located in Southeast Asia, providing good connectivity to other major markets in the region like Singapore, Indonesia, and Vietnam.

Malaysia and Thailand also have rapidly developing digital economies and offer relatively stable political environments with business-friendly policies and incentives to attract foreign investment in the tech sector. Operating costs, including land, construction, and electricity are generally lower compared to more established tech hubs like Singapore or Hong Kong and both countries have a growing pool of tech-savvy workers.

The investments above are already significant and the pace isn’t slowing down; the region is set to see a compound annual growth rate of 24% over the next five years, as more North American technology companies seek to capitalize on the region's rapidly growing digital economy and talent pool.

And now, here are the week’s news:

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