Welcome back to Asia Tech Review, your curated digest to keep up to date with tech news across Asia.
It’s been a few months since we argued Anthropic is missing out in Southeast Asia, and now the company is officially moving in with plans to open a Singapore office in October. OpenAI is reaching two years since it came to Singapore, and the presence of the world’s top two AI firms will open yet more opportunities in the region.
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Anthropic, Plaud and Databricks show Singapore remains top pick
Singapore is finally welcoming Anthropic, after the creator of Claude announced that it will open an office in the country next month.
The US giant has prioritised other markets in Asia to date, opening offices in Japan, Korea, India and Australia before venturing to the little red dot. Why so? Well, India has incredible scale, Japan and Korea have strong enterprise sales potential (not to mention key AI allies) and Australia punches at a Western rate.
Long-time Googler Dale Finlay will lead its ASEAN team (interestingly he moved over from OpenAI, according to LinkedIn) but the Singapore-based workforce will be modest. Anthropic is hiring for just nine roles. OpenAI has a headstart on its rival in Southeast Asia, where it has joined government initiatives in Singapore, launched an accelerator programme with the Thai government and partnered with Shopee on e-commerce and hackathons.
The two big US AI companies being present in the region likely means better deals for corporates, but also (hopefully) more opportunities for developers with hackathons, accelerators, partnerships and other programmes.
That’s not all for Singapore’s AI ambitions. Plaud, which sells a notetaking device, opened its APAC HQ in the country and said that it plans to invest at least $20 million locally on engineering, product development and operations. In addition, Databricks, the enterprise data firm valued at over $180 billion, said it plans to spend over $350 million in Singapore over the next three years, with the goal of doubling its headcount in the country to more than 500 staff. Like Anthropic and OpenAI, it is said to be planning an IPO soon.
We know Singapore is a major hub for technology in Asia, and these deals are further validation. They follow major acquisition deals for Tazapay (bought by Circle for $400 million) and Atome (bought by Grab for an initial $1.5 billion), both of which are headquartered in the country.
How do VCs find and analyse startups in Southeast Asia?
We quizzed two top investors, Monk’s Hill Ventures’ principal Maansi Vohra and Analog Ventures founder Tiang Lim Foo, on yesterday’s livestream on The Offline Network Southeast Asia.
Follow TON SEA on LinkedIn and X for the video highlights. Live shows run from 6pm Singapore time every Tuesday and Thursday on our YouTube channel.
Z.ai raises $5 billion as China’s AI war intensifies
With DeepSeek and Moonshot AI reportedly planning huge IPOs to raise truckloads of cash, one of the original publicly-listed Chinese AI firms has shown the benefits of public markets. Z.ai just secured $5 billion in new funding to give it an admirable war chest as it continues to grow its business.
We looked earlier this month at how Z.ai and MiniMax have evolved their businesses since their IPOs at the start of the year in response to the surge of Chinese AI models in global markets. That’s seen a huge jump in revenue but spiralling development costs, and a move away from on-premise sales.
The initial numbers, the first release by any public AI company, show two companies in the midst of navigating business model changes. The models change rapidly, and the numbers lag. Indeed, Z.ai has already raised its annual revenue target by 25%, less than a month after filing that inaugural earnings report. The figure is now forecast to reach $3 billion, which doubtless helped close this $5 billion injection.
That mirrors a recent disclosure from Moonshot AI, which Bloomberg reported was on track to grow its annual recurring revenue (ARR, a calculation of annual revenue based on sales during a particular period) to $2 billion. A week prior, leaks around its public listing plans suggested the figure was just $300 million. Zhipu’s aforementioned earnings showed it was on track to do over $170 million in annual revenue.
I love a good public battle that involves ‘controlled’ leaks to the media. Particularly when a bunch of rivals are trying to justify valuations and appeal to investors for fundraising. When the tide goes out, who will be swimming naked, as Warren Buffett would say.
In related news, Moonshot is said to be courting investor interest from Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
While we also have the explosive revelations from Anthropic’s latest report on how it claims Chinese labs are distilling its models to develop their own.
Deals
Manus is seeking $500 million in its first funding round since Beijing ordered it to separate from Meta, a deal that could double the agentic AI startup’s valuation to $4 billion [Bloomberg]
Activate, the venture firm founded by Haptik co-founder Aakrit Vaish, raised $105 million for its first fund to back Indian AI companies [Economic Times]
Teachers’ Venture Growth invested about $40 million more in Indian SaaS startup Darwinbox, taking its total commitment to roughly $80 million [Economic Times]
Shanghai-based Anew Labs, ByteDance’s former AI drug discovery unit, raised $290 million in its first external funding round at a $1.5 billion valuation, led by HSG, IDG Capital and Hillhouse Investment [Reuters]
D-Robotics, a Hong Kong robotics startup, announced it raised $400 million in Series C funding but it did not name any of its investors [FinSMEs]
Markets
Kuku Technologies, the parent of Indian audio platforms Kuku FM and Kuku TV, received Sebi approval for its proposed IPO and is targeting a first-half 2027 listing at a valuation of about ₹15,000 crore ($1.7 billion) [Economic Times]
AI
Huawei rotating chairman Eric Xu said Chinese AI developers should keep building more powerful models while managing safety risks, arguing the country’s systems are not yet advanced enough to encounter the most serious frontier concerns [Reuters]
South Korea’s deputy prime minister said the country cannot afford to slow AI development, pushing back against calls for a more cautious pace [Bloomberg]
China is debating whether English should become an optional school subject as AI translation improves and job prospects change [NYT]
Chips
SK Hynix is in talks with Intel about making memory chips in the US for the first time, through either a lease at Intel’s planned Ohio facility or a joint venture with cloud companies [Reuters]
SK Hynix agreed to pay half of its profit-sharing bonus in cash, resolving a union dispute that had threatened to disrupt production at the world’s second-largest memory chipmaker [Bloomberg]
Huawei unveiled its Ascend 960 SuperPoD computing cluster and upgraded its UnifiedBus interconnect, using near-packaged optics to connect up to 4,000 processors as it pushes for an alternative to Nvidia [SCMP]
Chinese smartphone makers are turning to domestic memory chipmaker CXMT for flagship devices, cutting their reliance on Samsung and SK Hynix as the global memory shortage tightens [SCMP]
Applied Materials will invest $5 billion in India over the next decade to expand its operations as the country pushes to build a domestic semiconductor industry [Reuters]
Japan and the US are discussing plans to build a semiconductor plant in the US as part of Japan’s $550 billion investment package tied to their tariff agreement [Nikkei Asia]
Policy
Indonesia will require e-commerce platforms to collect income tax from sellers from October 1, a month earlier than previously announced [Reuters]
US and Chinese security experts proposed red lines around AI systems that could trigger military conflict, including safeguards for nuclear command networks and major cyber operations [Reuters]
South Korean police booked 26 Polymarket users on illegal-gambling suspicions after they placed combined wagers of 17.6 billion won ($12.7 million), with 18 referred to prosecutors [The Block]
In other news:
Xpeng is in talks to license its electric vehicle technology to more overseas partners, including its electronic architecture, AI chips and driver-assistance software [Reuters]
India’s software-services exports now equal about 5.2% of GDP, up from 3.3% before the pandemic, while business-services exports have more than doubled to 3.3% as the sector moves into higher-value work [Bloomberg]
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