3 Before 9: February 11, 2026

3 Before 9

Tuesday, 10 February 2026

3 Before 9: February 11, 2026

3 daily AI stories and 1 bold opinion before your 9am kopi

Listen to today's 3 Before 9

Who should pay attention

AI founders | Investors | Regulators | Infrastructure developers

What changes next

Debate is likely to intensify for AI shopping trust and transparency.

1

South Korea AI startup Wrtn plans U.S. expansion and IPO

South Korean AI entertainment startup Wrtn, known for its interactive storytelling service, is expanding into the U.S. market and targeting an IPO as early as 2028, after achieving strong revenue growth from South Korea and Japan.

Why it matters for Asia

an Asia-born AI startup planning an international expansion and IPO highlights regional innovation strength and shows Asian AI companies can scale beyond home markets.

Read the full story

2

Visa survey finds 74 % of Asia-Pacific consumers use AI for shopping

A new survey shows 74 % of Asia-Pacific consumers already use AI tools for shopping activities, but concerns about trust and transparency at checkout remain significant, with 26 % unsure whether AI recommendations align with their interests.

Why it matters for Asia

as AI becomes a mainstream part of consumer experiences, trust and transparency issues could shape regulatory priorities and platform design requirements across Asia.

Read the full story

3

Asia AI Infrastructure Malaysia Summit 2026 highlights regional AI build-out

The Asia AI Infrastructure Malaysia Summit 2026 will bring together industry, government, and tech leaders to shape the future of regional AI infrastructure, focusing on cloud, data centres, connectivity, and sustainable compute capacity.

Why it matters for Asia

infrastructure, not just models, underpins AI growth. Regional coordination and investment in physical AI foundations can speed adoption and competitiveness in Asia.

Read the full story

That's today's 3 Before 9.

Explore more at AI in Asia or share signals with us.

Recent Editions

Sunday

26 April 2026

1. Sarvam AI is closing a $300-350M Series B at a $1.5B valuation led by Bessemer with Nvidia, Amazon and HCLTech, India's first major sovereign-AI unicorn round.
2. Tencent launched Hy3 Preview, a 295B-parameter MoE model, and swapped DeepSeek out of its Yuanbao chatbot in favour of the new in-house technology.
3. Nissan committed to fitting AI-driven Level 2-plus hands-free driving from UK startup Wayve into 90 per cent of its future vehicle line-up.

Friday

24 April 2026

1. DeepSeek launches V4-Pro and V4-Flash with a 1-million-token context window, running on Huawei's new Ascend 950 supernode clusters and priced at roughly a tenth of OpenAI's output-token rate.
2. SoftBank is seeking a $10 billion two-year margin loan collateralised by its OpenAI stake, pushing its total commitment to the ChatGPT maker to about $64.6 billion.
3. TSMC unveiled A13, a 1.3nm-class shrink of A14 aimed at AI accelerators, with production slated for 2029 alongside a 1.2nm A12 variant, while A16 slips to 2027.

Thursday

23 April 2026

1. Microsoft pledges A$25 billion (US$17.9 billion) to make Australia its largest AI infrastructure hub, including skills training for three million workers.
2. SK Hynix posts a record 72 per cent operating margin and US$27 billion quarterly profit as HBM demand keeps Asia's memory duopoly in the driver's seat.
3. Japan's Nikkei 225 breaches 60,000 for the first time, but only 17 per cent of Tokyo stocks rose on the day, exposing a dangerously narrow AI-driven rally.

Wednesday

22 April 2026

1. LINE Yahoo launched Agent i on 20 April, a single AI agent now embedded in both the LINE app's 100m-plus user base and Yahoo! JAPAN, with enterprise and no-code versions due over the summer.
2. SoftBank named Arm CEO Rene Haas to also run SoftBank Group International from 21 April, tightening coordination across the group's overseas chip and AI bets including Arm, OpenAI, Stargate and Project Crystal Land.
3. Meta's $2 billion acquisition of Singapore-based Chinese AI start-up Manus is still under Beijing's national-security review, with co-founders barred from leaving China and the 'Singapore washing' route for China AI firms now under serious pressure.

Tuesday

21 April 2026

1. Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon met Samsung and SK Hynix executives in Seoul to pitch 2nm wafer orders and lock in memory supply for Snapdragon and AI platforms.
2. Chinese humanoid robot makers shipped roughly 90 per cent of global units in 2025 but still trade at a valuation discount to pre-production US rivals.
3. Volkswagen confirmed its China cars will ship with an on-device AI voice agent from H2 2026, built on tech from Tencent, Alibaba and Baidu.

Monday

20 April 2026

1. SK Hynix has begun mass production of its 192GB SOCAMM2 memory module, a low-power AI server part for Nvidia's Vera Rubin platform.
2. Alibaba launched Qwen3.6-Max-Preview, its strongest Qwen model to date, demonstrating top performance in several coding benchmarks.
3. TSMC raised its 2026 outlook after Q1 profit jumped 58 per cent, citing "extremely robust" AI chip demand that still outpaces supply.