AI in Asia
3 Before 9: March 26, 2026
3 Before 9

Wednesday, 25 March 2026

3 Before 9: March 26, 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 leaders, founders, enterprise decision-makers, and teams deploying AI across Asia.

What changes next

Regulatory expectations tighten, infrastructure buildout accelerates, and enterprise AI governance matures.

1

Arm Launches First In-House Chip to Power the Agentic AI Era

SoftBank-owned Arm Holdings has unveiled the AGI CPU, a 136-core data centre processor built on TSMC's 3nm process - marking the first time in the company's four-decade history that it has manufactured its own silicon. Developed with Meta as lead partner, the chip targets the CPU-side orchestration work needed to coordinate accelerators in large-scale AI deployments. Arm claims the AGI CPU delivers more than twice the performance per server rack compared to the latest x86 platforms, with potential savings of up to $10 billion per gigawatt of data centre capacity. Commercial systems are already shipping from Lenovo, Quanta Computer, and Supermicro.

Why it matters for Asia

The customer list reads like an Asia-Pacific semiconductor playbook. SK Telecom has signed on to deploy the chip across its AI inference infrastructure alongside Korean AI accelerator startup Rebellions, while Taiwan's TSMC handles fabrication and Quanta Computer builds the server systems. For enterprise buyers across the region, this signals a credible Arm-based alternative for AI workloads - one backed by Asian capital, manufactured in Asia, and already being deployed by Asian telcos.^

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2

SK Hynix Files for US Listing to Fund AI Memory Chip Expansion

South Korean memory giant SK Hynix has filed confidentially with the US Securities and Exchange Commission for a potential Nasdaq listing, seeking to raise between $10 billion and $14 billion. The company, one of the world's leading suppliers of high-bandwidth memory chips used in AI processors, plans to earmark proceeds for expanding its AI memory production capacity and building out a semiconductor cluster in Yongin, South Korea. The move also aims to close the valuation gap with US-listed peers, where AI-focused chipmakers typically command higher market multiples.

Why it matters for Asia

SK Hynix supplies the HBM chips that sit inside virtually every major AI accelerator, from Nvidia's H100 to AMD's Instinct series. A successful US listing would give the company a direct line to American capital markets at a time when AI infrastructure spending shows no signs of slowing. For Asia's semiconductor ecosystem, this is a statement of confidence - South Korea's memory industry is not content to remain a supplier in the background but is positioning itself as a front-and-centre player in the AI investment narrative.^

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3

Boao Forum Report Declares Asia the New Epicentre of AI Development

The Boao Forum for Asia has released its annual economic outlook report declaring that the global epicentre of AI development is progressively shifting from Europe and the United States toward Asia. The report credits the region's substantial digital populations, diverse application ecosystems, and coherent policy frameworks for driving the transition. China was singled out for achieving full-chain industrial maturity in AI, while Japan and South Korea were recognised for their strengths in high-end manufacturing and industrial automation. Singapore was highlighted as a model of application-driven advancement and governance innovation.

Why it matters for Asia

This is not just cheerleading from a regional forum. The report maps a concrete division of labour across Asia's AI landscape - China handles scale deployment, Japan and Korea lead on industrial applications, and Singapore serves as the governance and platform hub. For enterprise buyers and policymakers, the message is clear: Asia is no longer simply adopting AI tools built elsewhere but is building a complementary, multi-node innovation network that could reshape the global AI value chain.^

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That's today's 3 Before 9.

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Friday

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  • 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.
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Thursday

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  • 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.
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Tuesday

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