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Tuesday, 27 January 2026

3Before9

3 must-know AI stories before your 9am coffee

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

Singapore launches HVDC testbed for AI data centres

ST Telemedia Global Data Centres has launched Southeast Asia’s first high-voltage direct current (HVDC) testbed in Singapore to improve power efficiency and resilience for AI workloads.

Why it matters for Asia

power efficiency is becoming the real constraint on AI scale, and HVDC could materially lower energy losses for dense compute environments.

2

South Korea to mandate AI transparency for high-impact systems

South Korea’s government has confirmed that high-impact AI systems will be required to provide transparency disclosures, including purpose, data use, and human oversight mechanisms, under its new AI regulatory framework.

Why it matters for Asia

Korea is setting one of Asia’s clearest lines between low-risk and high-risk AI, which will affect product design and compliance planning for vendors operating in the region.

3

India accelerates AI skilling push for public sector adoption

India has announced a major expansion of AI training programmes for civil servants, aimed at embedding AI use across government departments and public services.

Why it matters for Asia

large-scale public sector adoption creates downstream demand for compliant, explainable AI systems and local implementation partners across Asia.

That's today's 3-Before-9.

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Recent Editions

Friday

6 March 2026

1.GPT-5.4 offers native computer use, achieving 75% on the OSWorld-Verified benchmark, surpassing human performance.
2.It boasts a 1 million token context window, direct integrations with Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets, and a 47% reduction in token usage for specific agentic tasks.
3.OpenAI’s new model matches or exceeds human professionals in 83% of 44 evaluated occupations, according to their GDPval benchmark.

Thursday

5 March 2026

1.Apple launched the MacBook Neo, a new budget-friendly laptop priced from $599, featuring the A18 Pro chip and a 13-inch Liquid Retina display.
2.OpenAI released GPT-5.3 Instant, an updated ChatGPT model designed to be less preachy, with reduced moralising and fewer conversational preambles.
3.This update also reportedly decreased hallucinations by 26.8% when utilising web search, suggesting an improvement in model accuracy and user experience.

Wednesday

4 March 2026

1.Anthropic's refusal to allow military use of its AI led to a US government ban, prompting industry-wide calls for ethical AI limits and boosting consumer support for Claude.
2.Apple is launching its most affordable Mac to date, powered by an A18 Pro chip, targeting students and emerging markets with a competitive price point and colourful designs.
3.NVIDIA invested $4 billion in photonics companies Lumentum and Coherent, securing critical supply for its next-generation data centre interconnects.

Tuesday

3 March 2026

1.Claude experienced a significant global outage yesterday, affecting various services including its app, Code, console, and government platforms.
2.Anthropic attributed the outage to "unprecedented demand" and confirmed that while the core enterprise API was mostly stable, some methods malfunctioned.
3.This incident highlights the critical need for enterprise AI buyers to implement robust failover strategies and consider multi-provider fallbacks to mitigate supply-side reliability risks.

Monday

2 March 2026

1.Vietnam has implemented a new AI Act, becoming the first Southeast Asian nation with a comprehensive regulatory framework for artificial intelligence.
2.The legislation, closely mirroring the EU AI Act, mandates human oversight for generative AI, requires deepfake labelling, and supports national AI infrastructure development.
3.Businesses operating in Vietnam must now comply with these new legal obligations, setting a potential precedent for other ASEAN countries to follow.

Friday

27 February 2026

1.Anthropic has refused the Pentagon's ultimatum to remove AI safeguards, citing concerns over autonomous weapons and mass surveillance.
2.The Pentagon threatens to use the Defense Production Act or blacklist Anthropic, while xAI has agreed to the government's terms.
3.Samsung unveiled the Galaxy S26, promoted as the first agentic AI smartphone, integrating three AI engines for autonomous multi-step task execution.