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Thursday, 19 February 2026

3Before9

3 must-know AI stories before your 9am coffee

Who should pay attention

Policymakers | Investors | Tech executives | Global leaders

What changes next

Further details on the National AI Council's initiatives are expected.

1

India AI Impact Summit 2026 kicks off in New Delhi

The India AI Impact Summit 2026 has begun in New Delhi, bringing together global leaders, policymakers and tech executives to discuss collaboration, investment signals, workforce transformation and policy frameworks for responsible AI adoption.

Why it matters for Asia

this summit elevates India’s role in shaping regional and global AI strategy, signalling deeper engagement with investment, governance and infrastructure priorities for Asia’s AI ecosystem.

2

Asian markets rise despite renewed AI concerns

Asian stock markets climbed as renewed concerns about artificial intelligence’s economic impact failed to fully dent investor sentiment, even as global markets grapple with AI-related volatility and macro pressure.

Why it matters for Asia

market performance amid AI-linked uncertainty highlights how capital expectations and risk pricing around AI growth continue to shape investment flows across Asia’s major financial centres.

3

Singapore to establish National AI Council under Budget 2026

Singapore will set up a National AI Council, chaired by the prime minister, to guide national AI missions and anchor AI strategy across sectors including advanced manufacturing, finance and healthcare as part of Budget 2026 initiatives.

Why it matters for Asia

a high-level council with cross-agency backing strengthens coordinated AI governance and aims to accelerate responsible adoption and innovation in a core Asian hub.

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

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Recent Editions

Tuesday

14 April 2026

1.Japan's major technology companies, including SoftBank, Honda, Sony, and NEC, have launched a joint venture to build a trillion-parameter AI for autonomous machines, ensuring all data remains within Japan.
2.Chinese embodied AI startup Spirit AI secured $420 million from prominent investors, including Lei Jun and Jack Ma, to develop humanoid robots and general-purpose robotics.
3.These investments signify a strategic pivot in Asian AI, with Japan prioritising data sovereignty for physical AI and China focusing on hardware and real-world embodied intelligence.

Monday

13 April 2026

1.Japan committed an additional $4 billion in subsidies to Rapidus, bringing total public backing to $16.3 billion to establish a domestic 2nm chip foundry.
2.The Stanford HAI 2026 AI Index reports the performance gap between top US and Chinese frontier AI models has narrowed to just 2.7 percent.
3.Hong Kong opens the 2026 World Internet Conference Asia-Pacific Summit with six AI governance sub-forums spanning agents, security, finance and health.

Sunday

12 April 2026

1.UK regulators including the Bank of England are urgently convening with financial firms to assess cybersecurity risks from Anthropic's Claude Mythos Preview, which can find software vulnerabilities faster than human experts.
2.Grab unveiled 13 AI-powered features at GrabX 2026, building an Intelligence Layer on 20 billion rides and orders to serve as Southeast Asia's first AI-native superapp.
3.India's Sarvam AI is closing a $350 million round at a $1.5 billion valuation, the largest ever for a pure-play Indian AI company, with backing from Nvidia, Amazon and Bessemer.

Saturday

11 April 2026

1.TSMC reported a record Q1 revenue increase of 35 per cent to NT$1.13 trillion, primarily driven by strong demand for advanced AI chips.
2.OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google are collaborating through the Frontier Model Forum to counter unauthorised AI model copying from Chinese firms.
3.Digital Realty is committing nearly S$7 billion to expand data centre capacity in Singapore, reinforcing the city-state as Asia-Pacific's critical AI infrastructure hub.

Thursday

9 April 2026

1.OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google are collaboratively sharing threat intelligence via the Frontier Model Forum to counter adversarial distillation by Chinese AI firms.
2.This coordinated defence operation targets firms like DeepSeek and Moonshot AI, potentially impacting enterprise buyers in Southeast Asia and informing AI governance frameworks in the region.
3.Meta has launched Muse Spark, a closed-source multimodal model from its Superintelligence Labs, featuring a "Contemplating" mode for complex reasoning.

Wednesday

8 April 2026

1.GITEX AI Asia, the region's largest technology conference, opened in Singapore, attracting significant investment and showcasing the city-state's role as a deep tech hub.
2.The World Bank revised East Asia's 2026 growth forecast downwards to 4.2%, while identifying AI-related exports and investment as a regional economic strength.
3.Microsoft committed $10 billion to Japan's AI infrastructure from 2026 to 2029, partnering with Sakura Internet and SoftBank to address the country's projected shortfall of 3.26 million AI workers by 2040.