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AI in ASIA
Monday, 30 March 2026

3Before9

3 must-know AI stories before your 9am coffee

Who should pay attention

AI developers | Educators | Governments | Tech investors

What changes next

Debate is likely to intensify regarding AI's ethical implications and responsible deployment.

1

OpenAI Pulls the Plug on Sora Video App, Ending Disney's Billion-Dollar Deal

OpenAI announced on 25 March that it will shut down its Sora AI video generation app roughly one year after its public launch, with the consumer app closing on 26 April and the API following on 24 September. The company offered no detailed explanation beyond acknowledging the news was "disappointing," though it stressed it is not abandoning AI video research entirely. The closure also kills a three-year, billion-dollar licensing agreement with Disney, which had planned to integrate Sora into Disney+ and take a US$1 billion stake in the company. App downloads had been in freefall, dropping 32 per cent month-over-month in December 2025 and a further 45 per cent in January 2026, while brand campaigns using the tool from the likes of Toys R Us and Coca-Cola drew audience backlash over output quality.

Why it matters for Asia

For Asia's creative and media industries, the shutdown validates the scepticism many studios expressed early on - Japan's CODA trade group, whose members include Studio Ghibli, had already demanded OpenAI stop training Sora on members' content without permission. The episode is a cautionary tale for regional brands and agencies that built workflows around a single AI video tool, and shifts attention to competitors such as Runway, Kling, and China's homegrown alternatives that are now competing for the market OpenAI just vacated.^

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2

FPT AI Factory Deploys [NVIDI

A](https://www.amazon.sg/s?k=nvidia+gpu&tag=aiinasia-22) HGX B300 to Power Reasoning AI Across Southeast Asia and Japan Vietnam's FPT Corporation announced on 26 March that its AI Factory division will integrate NVIDIA's HGX B300 systems into its production-grade AI Developer Cloud, giving enterprises and researchers across Southeast Asia and Japan access to next-generation reasoning and agentic AI capabilities. The platform already serves more than 18,000 engineers, scientists, and business users through 43 cloud services, with existing HGX H100 and H200 infrastructure delivering what FPT describes as multi-fold performance gains in both training and inference workloads. NVIDIA HGX B300 early access registrations are now open, though a firm availability date has not been confirmed.

Why it matters for Asia

Most frontier AI compute still sits in the United States, and enterprises in Southeast Asia and Japan have long complained about latency, data residency headaches, and limited local GPU availability. FPT's B300 buildout gives the region a credible, locally operated alternative for running reasoning-heavy workloads without shipping data offshore - a selling point that will resonate with regulated industries such as banking and healthcare across ASEAN and Japan. It also cements Vietnam's quiet rise as an AI infrastructure hub, not just a software outsourcing base.^

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3

Eight Nations Launch Sovereign AI White Paper at Beijing's Zhongguancun Forum

China, Pakistan, Brazil, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand, and Kazakhstan jointly launched a sovereign AI white paper at the Zhongguancun Forum in Beijing on 28 March. The document defines sovereign AI as national control over AI systems, data, and infrastructure while calling for international cooperation on technology deployment and governance. Zhipu AI chief executive Zhang Peng said sovereign AI had become a critical national capability linked to security, economic upgrading, and influence over global AI governance frameworks.

Why it matters for Asia

The white paper is Beijing's clearest attempt yet to build a multilateral coalition around its vision of AI governance - one that prioritises state control over infrastructure rather than the market-led, interoperable approach favoured by Washington. For policymakers and enterprise leaders across Southeast Asia, the document puts real weight behind the data sovereignty rhetoric that has been building for years, and signals that choosing an AI stack may increasingly carry geopolitical as well as technical implications. Companies operating across ASEAN will need to track which governments sign on and what compliance obligations follow.^

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