Asia Covets Global AI Hub Status
Singapore is jostling for top-dog status in the AI world. In 2023, the country unveiled the National AI Strategy 2.0 (NAIS 2.0), which included plans to invest $1 billion in infrastructure, research, and talent development. This has since been matched by Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, and now Salesforce.
Elsewhere, countries across Asia are making similar plays. Malaysia recently committed $250 million over the next 10 years to acquire chip design blueprints from Arm Holdings, the UK-based semiconductor company. With this information, it hopes to meet growing demand for domestic AI and data centers.
Thailand has received substantial investment in recent years. In 2024, Microsoft revealed that it planned to build new cloud and AI infrastructure in the country. The same year, Google announced $1 billion of investment to build a data center and cloud region there, while Amazon Web Services (AWS) recently committed $5 billion over the next 15 years.
