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Southeast Asia’s Digital Economy Sees Slower Private Funding Growth Despite AI Boom

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Private funding for Southeast Asia’s digital economy rose 15% year-on-year to $7.7 billion in the 12 months to June 2025, lagging the global private investment growth rate of 25%, according to a new report by Google, Temasek Holdings, and Bain & Company.

While the figure marks an improvement from 2024, it remains about 70% below the region’s 2021 record high of $27 billion, reflecting a slower recovery from the post-pandemic investment cooldown.

The report found that funding is increasingly concentrated in late-stage rounds, with the share of seed-to-Series B deals dropping from around 30% to 20% over the past year.

This year’s edition expanded its coverage to include Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar, alongside Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines — a region of nearly 700 million people and one of the world’s fastest-growing internet markets, driven by a young population and rising smartphone use.

Despite the funding slowdown, AI startups remain a bright spot, attracting 32% of all private capital in the region during the first half of 2025 — up slightly from 30% in the second half of 2024. Over 680 AI startups secured more than $2.3 billion, with Singapore hosting more than 495 of them.

The report also highlighted rapid data center expansion, as countries rush to build infrastructure for the AI boom. Data center capacity in Southeast Asia is expected to grow 2.8 times, surpassing the 2.2 times growth forecast for the wider Asia-Pacific.

Malaysia leads this expansion, with 2,415 MW of new capacity planned — more than half the region’s total 4,620 MW — attracting major investments from Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Tencent, Huawei, and Alibaba.

Meanwhile, TikTok plans to invest $4 billion in data hosting facilities in Thailand, while Google and Amazon are each investing $1 billion and $5 billion respectively in the country, underscoring the growing competition in Southeast Asia’s digital infrastructure landscape.

CoreWeave Cuts Revenue Forecast After Data Center Delay, Shares Drop

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CoreWeave (CRWV.O), a cloud infrastructure company backed by Nvidia, trimmed its annual revenue forecast on Monday after delays at a third-party data center partner disrupted operations, overshadowing strong quarterly results driven by soaring demand for AI computing services.

Shares fell more than 6% in extended trading, after Chief Financial Officer Nitin Agrawal forecast 2025 revenue between $5.05 billion and $5.15 billion, down from a previous estimate of $5.15 billion to $5.35 billion. Analysts had expected around $5.29 billion, according to data from LSEG.

CoreWeave said the customer impacted by the delay agreed to extend the contract’s expiration date, ensuring the total deal value remains intact, though the company did not name the client.

Despite the setback, the company posted a strong September quarter, with revenue more than doubling to $1.36 billion, beating Wall Street expectations of $1.29 billion.

CoreWeave has emerged as a major infrastructure provider for AI-driven workloads, securing high-profile contracts such as a $14 billion deal with Meta Platforms and a $6.5 billion partnership with OpenAI, both of which rely on its vast GPU-powered cloud network.

Once focused on Ethereum mining, CoreWeave has successfully repurposed its powerful GPU infrastructure to fuel the global AI cloud boom. However, its rapid growth has also exposed challenges — including rising chip prices, competition for computing capacity, and high expansion costs.

The company now expects to more than double capital spending next year, investing between $12 billion and $14 billion to meet surging demand.

CoreWeave shares have more than doubled since going public earlier this year at $40 per share, giving the firm a market capitalization above $50 billion, though its operating margin slipped to 16% in Q3 from 21% a year earlier.

OpenAI’s Sam Altman Urges U.S. to Expand Chips Act Tax Credit for AI Development

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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on Friday called for the United States to broaden eligibility under the Chips Act’s Advanced Manufacturing Investment Credit (AMIC), arguing that expanding the incentive to include AI data centers, server production, and grid infrastructure is essential for maintaining U.S. leadership in artificial intelligence.

Altman’s comments follow a letter sent by OpenAI’s Chief Global Affairs Officer Chris Lehane on October 27 to White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Michael Kratsios, formally requesting that the AMIC cover AI infrastructure beyond semiconductor fabrication.

“The U.S. needs re-industrialization across the entire stack — fabs, turbines, transformers, steel, and much more,” Altman said on X (formerly Twitter). “That will help everyone in our industry, and other industries, including us.”

Altman emphasized that the request was “very different from loan guarantees to OpenAI,” clarifying that the company is not seeking direct federal funding for its operations. Earlier this week, he confirmed that OpenAI had discussed potential federal loan guarantees for chip factory construction, but not for data centers.

OpenAI has pledged to invest $1.4 trillion over the next eight years to expand its computational infrastructure, reflecting the skyrocketing demand for AI models and chips that power applications like ChatGPT.

As AI becomes a cornerstone of global technology competition, the Biden administration faces growing pressure to balance industrial policy and fiscal discipline. White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks recently reiterated that there will be no federal bailout for AI companies, underscoring Washington’s cautious stance despite mounting private-sector investment.