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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.

Swedish Autonomous Truck Firm Einride Secures $100 Million to Accelerate Expansion

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Swedish self-driving truck company Einride has raised around $100 million in a new funding round led by EQT Ventures and quantum computing firm IonQ, the company announced on Wednesday. The investment will help scale its autonomous freight operations, boost technology development, and expand its customer network globally.

Einride’s electric and self-driving freight trucks are designed to operate on fixed highway routes, allowing for safer and more efficient automation than traditional urban self-driving vehicles. Because the trucks travel along predefined routes without intersections or pedestrians, they require less complex mapping than passenger vehicles.

Founded in 2016, Einride is a leader in autonomous and electric freight mobility, offering both fully driverless pods and remote-controlled electric trucks. Its system integrates AI logistics planning tools to optimize transport routes and energy usage.

The new funding follows previous rounds that included $110 million in 2021 from Maersk’s venture arm and Singapore’s Temasek Holdings. That same year, Einride entered the U.S. market and signed major customers such as GE Appliances, Oatly, and Bridgestone, expanding its footprint in sustainable logistics.

Einride plans to use the new funds to deploy more autonomous trucks across Europe and North America, strengthen regulatory compliance efforts, and advance its remote operations platform that allows human operators to monitor and control multiple vehicles simultaneously.

As global logistics companies push toward electrification and automation, Einride’s technology represents a major step toward reducing emissions, cutting costs, and enhancing road safety in the freight transport industry.

PsiQuantum Hits $7B Valuation, Secures $1B Funding and Partners with Nvidia

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Quantum computing startup PsiQuantum announced Wednesday it has raised $1 billion in a Series E funding round, boosting its valuation to $7 billion, while also unveiling a collaboration with Nvidia to accelerate its quantum computing development.

Funding Details

  • Round size: $1 billion (Series E)

  • Valuation: $7 billion

  • Lead investors: BlackRock, Temasek, Baillie Gifford

  • New investors: Nvidia’s NVentures, Macquarie Capital, Ribbit Capital

Expansion Plans

The funding will support:

  • New sites in Brisbane, Australia and Chicago, Illinois

  • Deployment of large test systems to validate PsiQuantum’s design

Technology Edge

  • Photonic approach: Uses light particles on silicon chips

  • Built on semiconductor manufacturing and fiber-optic networking for scalability

  • Goal: Build the first million-qubit, fault-tolerant quantum computer

Nvidia Collaboration

  • Nvidia chips will help connect classical and quantum machines

  • Integration to improve PsiQuantum’s silicon-photonics quantum chips

  • Aimed at advancing software and hardware ecosystems for practical quantum applications

Applications of Quantum Computing

  • Drug discovery

  • Materials science

  • Cybersecurity breakthroughs

  • Potential to solve problems beyond the reach of AI and today’s supercomputers

Partnerships & Manufacturing

  • PsiQuantum has partnered with GlobalFoundries to fabricate its chips at the foundry’s New York facility.

Outlook

With Nvidia’s backing and $1B in fresh capital, PsiQuantum is positioning itself as a frontrunner in the global quantum race, moving closer to proving its designs and delivering scalable, commercial quantum computers.