Enablers of technological progress in the Asia-Pacific 

Infrastructure: the physical foundations of digital ambition 

As digital and AI ambitions accelerate across the APAC region, governments are increasingly focused on the physical infrastructure that enables technological progress. In the coming year, APAC governments will continue to place heavy emphasis on building “sovereign” digital infrastructure that is resilient to increasingly unpredictable geopolitical shifts. Key areas of focus include attracting investment in data centres and subsea cables, in addition to securing continued access to advanced AI chips.

According to a recent study, APAC data centre capacity is projected to more than double by 2030, with an expected $800 billion in investment. Crucially, this capital is geographically mobile and will favour those jurisdictions that are most competitive when it comes to speed-to-build and to affordability and availability of energy. In many markets, permitting processes for data centre builds remain bureaucratic, increasing uncertainty and risk for operators. Meanwhile, spiking electricity demand is contributing to lengthy delays in grid connection. Governments are also juggling the need for compute capacity with mounting concerns over the impact on energy and water resources. The countries that can find a way through these tensions and offer a stable and competitive option to investors and operators will be the big winners from data centre investment.

Subsea cables are also moving to the foreground of policy discussions across APAC. Policymakers’ increased awareness of the importance of resilient connectivity to digital growth, coupled with rising geopolitical tensions and high-profile incidents of cable damage, has led APAC governments to intensify their focus on subsea cable infrastructure. Recent investment in a number of intra-Asia cables, including the I-AM Cable project, the Southeast Asia-Japan Cable 2, and the CANDLE cable system, is aimed at increasing resilience and removing single points of failure. Efforts to deepen regional cooperation are ongoing: ASEAN Digital Ministers recently agreed to accelerate regional cooperation on facilitating the repair and protection of subsea cables. At the national and regional level, APAC policymakers will seek to make progress on streamlining permitting processes and intensifying protections against disruption of cables seen increasingly as critical national infrastructure.

Navigating the impact of trade tensions and ensuring continued access to advanced AI chips will continue to be a priority. The current US administration has shifted towards a more permissive approach to advanced technology exports, with Senior White House official, Michael Kratsios, using the recent AI Impact Summit to position US tech as an enabler of countries’ AI ambitions. Despite this, there is a broadly held view in APAC policymaking circles that tech is no longer neutral. Recent signals of draft US rules that would require government approval for exporting AI chips outside the US add to this uncertainty, echoing the earlier AI Diffusion Rule instituted under the Biden administration, but with potentially greater political involvement. To counter this, APAC countries have adopted a dual approach by- (a) attempting to secure continued access to US-based supply, with several APAC economies joining the US Pax Silica silicon supply chain initiative, and (b) gradually progressing alternative supply options, such as by strengthening domestic capacity or through regional partnerships. Meanwhile, the advancement of Chinese chipmaking capabilities and pledges to rapidly scale up domestic production presents the possibility of Chinese chip supply one day becoming a viable option for some APAC countries.

Governance: policy guardrails for safe adoption 

Governance will be another defining enabler of technological progress across APAC in the coming year, as governments focus on putting effective guardrails around digital technologies to ensure they are deployed safely and benefit – rather than harm – their citizens.

As our AI-Pac blog highlights, governments across APAC continue to debate the best approach to AI governance and regulation.

Some jurisdictions, including Korea, Japan, and Vietnam, have moved ahead with economy-wide comprehensive AI legislation, while others – such as Australia, Singapore, and India – are favouring more targeted, sector-specific approaches. In the coming year, several pending initiatives, including proposed AI frameworks in Malaysia and Indonesia, are expected to be finalised. At the same time, governments are pursuing more narrowly scoped interventions, targeting deepfakes, the generation of sexualised content involving women and children, and emerging concerns around the mental health impacts of companion chatbots. Developers and deployers of AI will need to work with governments to ensure new governance frameworks are targeted appropriately, so that they satisfactorily address safety concerns without inhibiting adoption of the technology.

Another critical area of focus for APAC countries is tackling online scams. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has called Southeast Asia “ground zero for the global scamming industry” due to the scale of scam activity originating in certain parts of the region. Media reporting on the scale and impact of scams is amplifying public concern and intensifying the pressure on policymakers to be seen to take action. A key feature is the emergence of shared financial liability frameworks in Singapore, Australia, and Thailand, although there are important differences in how these frameworks are scoped and over the obligations on different types of services. In recognition of the need for a coordinated industry response, the tech, telecommunications, and financial services sectors have also stepped up cooperation, most notably through the Global Signal Exchange (GSE) initiative. Without a sustained and effective cross-border response from law enforcement to scam groups, there are doubts over whether new regulation can truly bring the problem under control.

The impact of digital environments on the safety and wellbeing of children and young people is front-of-mind for policymakers. Australia’s social media ban for children puts APAC at the frontline of the global debate on whether shutting children out of digital environments is the most effective response to safety concerns, or whether alternative approaches focused on safety by design and ensuring age-appropriate experiences for children can be effective in keeping them safe online while enabling their continued digital participation. Deepening divergence is highly likely. Fragmentation between countries will be driven by differences in political systems, regulatory capacity, and societal views on freedom of expression, privacy, and the appropriate balance between state authority and individual and parental responsibility.

Trust: the social licence for technological change 

Sustainable technological progress will depend on public trust in the positive impacts of technology and a continued social licence to deploy it at scale. Across the region, there is a growing conversation about who gains and who loses from technological development, and how to weigh up the balance sheet of positive impacts and costs.

These trust dynamics are already shaping debates around digital infrastructure. Public concern over the environmental and community impacts of data centres, for example, has begun to translate into political and regulatory pressure, with implications for planning approvals and investment certainty. Last year in Johor, Malaysia, authorities reportedly decided to stop approving Tier 1 and 2 data centres because of their high water consumption. Such cases underscore how gaps in public trust can directly affect regulatory outcomes and threaten the industry’s long-term licence to operate.

Trust is equally central to the governance agenda. Effective guardrails depend not only on regulatory design, but on public confidence that technologies are being developed and deployed responsibly. This is particularly important in the next phase of AI development, where realising the benefits of more autonomous and agentic systems will require confidence that models can safely access, combine, and act on data from multiple sources.

At the same time, concerns around labour displacement will also impact on public trust in emerging technology, particularly AI. In its recently announced Union Budget, the Indian government announced a committee to examine the impact of emerging technologies, including AI, on jobs and skill requirements. In the coming year, both governments and industry across APAC will face growing pressure to ground these debates in high-quality evidence. Access to credible data on the economic and societal impacts of technological development will be critical to supporting more informed public discourse and sustaining trust over time.

What does this mean for business? 

Ultimately, infrastructure, governance, and trust will determine whether technological ambition in Asia-Pacific translates into sustained progress in the coming year. Infrastructure will set the physical limits of what is possible, governance will shape how technologies are deployed and regulated, and trust will eventually determine whether innovation can scale with public and political support.

Business has a critical role to play in ensuring that these enablers are in place. On infrastructure, governments will look to business to provide expertise and practical input on how policy can best enable sustained investment. On governance and trust, if business does not actively engage in debates over how to manage the environmental, safety, and labour impacts of emerging technology, the media and political narrative will become increasingly hostile towards technological change. Firms across the sector will need to demonstrate how technological innovation can work in the interests of the communities that APAC governments serve.

Flint can help you make sense of how governments are grappling with the policy choices around these enablers and what this means in practice for your business and strategy.

This blog was written by Arpit Gupta- Senior Consultant, Ethan Teo- Manager, and Ewan Lusty - Partner. Arpit, Ethan, and Ewan are all based in Singapore. Arpit is a technology law and policy professional with prior experience working with California’s privacy regulator and India’s Ministry of Electronics and IT. Ethan previously worked at Singapore’s Smart Nation Group under the Prime Minister’s Office and interned with the public affairs and trust & safety teams of Grab, Twitter, and Carousell. Ewan has over eight years’ experience in Asia-Pacific and Europe across the public and private sectors on the policy and politics of technological change.