The Wrap | 1 - 7 Nov 2025
Asia Tech Lens’ weekly digest of the signals, shifts, and stories shaping Asia’s tech future
Editor’s Note: Chip policy is industrial policy now. This week’s stories rhyme across Asia: India lines up capital and compute for deep tech; China cuts electricity bills to favor domestic AI chips; Korea’s Naver doubles down on GPUs and agents; Singapore data-center assets keep consolidating; Thailand tries to fix its IPO pipeline; and device makers like Honor push “agentic OS” as the next interface. The connective tissue: sovereign compute + agentic software + capital discipline.
Podcast Spotlight | Kevin Choi, Mediwhale
How Mediwhale’s AI Sees Disease Before Doctors Can
After losing half his vision to glaucoma at 26, Kevin Choi, Co-Founder & CEO of Mediwhale, turned a personal crisis into purpose—building AI that can detect cardiovascular and metabolic diseases before doctors can, using a single retinal image.
From publishing in The Lancet Digital Health to raising US $22 million and convincing skeptical clinicians, Kevin’s story is one of resilience and clarity of mission. Hosted by Miro Lu, this episode explores the human side of AI in medicine—how science, empathy, and leadership intersect when tech is literally saving lives.
“Money is cold,” Kevin says. “But saving someone’s life—that’s real.”
Watch on YouTube | Listen on Spotify · Apple Podcasts
Deep Tech | India
Nvidia Joins India Deep Tech Alliance
Nvidia joined the India Deep Tech Alliance as a founding advisor, with Qualcomm Ventures and Kalaari Capital among new members, adding $850 million in commitments to the $1 billion fund launched in September. The alliance backs startups in AI, semiconductors, robotics, and space, while India’s government separately announced a $12 billion R&D initiative to build domestic innovation capacity.
Bottom Line: India is trying to turn deep-tech from policy slogan to industrial reality—channeling both public money and private mentorship into long-horizon R&D plays that could lessen its dependence on imported technology.
Chips | China
Beijing Offers 50% Power Subsidy for Domestic AI Chips
China is subsidizing up to half the electricity cost for data centers running local AI chips from Huawei and Cambricon, while excluding those using Nvidia GPUs. The move follows U.S. export controls and aims to make domestic hardware financially viable despite lower energy efficiency.
Bottom Line: By rewriting the utility bill, Beijing is narrowing the cost gap between local and foreign chips—turning power pricing itself into an instrument of tech self-reliance.
AI Infra | Korea
Naver Bets ₩1 Trillion on GPUs and Agents
Naver plans to invest over ₩1 trillion (US $686 million) in GPU infrastructure, including 60 000 Nvidia Blackwell units, while launching a shopping AI agent next spring and expanding its “AI Briefing” service. The company posted record Q3 revenue and sees AI personalization driving sales growth.
Bottom Line: Korea’s biggest internet company is treating compute as strategy—owning both the silicon and the service layer to anchor a new wave of agent-powered commerce.
Data Centers | Singapore / SEA
KKR & Singtel in $3.9 B Bid for STT GDC
KKR and Singtel are in advanced talks to buy over 80 % of ST Telemedia Global Data Centres for more than S $5 billion (US $3.9 billion), following their earlier S $1.75 billion investment in 2024. STT GDC operates around 100 data centers with 1.7 GW IT load across 20+ markets, from Singapore to India and Europe.
Bottom Line: The region’s data-center race is now a power-and-geography game—growth depends less on rack space than on renewable supply and cross-border execution.
Devices | China
Honor Launches “Self-Evolving” Agentic OS
At its Shenzhen developer conference, Honor unveiled MagicOS 10, calling it the world’s first “self-evolving, agent-centric” operating system. Powered by MagicLM 3.0, it enables cross-device AI tasks, deepfake detection, and seamless data transfer between Honor, iOS, Android, and Windows devices.
Bottom Line: The smartphone OS war is mutating into an agent war—the fight to own user context and command the device mesh.
AI Ecosystem | Japan
SoftBank & OpenAI Form SB OAI Japan
SoftBank and OpenAI created a 50-50 joint venture to sell localized enterprise AI solutions dubbed “Crystal Intelligence.” The JV’s first and biggest client will be SoftBank itself, integrating OpenAI’s models across its businesses before offering them to others.
Bottom Line: Investors are turning into distributors—monetizing AI not through model access, but through packaged workflows and internal adoption at scale.
Capital Markets | Thailand
Bangkok Pushes Incentives for Tech IPOs
Thailand plans new measures to attract tech listings and simplify IPO approvals, as its benchmark index lags and IPO proceeds fall to 11 billion baht (US $338 million) this year from 29 billion in 2024. The Board of Investment and SET aim to lure electronics and EV companies to the local bourse.
Bottom Line: Thailand wants to turn its FDI boom into capital-market depth—encouraging firms that build locally to list locally.
Signals to Watch
Compute nationalism deepens. China’s power subsidies, India’s Deep Tech Alliance, and Korea’s GPU stockpiles all point to one trend: compute is sovereignty. Expect more fiscal incentives tied to domestic chip and data-center builds in 2026.
The agent race accelerates. Honor’s MagicOS and Naver’s upcoming shopping agent signal a shift from “AI features” to persistent agents embedded in devices and apps. The battle for user context will decide who owns the next OS layer.
Infrastructure consolidation intensifies. The KKR–Singtel bid for STT GDC underscores how data-center assets have become strategic. In the next wave of deals, carbon intensity and grid access will matter more than rack count.
Public markets chase relevance. Thailand’s IPO reforms mirror regional efforts to keep growth tech listings local. Exchanges that move fastest on regulatory agility will capture the next generation of listings.
Open vs. closed AI heats up. After Moonshot’s Kimi K2 open-weight model outperformed GPT-5 in benchmarks, enterprises are re-evaluating whether they need proprietary APIs at all—control and cost now rival capability.
The Takeaway
Across Asia, governments and giants are rewiring the inputs (power, GPUs, capex) and the interface (agents, AI OS) at the same time. The question isn’t if AI scales—it’s where the load runs and who owns the agent layer that captures user intent and enterprise workflow.
Sources:
Reuters: Nvidia joins India Deep Tech Alliance; $850 million in new commitments
InvestingLive: China offers big power subsidies to boost local AI chips
Biz Chosun (English): Naver to invest over ₩1 trillion (US $686 million) in GPUs; shopping AI agent launching spring 2026
Tech in Asia: KKR, Singtel near $3.9 billion deal for ST Telemedia Global Data Centres
Times of India: Honor introduces MagicOS 10, world’s first “self-evolving” AI agent OS
TechCrunch: SoftBank and OpenAI form 50–50 joint venture in Japan
Bloomberg: Thailand plans new incentives to attract tech IPOs
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