Day: June 27, 2026

The digital asset landscape is currently grappling with a severe wave of selling pressure that has pushed major cryptocurrencies to multi-month lows. This downturn stems from a combination of deteriorating macroeconomic conditions, heavy institutional redemptions, and an intense cascade of derivatives liquidations.

Bitcoin has dropped 2.01 per cent over the past 24 hours to trade at US$59,782.21, closely tracking a broader market contraction of 1.85 per cent. Ethereum has suffered an even steeper decline, falling 3.46 per cent to US$1,567.16 and underperforming the market leader. Together, these movements have pulled the total cryptocurrency market capitalisation down by 1.76 per cent to a yearly low of US$2.06T.

The primary driver behind this market-wide reset is a sharp shift in macroeconomic sentiment, highlighted by an unexpected U.S. Personal Consumption Expenditures inflation reading. The inflation metric printed at 4.1 per cent, marking a three-year high. This hotter-than-expected data has reignited fears of a prolonged period of restrictive monetary policy, with market participants quickly increasing bets on further Federal Reserve interest rate hikes. Because the cryptocurrency market shares an 88 per cent correlation with the S&P 500 index, digital assets are behaving as highly sensitive risk assets within a tightening global liquidity environment.

This macroeconomic pressure quickly translated into physical selling across institutional channels. U.S. spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds recorded their largest single-day redemption since early June, with investors pulling US$469.08M from these products on Wednesday, June 24. This massive exit represents the fifth consecutive day of net institutional outflows, led primarily by BlackRock and its spot product, which accounted for a significant portion of the capital flight.

Also Read: How institutional rebalancing leaves crypto investors vulnerable

At the same time, spot Ethereum funds experienced US$30.24M in net redemptions on the same day. This persistent drain on institutional liquidity has removed a critical layer of price support and created automated selling pressure as fund managers liquidate their underlying digital holdings to meet redemption demands.

Beyond institutional product outflows, the spot market faced unexpected structural headwinds from major trading platforms. Rumours and reports began circulating across social networks that prominent global exchanges, specifically Binance and Coinbase, were actively offloading large quantities of Bitcoin. This potential institutional distribution added to an already significant supply overhang, shaking retail investor confidence and accelerating the downward price action.

As spot prices cracked, the decline triggered a violent mechanical unwinding in the derivatives market, which drastically amplified the velocity of the sell-off. Over a 24-hour window, forced liquidations across the entire cryptocurrency market surpassed US$1B. Leveraged positions linked directly to Bitcoin accounted for US$428.87M of this total, with long positions making up US$337M of the wiped-out contracts. Over the final 12 hours of the crash, short positions accounted for 63 per cent of the immediate liquidations.

Meanwhile, over-leveraged traders in the Ethereum market saw US$230M in contracts forcibly closed. Despite this massive purge of speculative bets, average funding rates remarkably managed to stay positive, confirming that many market participants were caught off guard in heavily leveraged long positions.

This severe deleveraging event has pushed technical indicators into deep underbought territory. Ethereum broke decisively below both its seven-day simple moving average of US$1,675.94 and its 30-day simple moving average of US$1,760.28. Its Relative Strength Index has dropped to 30.5, which confirms deeply oversold conditions but offers no immediate structural support. For the broader market, the overall capitalisation sits precariously at its US$2.06T baseline, with a global Relative Strength Index of 35.89 suggesting that while the market is stretched to the downside, a definitive bullish reversal has not yet commenced.

Looking ahead, the immediate trend for the digital asset space remains distinctly bearish, though the market is rapidly approaching a massive technical inflection point.

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MoneyHero’s Q1 2026 results tell two stories at once. The first is a genuine turnaround: revenue up, user growth holding, and a business that has quietly rebuilt its fundamentals after a bruising post-SPAC period. The second is harder to spin away, a US$6.7M liability sitting on the balance sheet like an uninvited guest at a celebration.

The legal overhang matters not just for the number itself, but for what it signals to investors still calibrating their trust in the company. MoneyHero went public on Nasdaq in 2023 via a SPAC merger, a route that attracted scepticism from the start. It has since worked hard to demonstrate it deserved a public listing. One strong quarter does not erase that history, but it contributes to the case.

The real question is whether management can resolve the liability cleanly and quickly, or whether it drags through subsequent quarters, diluting the narrative every time results are announced.

Southeast Asia’s financial comparison space is underleveraged relative to its population. MoneyHero has the infrastructure, the brand, and now, tentatively, the momentum. The US$6.7M problem is not fatal. But left unaddressed, it becomes the story, and that is a distraction the company cannot afford.

REGIONAL

MoneyHero’s winning quarter has a US$6.7M problem: The Nasdaq-listed financial comparison platform posted strong Q1 metrics, but a US$6.7M liability tied to a legacy legal dispute casts a shadow over its recovery narrative.

Airwallex raises US$320M Series H, valued at US$11B: The Sydney-founded, Asia-focused fintech secures one of the largest fintech rounds of 2026, lifting its valuation from US$6.2B. Airwallex operates across SEA and counts Singapore among its key markets.

Lazada cuts 5% of workforce in SEA market review: The Alibaba-owned e-commerce platform is trimming headcount across Southeast Asia amid an ongoing strategic review, as it faces mounting pressure from Shopee and TikTok Shop.

Swedfund backs Navegar fund to support Philippine SMEs: Swedish development finance institution Swedfund has invested in Navegar, a Philippines-focused private equity fund targeting job creation and business growth among small and mid-sized enterprises.

Carro said to explore US IPO amid growth push: SoftBank-backed used-car marketplace Carro is reportedly considering a US listing, a move that would mark one of SEA’s most significant public market entries in recent years.

Vietnam eyes Israel’s Yozma model for US$100M VC fund: Hanoi is studying the Yozma programme that seeded Israel’s startup ecosystem in the 1990s, as it designs a state-backed venture fund to catalyse domestic innovation.

Bukalapak accelerates across retail, gaming, and investment: The Indonesian platform is doubling down on its Mitra network and expanding into gaming and investment verticals, pivoting firmly away from its original e-commerce core.

AMC Robotics to build US$3.5M robotic dog factory in Vietnam: The firm will manufacture robotic dogs in Vietnam, targeting industrial inspection and security use cases across Asia. The move underlines Vietnam’s growing role in hardware manufacturing.

H3 Zoom raises US$3.6M to expand AI inspection tech in SEA: The startup’s computer vision platform, initially built for façade and railway inspection, is scaling across Southeast Asia and Japan after closing a pre-Series A round.

Echelon Philippines: profitability over growth at all costs: Founders and investors at Echelon Philippines 2025 debated the “unicroach” model, building lean, profitable businesses, as an alternative to the capital-intensive unicorn playbook.

Singapore sets sights on becoming global AI solutions hub: The government outlined an AI-empowered economy strategy aimed at attracting global AI deployments, upskilling workers, and positioning Singapore as a testbed for enterprise AI adoption.

Philippine AI startups step out of the shadows: A roundup of 15 Philippine AI startups, spanning healthtech, legal, and logistics, signals a maturing local AI scene that is beginning to attract regional investor attention.

15 SEA semiconductor startups moving beyond assembly: A new cohort of Southeast Asian semiconductor firms is moving into chip design, packaging, and materials — shifting the region’s role from contract manufacturer to technology developer.

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INTERVIEWS & FEATURES

15 SEA semiconductor startups moving beyond assembly: A new cohort of Southeast Asian semiconductor firms is moving into chip design, packaging, and materials — shifting the region’s role from contract manufacturer to technology developer.

WhatsApp’s new CEO is the headline; India’s data is the story: Meta’s appointment of a new WhatsApp chief matters less than the data governance questions it surfaces, particularly around India’s 500 million users and the country’s evolving data protection framework.

Can Ukraine’s engineers solve Japan’s tech talent gap: As Japan battles a chronic engineering shortage, a growing number of Ukrainian tech workers are finding roles with Japanese firms, raising questions about remote talent as a structural fix.

AI literacy in Thailand bypasses informal workers: Upskilling programmes are reaching office workers but missing the 63% of Thais in informal employment, a gap that risks deepening inequality as AI reshapes labour markets.

Can World ID solve the internet’s fake human problem: Worldcoin’s identity verification protocol is gaining traction as AI-generated bots flood digital platforms, but critics question its biometric data collection model and governance.

Smilegate hits US$40M initial close on new AI fund: South Korean gaming giant Smilegate has reached the first close of its AI-focused fund, targeting investments in AI infrastructure and applications across Asia.

Tribe Academy bets on AI bilingualism for SEA workers: The Singapore-based edtech is building AI bilingualism curricula, training professionals to work fluidly across English and local languages in AI-assisted workflows.

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INTERNATIONAL

Amazon commits fresh US$13B to AI infrastructure in India: The investment underlines India’s emergence as a priority market for hyperscaler AI build-out, with cloud, data centres, and localised model development all in scope.

Former Infosys chief launches startup to disrupt IT services: Ex-Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka’s new venture targets the legacy IT services model, aiming to replace headcount-driven delivery with AI-native software, a direct challenge to India’s outsourcing giants.

Flipkart expands quick commerce as Amazon ramps up in India: Walmart-backed Flipkart is broadening its rapid delivery push to counter Amazon’s India offensive, intensifying a battle that mirrors the SEA rivalry between Shopee and Lazada.

Trump administration bars Polestar from US EV market: The White House has blocked the Swedish-Chinese EV maker from selling its latest models in the US, citing national security concerns, a move with implications for Chinese-linked automakers eyeing SEA expansion.

Deepseek plans to double headcount across all departments: The Chinese AI lab, which rattled global markets earlier this year, is aggressively hiring across research, engineering, and product, signalling ambitions well beyond its current model portfolio.

AI was supposed to kill engineering jobs; new data says otherwise: Fresh labour market data suggests engineering roles are among the most resilient to AI displacement, challenging the dominant narrative around white-collar automation.

Notion Mail shuts down amid agent takeover: Notion has discontinued its standalone email client less than a year after launch, pivoting resources toward AI agent features, a sign of shifting product priorities across productivity tools.

Zuckerberg wants Meta to launch a prediction market: Meta’s CEO is pushing internally for a prediction market product, potentially placing Meta in direct competition with platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi.

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CYBERSECURITY

Synthetic identities cost nothing to make; ASEAN banks lag: Generative AI has collapsed the cost of creating synthetic identities to near zero, exposing critical gaps in ASEAN’s banking sector KYC and fraud detection infrastructure.

Polymarket hackers steal user funds: Decentralised prediction market Polymarket confirmed that attackers drained user funds in a security breach, raising fresh questions about the security of on-chain financial platforms popular with retail crypto users.

Anthropic accuses Alibaba of illicitly accessing its AI models: The US AI lab has filed accusations against Alibaba for allegedly circumventing access controls to extract model outputs, a case that could set precedents for AI model misappropriation in Asia.

Institutional rebalancing leaves crypto investors exposed: As large funds rotate out of crypto positions, retail investors in SEA face heightened volatility risk, particularly in markets where crypto is a primary savings vehicle.

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SEMICONDUCTOR

OpenAI unveils first custom chip built with Broadcom: OpenAI has taped out its debut in-house chip in partnership with Broadcom, a move that could reduce its dependence on Nvidia and reshape the AI silicon market.

Memory chip crunch pays off for US firm: Tight supply in the high-bandwidth memory market is boosting margins for a US chipmaker, underscoring the strategic value of memory in the AI compute stack, and the vulnerability of SEA firms reliant on imported supply.

Europe pushes back on Washington’s chip export controls: EU policymakers are challenging US semiconductor restrictions that they say disadvantage European firms, as the transatlantic chip war creates new fault lines in the global tech supply chain.

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AI

White House asks OpenAI to delay new model over safety fears: The Trump administration has urged OpenAI to slow-roll its next model release, marking an unusual instance of government intervention in frontier AI deployment timelines.

Anthropic’s Claude gains ground on ChatGPT among paid users: New data shows Claude is eroding ChatGPT’s dominance in the paid consumer segment, with users citing output quality and reliability as key switching factors.

Ex-Databricks AI chief targets 1,000x cut in AI power bills: A new venture founded by Databricks’ former chief AI officer claims it can slash AI inference energy consumption by three orders of magnitude, a claim with major implications for data centre planning across SEA.

AI agents will reshape customer journeys in SEA: Operators and brands across the region are deploying AI agents to handle end-to-end customer interactions, compressing sales cycles and reducing service costs.

Is the AI industry profitable? Yes, just not where you think: Revenue from AI is concentrating in infrastructure, cloud providers, chipmakers, and data centre operators, rather than in AI-native application startups, challenging prevailing investor assumptions.

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THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

Tokenised assets are on-chain; the liquidity hasn’t followed: Despite billions in tokenised real-world assets now live on public blockchains, secondary market liquidity remains thin, limiting the practical utility of tokenisation for institutional and retail participants alike.

From silicon to satoshis: tracing the global market unwind: A forensic look at how macro deleveraging ripples from traditional equity markets into crypto, with particular attention to the contagion pathways relevant to SEA retail investors.

How to build a board paper that answers the right question: A practical framework for structuring board papers around the core decision at stake, rather than burying it in context, aimed at founders preparing for board meetings.

Storytelling is now an analytical output, not a soft skill: The ability to construct a clear narrative from data has become a core professional competency, particularly for operators navigating investor and board communication in uncertain markets.

People don’t want productivity hacks; they want sustainable work: A pushback against hustle-culture optimisation frameworks, arguing that founders and operators are increasingly prioritising long-term wellbeing over short-term output maximisation.

Who am I in the age of AI? Identity, displacement, and awakening: A philosophical examination of identity in an era of AI-generated content and synthetic personas, asking what remains distinctly human in professional and creative work.

The post Ecosystem Roundup: MoneyHero’s turnaround story has an uninvited co-author appeared first on e27.

Airwallex has raised US$320 million in a Series H round, lifting its valuation to US$11 billion as the fintech company doubles down on AI-driven financial software, cross-border payments infrastructure, and regulatory expansion.

The round was led by returning investor Addition, with participation from Baillie Gifford, Hummingbird, QED Investors, T. Rowe Price, Hedosophia, Haun Ventures, Washington University in St. Louis, and Amex Ventures.

The new valuation marks a rise from US$8 billion in December 2025, reflecting investor confidence in Airwallex’s ability to move beyond payments and into a broader financial operating system for businesses.

Also Read: Why Airwallex chose acquisition over patience in Korea

The company said the capital will be used to accelerate product development in autonomous finance and agentic commerce, expand infrastructure and licensing coverage in new markets, and grow teams building AI-native financial software.

Founded in Melbourne in 2015 and now co-headquartered in San Francisco and Singapore, Airwallex has become one of the most prominent fintech infrastructure players with roots in Asia Pacific. Its Singapore base is particularly important as the company looks to serve Southeast Asian businesses operating across multiple currencies, payment systems, and regulatory regimes.

For regional startups, e-commerce merchants, SaaS companies, and marketplaces, cross-border payments remain a major operational drag. Businesses expanding from Singapore into Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, or the Philippines often face fragmented banking relationships, FX costs, local compliance requirements, and settlement delays.

Airwallex is betting that its combination of licences, payment rails, treasury products, cards, and software can give such companies a more unified financial stack.

“We believe this is the most consequential moment in the history of global finance, and we are building accordingly,” said Jack Zhang, co-founder and CEO of Airwallex. He added that the company’s decade-long investment in licences, local network integrations, and settlement rails gives it the infrastructure needed for autonomous finance and agentic commerce.

From payments to AI finance software

The fundraising comes as Airwallex pushes deeper into software and automation, an area where global fintech firms are increasingly trying to defend margins and improve customer stickiness.

The company announced two product initiatives alongside the funding: T:0 and Airi.

T:0 is an AI-native finance platform designed to automate core finance functions for businesses, including bookkeeping, forecasting, tax, compliance, and reporting. Airwallex says the product is intended to give founders and finance teams “CFO-grade” books from day zero without requiring a later migration.

Also Read: Airwallex raises US$330M in Series G led by Addition to power US expansion

The product is currently in private beta and is expected to become more widely available in the coming weeks.

If successful, T:0 could place Airwallex in closer competition with accounting software providers, spend management platforms, and embedded finance players. For Southeast Asian startups, the appeal could be significant. Many early-stage companies in the region manage finance through a patchwork of spreadsheets, local accounting tools, bank portals, payment gateways, and external accountants. A more integrated platform could reduce complexity, though adoption will depend heavily on localisation, compliance coverage, and trust in AI-driven workflows.

Airi, the second product, is a consumer wallet infrastructure initiative aimed at agentic commerce. At launch, it will include Airwallex’s existing one-click checkout capability, which the company said delivered up to a 14 per cent increase in successful checkout conversions for digital merchants in early testing.

Over time, Airwallex plans to expand Airi into wallet infrastructure for delegated agent payments, spend limits, permission controls, and multi-currency balances. The idea is to support a future where AI agents may be able to make purchases or execute transactions on behalf of users within predefined rules.

That vision remains early, and agentic commerce is still more concept than mainstream behaviour. But fintech companies are increasingly positioning themselves for a world in which AI systems do not merely recommend purchases or financial actions but execute them. In that environment, the companies with regulated payment infrastructure, identity checks, spend controls, and merchant networks could hold an advantage.

Southeast Asia remains a strategic market

Airwallex’s growth trajectory is tied closely to the rise of borderless digital businesses, a trend especially visible in Southeast Asia.

The region’s startups and digital merchants often operate regionally from the outset, selling to customers, hiring teams, and paying suppliers across borders. Yet financial infrastructure has not always kept pace. Local payment preferences vary widely, card penetration differs by market, and SMEs often struggle to access efficient FX, treasury, and global payment tools.

Singapore has become a preferred base for fintech firms serving this demand because of its regulatory environment, financial services talent, and role as a regional headquarters hub. Airwallex’s decision to maintain a co-headquarters in Singapore reflects the city-state’s importance not just as a market but as a launchpad into Asia-Pacific.

The company says it now holds more than 85 licences across North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia Pacific. That regulatory footprint is central to its pitch: instead of simply layering software on top of third-party banking and payment partners, Airwallex has spent years building its own network integrations and compliance capabilities.

Lee Fixel of Addition said Airwallex has built infrastructure that is “unusually hard to replicate”, adding that AI will favour companies building on top of real financial infrastructure rather than around it.

Revenue and transaction volumes climb

Airwallex also disclosed fresh operating metrics. In March 2026, it reached US$1.3 billion in annualised revenue, up 74 per cent year-on-year. Annualised transaction volume reached US$287 billion, up more than 120 per cent year-on-year.

The company said more than 90 per cent of revenue now comes from customers using more than one Airwallex product, suggesting that it is succeeding in cross-selling beyond its initial payments use cases.

Airwallex serves more than 676,000 businesses globally, either directly or through platform customers. Its products include payment acceptance, billing, global accounts, corporate cards, and spend management.

The company employs more than 2,300 people across 27 offices.

The latest funding gives Airwallex more firepower at a time when competition in global business payments is intensifying. Stripe, Adyen, Wise, Payoneer, Revolut Business, and a growing number of regional fintechs are all chasing parts of the same opportunity.

Also Read: Fintech companies targeting the next billion users are living a pipe dream. Here’s why

For Southeast Asia, the key question is whether Airwallex can convert its global infrastructure into local advantage. The region is large, fragmented, and fast-growing, but it rewards companies that can navigate market-by-market complexity.

With fresh capital and a stronger AI software push, Airwallex is signalling that it wants to be more than a payments provider for regional businesses. It wants to become the operating layer for how they manage money globally.

The post Airwallex doubles down on agentic commerce with US$320M funding round appeared first on e27.

At Echelon Philippines 2025, a dynamic fireside chat brought together a new wave of Filipino founders shaping the startup landscape with purpose and boldness.

Moderated by Ritch Traballo of NextHire, the session featured Alyssa Wee of Danny PH, Princess Ventures of BuddyBetes, Orange Silverio of Tambanokano Aqua Farm, and AC Alyzsa Dy of Villigro Philippines.

Each founder shared insights drawn from building mission-driven ventures across diverse industries, from health tech and agribusiness to social enterprise. Their stories highlighted how the next generation of Filipino entrepreneurs is not just chasing growth, but creating meaningful impact in their communities and beyond.

The post Echelon Philippines 2025 – Lessons from the next generation: How today’s emerging founders are building bold, purposeful startups appeared first on e27.

China-affiliated AMC Robotics Corporation will invest US$3.5 million to build out and equip a new manufacturing facility in Vietnam’s Bac Ninh province, marking its first major production foothold in Southeast Asia as the region’s factories and warehouses gradually move towards automation.

The company said it has signed a lease agreement for a 6,150-square-metre facility in Bac Ninh, an industrial province near Hanoi that has become one of Vietnam’s most important electronics and manufacturing clusters.

Also Read: VinRobotics takes humanoids to ICRA and COMPUTEX, signalling Vietnam’s rise in robotics

The investment will be used to prepare the plant for production, with the first phase focused on AMC Robotics’ NovaArm robotic arm. Initial production is expected to begin in the second half of 2026.

For AMC Robotics, the move shifts the company from product development towards manufacturing execution. For Vietnam, it adds another name to a growing list of technology and hardware companies using the country as a base to serve regional and global supply chains.

Vietnam as a Southeast Asia production base

AMC Robotics said Vietnam will serve as a long-term hub for its production and operations in Southeast Asia. That positioning is significant at a time when manufacturers are reassessing supply chains across Asia and looking for locations that offer proximity to China, competitive costs, improving infrastructure and access to regional markets.

Vietnam has been one of the main beneficiaries of the China-plus-one strategy, particularly in electronics, consumer devices and industrial components. Bac Ninh, in particular, has attracted global manufacturers because of its industrial parks, road links to Hanoi, and access to ports in northern Vietnam.

The robotics sector is still relatively early in Southeast Asia compared with China, Japan, South Korea, and the US. But demand is rising as warehouses, factories and logistics operators in the region face labour shortages, wage pressure, higher throughput requirements and the need for more predictable operations.

E-commerce, third-party logistics, electronics manufacturing, and automotive supply chains are among the sectors likely to drive automation adoption in Southeast Asia. Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore have all seen growing interest in robotics and industrial automation, although adoption levels vary sharply by market and sector.

AMC Robotics’s decision to manufacture in Vietnam suggests the company sees the region not only as a production base, but potentially as an end market for warehouse and industrial automation systems.

NovaArm comes first

In the first phase, the Bac Ninh facility will focus on the production of NovaArm, AMC Robotics’s robotic arm designed for high-load, high-precision warehouse sorting and industrial automation applications.

The company has not disclosed the planned production capacity of the facility, the expected number of jobs to be created, or whether the Vietnam plant will serve regional customers, global exports, or both. It also did not specify how much of the manufacturing process will be handled locally versus assembled from imported components.

The absence of those details makes it difficult to assess the immediate economic impact of the investment. Still, the choice of Vietnam is noteworthy because robotics manufacturing requires a more advanced supplier and engineering base than traditional assembly operations.

Also Read: Clear Robotics raises US$1.75M to scale electric, self‑driving boats across South Asia, ASEAN

If AMC Robotics scales production successfully, the plant could become a test of Vietnam’s ability to move further up the manufacturing value chain, from electronics assembly into more complex automation hardware.

Sean Da, Chairman and CEO of AMC Robotics, said securing the facility is an important step as the company moves from product development to manufacturing. He said the plant would provide the infrastructure needed to support the launch of NovaArm and establish a scalable foundation for future products, including Kyro.

Kyro robotic dog in the pipeline

AMC Robotics plans to use the Vietnam facility as a base for future expansion, including the production of Kyro, its quadruped robotic dog.

Quadruped robots have attracted interest globally for use in industrial inspection, security, hazardous environment monitoring and research. However, commercial adoption remains uneven, partly because of high costs, limited use cases and the need to prove reliability in real operating environments.

For Southeast Asia, the market for such robots is likely to develop gradually. Industrial campuses, energy facilities, construction sites, ports and large manufacturing plants could be early adopters, but price sensitivity and after-sales support will be critical.

By placing future Kyro production in Vietnam, AMC Robotics is signalling that it wants the facility to support more than a single product line. The company appears to be laying the groundwork for a broader hardware manufacturing operation in the region, although its success will depend on execution, supply chain depth and customer demand.

China links, US office, Vietnam factory

AMC Robotics maintains its executive office in the US, but the company is led by Sean Da, a Chinese national best known as the founder of YI, the Chinese camera brand.

YI previously had a strategic partnership with Xiaomi and received investment from the Chinese technology company. Da has said YI is not owned by Xiaomi.

That background is crucial because robotics, like drones, semiconductors and connected devices, increasingly sits at the intersection of technology, manufacturing and geopolitics. Companies with Chinese links are facing more scrutiny in some Western markets, while at the same time looking to diversify production footprints outside mainland China.

Vietnam has emerged as a natural destination for such diversification. It offers geographic proximity to Chinese suppliers while providing companies with an alternative manufacturing base. For firms serving global customers, a Vietnam footprint can also help reduce concentration risk in China.

However, China-affiliated companies operating from Vietnam may still face questions from customers, regulators and partners about ownership, supply chains and data handling, especially in sectors involving autonomous systems and connected devices.

Also Read: “Data, not hardware, is the real bottleneck in humanoids”: Matrix Robotics CEO Allen Zhang

AMC Robotics has not disclosed whether its Vietnam plant will be used to serve the US market, Southeast Asia, or other regions. But its US executive presence, Chinese founder background and Vietnam manufacturing base reflect a broader shift in how hardware startups and robotics companies are structuring their operations in an increasingly fragmented global market.

Southeast Asia’s automation opportunity

For Southeast Asia, the AMC Robotics investment is modest in size but strategically relevant.

The region has spent years positioning itself as a manufacturing alternative to China. The next stage will be harder: attracting and retaining companies that bring higher-value production, engineering expertise and industrial technology capabilities.

Robotics manufacturing could contribute to that transition, but only if local ecosystems develop alongside foreign investment. This includes skilled technicians, precision component suppliers, software and systems integration talent, and customers willing to adopt automation at scale.

Singapore has been the region’s most advanced market for robotics deployment, particularly in logistics, healthcare and service automation. Vietnam, Malaysia, and Thailand have stronger manufacturing bases, while Indonesia and the Philippines offer large labour markets where automation adoption will be shaped by cost, productivity and policy considerations.

AMC Robotics’s Bac Ninh facility will not transform Southeast Asia’s robotics landscape on its own. But it adds to a pattern of hardware and automation companies treating the region as more than a low-cost assembly destination.

If NovaArm production begins as planned in 2026, the plant could become an early indicator of whether Vietnam can capture a larger share of the robotics manufacturing value chain, and whether Southeast Asia’s automation demand is strong enough to support the companies now setting up shop in the region.

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