Sam Altman’s GITEX message lands like a checklist for the next three years of AI, and a reality check for policymakers. Agents aren’t a demo anymore; they’re quietly doing cognitive work today, the way coding copilots already rewired software teams. If that productivity curve spills into finance, ops, and science, expect decision cycles to compress and the bar for “good enough” to rise fast.
Altman’s sharpest point isn’t even technical: the bottleneck is energy. If the cost of intelligence converges on the cost of power, then grid capacity, transmission, siting, and clean baseload become the real competitive advantages. Nations that treat energy + compute as one policy stack will compound; everyone else will ration.
Altman’s timeline–agents (2025), novel insights (2026), capable robots (2027)–is less sci-fi than a sprint plan. But his framing matters more: tech and society co-evolve. Bring AI into public workflows, teach it at a population scale, and measure outcomes in minutes saved, not pilots launched. That’s how you avoid an AI divide.
The human role doesn’t disappear; it concentrates. Systems surface what’s happening and what could happen. People own the why and what next. Leaders who internalise that division of labour–and fund the energy to match–will set the pace of the decade.
REGIONAL
Court rejects Gojek founder’s pretrial motion in corruption case: A Jakarta court found that the Attorney General’s Office followed proper legal procedures and had sufficient evidence to designate Nadiem Makarim as a suspect. Legal experts presented by both Nadiem’s team and prosecutors were considered in the ruling.
Circles Life’s parent firm sues M1 over virtual network contract
The dispute centres on a contract signed in May 2019, with Liberty Wireless claiming that M1 refused to negotiate changes to address regulatory updates introduced by Singapore’s IMDA in January 2020.
Roblox expected to contribute US$8.2M to Indonesia’s GDP: report: According to the Roblox Economic Impact Report, the platform’s ecosystem supported 310 jobs in Indonesia in 2024, and that this figure rose by 298% since 2019.
Nanyang Biologics to list on Nasdaq at US$1.5B valuation: The Singapore-based AI drug discovery startup will go public on Nasdaq in Q1 2026 through a merger with RF Acquisition Corp II. Nanyang is pre-revenue and has five drug candidates for cancer and cardiovascular diseases in development.
Green SM debuts EV taxi service in Surabaya, offering discounts: The company, which began in Jakarta in December 2024, uses VinFast EVs and allows bookings through its app. Green SM previously expanded to Makassar and Bekasi earlier this month.
REPORTS, FEATURES & INTERVIEWS
Billions lost to heat: Urgent investment needed to cool Asia’s overheating economies: A report titled ‘Unlocking Capital For Climate x Health: The Investment Landscape in Asia’ report has found that in 2023, warns Asia’s economies are losing billions to extreme heat, urging urgent investment in cooling and climate resilience technologies.
India and Indonesia emerge as Asia’s power anchors for climate x health investment: India experienced extreme heat alerts on 93% of days in 2024. This high-heat exposure affects over 90% of its population. Air pollution intensifies cardiovascular risk, and coastal districts face storm-surge flooding.
Singapore HR leaders double down on overseas talent amid local shortage, finds Remote: Singapore companies now employ talent in an average of three or more countries, and this number is poised to grow by 2026. With homegrown talent pipelines unable to meet demand, international expansion is no longer just about market access but about survival.
Singapore businesses face ‘laser-focused’ cyberattacks as AI lowers entry barriers: Kaspersky warns of AI-powered ransomware groups targeting Singapore’s high-value enterprises, marking a shift toward precision-driven, scalable, and harder-to-detect cyberattacks.
Influencers, interactivity drive consumer response in Singapore: AnyMind: The survey of 1,255 consumers across the region has revealed that Singaporean audiences are significantly more responsive to influencer-driven content, video advertising, and in-game marketing than their regional counterparts.
ChatGPT, commerce, and cloud: How NetSuite sees the future of work and business: NetSuite’s Evan Goldberg and Amit Suxena share how AI-driven automation, conversational interfaces, and cloud integration are reshaping global business operations.
INTERNATIONAL
Altman at GITEX: The cost of intelligence will equal the cost of energy: The OpenAI co-founder predicts AI’s progress hinges on energy, urging national strategies as agents scale productivity and data centres become bottlenecks.
“Build bridges, not walls”: Inside the UAE’s Operating System for AI at scale: Golden/Green visas, MBZUAI, and data-driven public services position the UAE as a neutral hub for global founders--linking East, West, and real enterprise demand.
PayPay valuation could hit US$20B in US IPO: sources: SoftBank is preparing to list the Japanese payments app operator in a US IPO as early as December. PayPay leads Japan’s QR code payments market and recently began allowing users to make payments abroad.
MENA venture funding tops US$3B in 2025, surpasses SEA: According to a report, the total was raised across 469 deals, more than doubling year-on-year and already exceeding the region’s full-year 2024 tally. Q3 2025 marked MENA’s strongest quarter on record, with US$1.2 billion invested.
China’s EV sales hit record high as buyers seek tax breaks: EV sales reached a record 826,000 units in Sept., up 28.5% y-o-y. The previous monthly record was 762,000 in December 2024. The sales surge came as consumers rushed to benefit from tax breaks and subsidies set to expire at the end of the year.
Generative AI could lift global GDP: Broadcom CEO: Hock Tan told CNBC that knowledge-based and technology-intensive sectors now make up about 30% of the estimated US$110T global GDP, which could rise to 40% with the growth of generative AI.
Musk’s Boring Company plans to launch Dubai Loop by 2026: The first phase will include 17 kilometres of tunnels and could carry up to 20,000 passengers per hour. The project aims to ease congestion in the fast-growing city, which has also tested air taxi services from Joby Aviation and other firms.
Naver faces lawsuits over AI use of news content: Rep. Choi Soo-jin of the People Power Party said Korea’s three major broadcasters are seeking US$140,000 each from Naver and its affiliate Naver Cloud for using news articles without authorisation to train AI models.
ECHELON
From intelligence to impact: How AI is redefining trust, speed, and infrastructure in fintech: Panellists discussed the transition from digital to AI-native banks and highlighted how AI is transforming IT optimisation and credit decision-making while emphasising the importance of data integrity and sound risk controls.
Lift off: Building the space tech ecosystem in Southeast Asia: In this panel discussion at Echelon Singapore 2025, we learn that 80% of the entire space tech ecosystem is actually built on multiple sectors, business models, and uses cases.
SEMICONDUCTOR
Nvidia unveils its smallest desktop AI supercomputer: The company says the DGX Spark integrates its Grace Blackwell architecture with GPUs, CPUs, networking, and AI software, aiming to support advanced AI workloads locally. Nvidia reports the system delivers up to 1 petaflop of AI performance and 128GB of unified memory.
TSMC set to post record Q3 profit on AI chip boom: The Taiwanese semiconductor giant is expected to report a 28% rise in Q3 profit to a record US$13.6B, driven by strong demand for AI chips. The chipmaker, which supplies Nvidia and Apple, has already flagged a 30% jump in Q3 revenue, beating market forecasts.
US AI chipmaker Cerebras to expand AI infra in UAE, CEO says: The infrastructure will support the region’s growing AI sector and expand into markets in India and Pakistan. The company is targeting large-scale projects, including the Stargate UAE data centre initiative.
AI
AI still missing in action: Global firms lag in using tech for M&A and compliance: In response to market volatility and challenges, many organisations have adopted a more cautious and measured approach to M&A. Actions taken by respondents include delaying deals (49%) and enhancing due diligence processes (40%).
Beyond the code: Why AI literacy is the next great leadership skill for Southeast Asia: The AI black box is a ticking time bomb of unseen biases, a direct reflection of the data the AI was trained on. In a region as culturally, ethnically, and linguistically diverse as Southeast Asia, this can have disastrous consequences.
The executive’s guide to enterprise AI: Reading the organisational climate: AI has become a core executive priority as leaders adopt an “organisational climate” model to navigate pressure systems shaping transformation.
THOUGHT LEADERSHIP
The macro bet: Singapore is all-in on innovation (and what it means for businesses): The country’s Global Innovation Alliance Co-Innovation Programme is helping firms translate R&D into global pilots and cross-border growth.
Work from anywhere in Malaysia: How remote work and co-working spaces are thriving: The demand for co-working spaces is surging. In 2024, Common Ground expanded its portfolio by approximately 100K square feet across Kuala Lumpur. Similarly, WORQ achieved 100% occupancy at its Menara UOA Bangsar location a month before its official launch.
Gold soars, crypto bleeds: The fragile balance of a world on the brink of trade war: The current market downturn is not a simple correction but the result of a perfect storm. A geopolitical shockwave from a proposed 100% tariff has collided with a structurally over-leveraged crypto market, creating a feedback loop of forced liquidations and panic selling.
Why founder-founder fit matters more than funding in Southeast Asia: Structural and cultural contexts in SEA intensify founder conflicts. Corporate frameworks are still maturing, and governance mechanisms like shareholder agreements are often seen as optional, especially in earlier markets like Thailand.
How technology is addressing the manpower crunch in Singapore’s security sector: With technological tools, security officers can increase accuracy, productivity and efficiency using biometric readers, surveillance robots and smart access cards. Digital solutions can also alleviate headcount issues in the security industry.
Are retail malls dead? Time for big tech to disrupt landlords at their own game: E-commerce is new, shiny, and revolutionary. Physical marketplaces, on the other hand, has been around for centuries. With this, malls must disrupt thexmselves and meet evolving consumer demands and behaviours.
The post Ecosystem Roundup: Altman at GITEX: Intelligence cost = energy cost | Asia’s heat costs billions | Court rejects Gojek founder’s pretrial motion appeared first on e27.