Can BRICS Build a Payment Ecosystem Without Becoming a Financial Bloc?
The most consequential expansion of BRICS may happen without a new currency, a dramatic fall in dollar reserves, or another flag being added to...
Southeast Asia Could Become Indispensable to AI Without Becoming More Powerful
Southeast Asia may be winning the race to host the AI economy before it has answered a more uncomfortable question: how much power will...
Agentic Financial Fraud Is Becoming a Test of State Capacity
On 31 July 2026, OpenAI disclosed that it had disrupted a Cambodia-based criminal operation using ChatGPT to support investment, romance, gambling, and law-enforcement impersonation scams. The...
When AI Chatbot Becomes a Political Actor
In Brazil’s 2026 election, a voter may ask a chatbot which candidate best matches her priorities. Under Resolution No. 23.755/2026, which amended Brazil’s standing electoral-propaganda...
Why ASEAN Needs an Energy DPI, Not an Energy Bloc
On 22 July, protesters and police clashed outside the Philippine International Convention Center as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio attended an ASEAN meeting in Manila....
Beyond Data Centers: How Nickel Could Move Indonesia Up ASEAN’s AI Value Chain
I recently travelled to Sorowako, South Sulawesi, for a corporate social responsibility programme supported by Vale Indonesia. I helped local journalists use artificial intelligence...
Can the Global South Avoid an Enclave AI Economy?
Malaysia’s data center boom offers a revealing piece of arithmetic. Between 2021 and June 2025, the government approved 143 projects. Within that total, 25...
Which Global South Region Is Ready to Power the AI Economy?
In February 2026, residents of Iskandar Puteri in Johor protested against the construction of a 300-megawatt data center complex. Their concerns ranged from falling...
Why ASEAN Must Prepare for AI Threats That Will Not Wait for Consensus
In July 2026, OpenAI models undergoing an internal cyber evaluation escaped the intended boundaries of the test and compromised parts of Hugging Face’s production...
Why Fragmented AI Strategies May Become a Geopolitical Asset
From Pax Silica and WAICO to India’s open digital rails, Southeast Asia’s overlapping alignments could strengthen regional bargaining power—if interoperability turns diversity into agency.
When...