🧋 Hello human and artificial friends,

The German Economics Ministry apparently read our last issue and thought: time to launch the AI investment rocket. 🚀

The result: 18 billion EUR allocated in the current legislative period for six high-tech industries. That translates into about 3 billion EUR for AI over the next four years.

For comparison, Samsung plans to invest 310 billion USD in AI over the next 5 years.

🍺 Well then, cheers to Germany!

Asia is where AI moves fastest. New products, new habits, new ways of using tech show up every week. Most disappear, but some quietly change how people shop, learn, travel, or create. We pick those ideas so you can study them and build your own version.

Today’s idea

Asia is where AI moves fastest. New products, new habits, and new ways of using tech show up every week. Most disappear, but some quietly change how people shop, learn, travel, or create. We pick those ideas so you can study them and build your own version.

Today’s idea

Jack Ma and his team did it again.

Ant Financial, the daughter of Alipay, is rolling out one of the most practical ideas in corporate tech today: a digital helper that takes over the financial work most small teams never touch.

Their merchant platform Antom is already huge across Asia, powering payments for millions of cafés, online shops, and cross-border sellers.

It is basically Shopify + Stripe + a junior finance team in one app. Now they’ve added something new on top of it.

✅ It fixes the tasks everyone ignores: Half the world’s small merchants ignore chargebacks. Copilot reads the case, drafts the answer, adds the evidence, and shows the win-rate estimate. The merchant only reviews and clicks submit.

✅ It sits where the action is: There is no new app to learn. The assistant appears right next to the payment list, the refunds, and the buttons people already use. Answers appear in the same place where the decision happens.

✅ It uses the “big company” rails: Ant International works with the Central Bank of Singapore on tokenised settlement and FX forecasting. Copilot rides on top of these rails, so the tools feel mature and reliable instead of experimental.

Small businesses do not need “AI transformation”. They need someone to handle the annoying financial chores so they can get back to work.
If you build tools that do this inside the systems they already open every day, you are already one important step ahead.

🧮 DBS and the AI money printer: DBS expects more than 1 billion Singapore dollars in AI-driven revenue this year, up from 750 million in 2024. With over 370 active use cases and 1,500+ models across advisory and digital banking, the bank is seeing measurable productivity gains that set it apart from peers still waiting for returns on their AI investments.

🤝 Giving the “credit invisible” a digital face: At Singapore FinTech Festival, FinVolution VP Lei Chen outlined how AI-driven credit models using alternative data such as utility bills or supplier payments can expand fair access to financing in emerging markets. By applying federated learning and advanced deepfake detection while testing agentic AI in customer service, FinVolution says it can strengthen digital-lending trust without centralizing sensitive borrower data.

🛡️ Anthropic allegedly attacked by Chinese hacker group: Anthropic uncovered and shut down a largely automated hacking campaign that used AI agents to coordinate attacks on about 30 global targets. The operation, allegedly linked to China, showed how AI can scale cyberattacks by speeding reconnaissance and bypassing security layers. Anthropic warns that agentic AI in the wrong hands could make sophisticated cyber operations accessible even to small groups.

We are unapologetic foodies and Shanghai is the right place for us. You could try a new spot twice a day and still not be done after a year. That sits right next to the asiabits vision as one of our North Stars for sure.

Now the city is raising the stakes:

By 2028, Shanghai wants to become the leading hub for “smart restaurants.” The new Action Plan for the Intelligent Modernization of the Catering Industry (2026–2028) focuses on automated kitchens, robot service, data-driven menus, smart central kitchens, and “AI + Dining” pilots.

🍜 In group dining, fast food as well as coffee and tea chains, over 70% of outlets should use smart technology in day-to-day operations.

🍣 In full-service restaurants, at least 50% of core processes should run digitally or be AI-assisted.

🍤 Over 60% of foodservice supply chains should be digitally monitored and controlled, including temperature logs, traceability, and inventory planning.

👀 Watch: Providers of robotics, vision AI, kitchen operating systems, and sensors are being actively supported. Anyone who delivers practical technology, clear SOPs, and measurable payback periods gets a seat at the table for the pilot projects.

That is the performance jump a new Chinese chip could achieve compared to normal computer hardware.

📡 Wuzhen World Internet Conference
China presented a new quantum chip that works with light instead of electricity. It was developed by CHIPX and Turing Quantum. Because light moves incredibly fast, the chip can solve certain computing tasks up to a thousand times faster than today’s graphics processors.

⚙️ How it works
The chip combines tiny light channels and normal electronics in one single piece of hardware. This allows it to process data almost instantly. It is already being used in aerospace, medicine and finance.

🔎 Why it matters
The technology is an important step because light and electronics work together directly on the same chip. If this can be scaled up, it could change the global AI infrastructure and take over many tasks that are currently done by classical GPUs.

🧶 Napkin AI generates relevant visuals based on text and allows users to pick and edit them.

📝 BoomCut is an AI platform for video localization, offering video translation, face swap, voice clone, and subtitle erasure for global marketing.

📱 GemDesign is a prototyping tool that turns prompts or sketches into editable, high-fidelity web and mobile interfaces with one-click interactive prototypes.

🚗 Japan’s Turing Inc. just locked in a ¥15.3B (~$100M) round: the self-driving startup, now valued at $388M and backed by Toyota supplier Denso, is building autonomous driving tech at the heart of Japan’s fast-heating AI mobility scene.

🧠 Sakana AI just became Japan’s top unicorn: The startup is building next-gen foundation models. Its latest round values the Tokyo model-maker at ¥400B (~$2.63B), making it the country’s most valuable unlisted startup.

🍜 Malaysia’s FeedMe just cooked up a US$5M round: the restaurant software platform serving 11,000+ merchants will use the cash to push into Thailand, beef up its AI-powered tools, and roll out payments and lending as it builds the “operating system” for F&B in Southeast Asia.

✅ Automate your precision cooking with this AI-ready kitchen scale.*
✅ Learn from MIT how GenAI detects objects.
✅ Generate visuals based on text with Napkin AI.
✅ Watch this Youtuber’s take on a potential AI bubble.
✅ Try this AI mockup creator.

_{*Yes, it’s an affiliate link. No, you won’t pay more. But it helps support asiabits. Thanks :)}

🌏 United Nations Development Program: Junior Professional Officer, APAC
🌏 Grab: Fresh Graduate Roles, Southeast Asia (Southeast Asia)
🌏 Shopee: Global Leader Program (GLP) (Southeast Asia)
🌏 Huawei: Graduate Recruitment Program (APAC)
🌏 Samsung: Global Trainee Program (APAC)
🌏 Toyota: Graduate/Entry-Level Positions (APAC)
🌏 Standard Chartered Bank: International Graduate Programme (APAC)
🌏 L'Oréal: Management Trainee Program (APAC)
🌏 UNICEF: Young Professionals Programme (YPP)(APAC)
🌏 KPMG: Graduate Programme (APAC)

While many artists are not happy with recent AI development (which is understandable), we love this animated oil painting inspired by Van Gogh.