According to EY’s latest financial services M&A analysis, merger and acquisition activity in Southeast Asia remained resilient during the first half of 2026. A total of 31 disclosed transactions was recorded, matching the volume seen in the prior year, even though the aggregate disclosed value fell to US$936 million, down from US$1.6 billion in H1 2025.

The wealth and asset management sector was the standout performer, with deal volume nearly tripling to eight transactions from three in the previous year. Disclosed deal value surged to US$145 million, up dramatically from just US$800,000 a year earlier, driven by robust demand from the region’s rapidly expanding affluent demographic across Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Thailand.

While banking and capital markets remained the largest segment by total value, the space cooled to 14 deals worth a combined US$669 million, down from 20 transactions worth US$1.1 billion in the prior year. Increased regulatory hurdles and the complexity of legacy systems have slowed down large-scale, full-scale acquisitions.

The insurance sector recorded nine deals, up from eight, though overall value declined to US$123 million from US$478 million. Foreign buyers became more selective, executing five deals compared to seven previously, but committed larger average transaction sizes—totaling US$410 million versus US$344 million in the prior period. This suggests that international appetite for Southeast Asian financial assets remains strong despite near-term market caution. EY anticipates that larger transactions will resume in the second half of 2026 should financing conditions improve.

REGIONAL

Malaysia remains Grab’s top revenue market, generating US$622 million in H1 2026. The ride-hailing and delivery giant secured more revenue from Malaysia than from any other market during the first half of the year, highlighting the country’s central role in the company’s regional recovery strategy.

ZUS Coffee eyes IPO to raise at least US$245 million. The popular Malaysian coffee chain is exploring a public listing that could yield a valuation significantly higher than its last private funding round, reflecting a resurgence of investor interest in Southeast Asian consumer brands.

VinFast and Gowa Motor plan 30 new EV showrooms in Indonesia. The Vietnamese electric vehicle manufacturer is establishing a joint venture with Indonesia’s Gowa Motor to accelerate its regional footprint, facing mounting competition from Chinese EV makers.

Vietnam and Singapore partner to digitise cross-border letter of credit verification. Technology firms from both nations are collaborating to automate the LC verification process, aiming to replace paper-based, manual systems with streamlined digital workflows.

Malaysia’s sovereign AI bet: Local context is the new startup moat
Under the AI Nation 2030 initiative, Malaysia aims to transition from a passive consumer of artificial intelligence to a developer of homegrown solutions. The strategy bets that models trained on local context and fluent in Bahasa Melayu will outperform generic global platforms in specialized domestic applications.

Malaysia maps an inclusive AI future for farmers and small shops
Malaysia’s National AI Action Plan is designed to provide 1.5 million micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and smallholders with scalable access to AI tools. The initiative targets a reduction of up to 70% in manual labor within palm oil operations by utilizing shared platforms and vetted datasets.

Deepgram establishes APAC base in Singapore for multilingual Voice AI
Deepgram is setting up its Asia Pacific headquarters in Singapore, supported by a strategic investment from EDBI. The move follows a 96% year-on-year surge in API requests across more than 20 markets in the region.

INTERVIEWS & FEATURES

It’s not just tariffs: Why Chinese capital is flowing into ASEAN
In an interview with e27, KPMG’s Lisa Li explains that Chinese investment in Southeast Asia is increasingly driven by access to local consumption, cheaper land, and labor. Private Chinese firms are now outpacing state-owned enterprises, looking beyond simple tariff avoidance to establish deep regional operations.

Datakrew’s Hyundai pilot tackles the EV battery forecasting problem
Singapore-based Datakrew concluded a year-long collaboration with Hyundai CRADLE and GetGo, analyzing 3.6 billion data points from 70 electric vehicles. The study successfully forecasted battery health months in advance, achieving a prediction error margin of under 3%.

Four lessons from GITEX Global: What Dubai’s AI playbook means for SEA
Key takeaways from GITEX Global, featuring Sam Altman and UAE Minister Omar Sultan Al Olama, highlight that talent—not capital—is the primary bottleneck for AI development. Additionally, energy supply constraints are emerging as the next major challenge for scaling AI systems.

INTERNATIONAL

Anthropic’s annualised revenue surges to US$6.5 billion. The AI safety startup has witnessed explosive commercial adoption, with its annualized revenue run rate climbing rapidly as global enterprise demand for its Claude model intensifies, placing significant competitive pressure on OpenAI.

Uber and Pony.ai plan to deploy 2,000 robotaxis across Europe. The ride-hailing giant is set to expand its autonomous vehicle footprint into European markets through a partnership with Chinese AV firm Pony.ai, a development that could significantly alter Uber’s long-term operational model.

SoftBank invests US$200 million in construction robotics firm Gravis. The Japanese conglomerate’s latest investment targets automation in the construction sector, an industry ripe for technological disruption due to severe global labor shortages.

Groq valued at US$3.5 billion after fresh funding round. The AI chip inference startup secured a new round of funding following its strategic partnership with Nvidia, with investors wagering that its speed advantages over traditional GPU-based architectures will hold up as large language model demand scales.

Wispr raises US$280 million at a US$2 billion valuation. The voice AI startup is expanding its scope beyond speech-to-text into broader agentic applications, securing significant new capital at a unicorn valuation to fuel its growth.

SpaceX officially closes its acquisition of Cursor. The transaction confirms that Elon Musk’s aerospace company is expanding its capabilities into developer tools, integrating Cursor’s AI coding platform into its diverse technology portfolio.

Uber integrates Zipline drones into its Eats delivery network. Zipline’s autonomous aerial drones will now fulfill food delivery orders via Uber Eats, marking a significant milestone in the commercial scaling of drone logistics.

YouTube to count views starting from the first second of playback. The platform’s updated view-counting policy is set to impact creator metrics and advertising measurements, with downstream effects on how brands distribute digital advertising spend.

Meta faces trial over social media addiction claims. Facebook and Instagram are currently facing legal scrutiny in a landmark US trial that could establish a precedent for tech platform liability regarding user well-being and algorithmic design.

AI automation startup Relay shuts down, with staff joining Google Chrome. Despite early market traction, Relay was unable to survive in an increasingly crowded agentic AI landscape, resulting in its core team being acqui-hired into Google’s browser division.

SEMICONDUCTOR

Nvidia invests US$1.5 billion in SoftBank’s data centre unit behind OpenAI project. The leading chipmaker’s strategic stake in SoftBank’s data center developer strengthens its position across the AI infrastructure supply chain, reflecting a growing alignment between two of the tech industry’s most influential giants.

NXP breaks ground on expanded Malaysia factory at 900,000 square feet. The Dutch chipmaker’s facility expansion underscores sustained foreign investment in Malaysia’s semiconductor manufacturing sector, reinforcing the nation’s critical role in global chip supply chains.

AI demand lifts Malaysia’s chip sector, but not every player wins
According to HSBC research, Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam are primary beneficiaries of the AI infrastructure boom. However, semiconductor companies lacking direct exposure to AI applications are facing rising memory-chip costs that are squeezing profit margins instead.

CYBERSECURITY

Apple users hit by spyware alerts in unprecedented numbers. Security researchers are reporting an unprecedented surge in spyware notifications sent to Apple users worldwide, raising critical questions about the scale, sophistication, and origin of the targeting campaign.

AI

Agentic AI adoption doubles to 51% among Singapore firms. A ServiceNow survey reveals that more than half of Singapore businesses have deployed agentic AI, marking the sharpest year-on-year increase recorded and outpacing adoption rates in most comparable global economies.

Alipay launches agentic commerce platform for Chinese merchants. The payments giant is equipping merchants with AI-powered tools to automate customer interactions and transactions, a strategic move that could influence how Southeast Asian super-apps evolve their merchant ecosystems.

Anthropic CEO frames AI backlash as a trust crisis. Dario Amodei argues that public resistance to AI is rooted not in the technology itself, but in institutional credibility. He calls on the industry to prioritize transparency and trust-building over flashy capability announcements.

Zuckerberg’s AI vision fails to convince sceptics. Analysts and industry observers remain skeptical of Meta’s AI roadmap, questioning whether its open-source strategy and consumer AI product developments can deliver the financial returns the market expects.

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

SEA solved distribution: Now fintech must scale on the balance sheet
Fathhi Mohamed argues that Southeast Asia’s public payment rails have transformed fintech into a utility business. In this environment, securing cheap, sticky deposits is becoming more critical to growth than chasing another million app downloads.

Not every cheque keeps every door open for SEA founders
Surabhi Pandey writes that modern funding rounds carry a geopolitical footprint. She urges founders to conduct rigorous due diligence on their investors, mirroring the scrutiny investors apply to them, to protect long-term strategic optionality.

AI won’t just automate tasks, it will repackage responsibilities
Daniel Tan argues that the fundamental shift is not simple task automation, but the redesign of recurring responsibilities into reviewable, delegable systems. This changes how individual contributors must conceptualize ownership and execution.

Your AI isn’t producing bad creative, your brief is
Aleks Farseev points to WARC research indicating that while 88% of marketers produce more creative assets with AI, only 45% observe a genuine lift in quality. He attributes this gap to stale, demographic-only briefing processes.

Why Southeast Asia doesn’t need to pick a side in the AI race
Jan Alvin Pabellon argues that the region’s strategic advantage lies in bridging rival tech ecosystems rather than choosing sides. Instead of competing on raw model scale, Southeast Asia should focus on building trust and governance infrastructure.

AI is not the advantage, build what competitors cannot copy
Christopher Jackson urges Southeast Asian SMEs to protect their core know-how through trade secrets or patents. He warns that relying solely for AI-generated polish makes businesses vulnerable, as competitors can replicate those tactics just as quickly.

Strategic chokepoints: Designing leverage without owning everything
Niharika Ray argues that durable market power comes from occupying positions where critical uncertainty must be resolved—such as trust, compliance, and settlement—rather than attempting to own the entire value chain.

Social intrapreneurs can change the world too
Dr. Erwin Chan writes that driving entrepreneurial change inside an established organization does not require leaving to found a startup. Instead, it requires the discipline to pilot a scoped, high-impact idea using existing organizational budgets and headcount.

The US$46,300 question: How low can Bitcoin go before buyers return
Anndy Lian highlights that Bitcoin’s Coinbase premium has remained negative for 90 consecutive days, as capital is diverted toward AI infrastructure spending. A bear pennant pattern points toward a potential support level of US$46,300.

Despite the rally, the CMC Fear and Greed Index stays at 39
Anndy Lian observes that despite Bitcoin’s 2.23% surge to US$64,300 and a more accommodative Federal Reserve rate outlook, market sentiment has not shifted. The index remains locked in fear territory at 39, signaling lingering investor caution despite bullish price action.

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