China’s AI firms are going regional for compute power – and South-east Asia is cashing in

[HO CHI MINH CITY] Chinese firms are ramping up artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure leases across South-east Asia in a long-term push to globalise compute workloads as tighter US controls on Nvidia’s advanced chips drive demand to digital hubs such as Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia – and increasingly Vietnam and Thailand.

Industry sources note that Chinese hyperscalers such as Alibaba Cloud, Tencent and Huawei have also been steadily deepening their presence in South-east Asia through joint ventures (JVs) as they seek to sidestep geopolitical friction and secure scale.

Mickael Driol, chief executive at Mekong Partners, a Shanghai-based advisory firm specialising in corporate services, said: “We’re already seeing targeted capacity reservations by Chinese clients that stretch five to seven years into the future, particularly for AI-focused data centres in Malaysia and Indonesia.”