Malaysia accounts for more than half of under-construction data center capacity among Southeast Asian countries, including Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam.

The industry will need to move urgently, analysts and industry executives said, as United States President Donald Trump's regulators promote deeper integration of digital assets into the financial system, raising the stakes for an industry with a history of big hacks.

Some said it could be the biggest-ever cyberattack of its kind, with a haul exceeding the $1.5 billion stolen in February 2025 from the Bybit platform.

Closing digital gaps matters as ASEAN prepares to sign the Digital Economy Framework Agreement (DEFA) in November 2026, following the conclusion of negotiations.

Launched by Sinar Mas Land’s sector-agnostic corporate venture capital firm Living Lab Ventures, Innolab aims to help global companies build tangible and sustainable business opportunities in the Indonesian market.

A steep rout in technology stocks on Friday rippled through markets on fears that the Democrats' victory in the United States midterm elections would increase regulatory scrutiny of AI and slow the data centre build-out, sending investors to the safety of bonds.

The Nasdaq Composite fell 5.5 percent on investor fears that the Democratic Party's sweeping midterm victory could stall AI infrastructure expansion and force a reckoning for smaller firms whose capacity to raise funds has already been limited by higher interest rates and tighter financial conditions.

Asia's tech-heavy markets sank on Friday as fear of increased regulatory scrutiny and a slowdown in AI build-out unleashed the steepest fall in US stocks since the tariff-triggered "Liberation Day" rout a year and a half ago.