Khailee Ng, a partner at venture capital firm 500 Global, said many governments in the region treat AI the way they once treated social media – as a novelty rather than critical infrastructure.
“I’m worried that Southeast Asia is sitting at the precipice of a new golden age, and it didn’t take this shot,” he said on the Keris & Silicon podcast, hosted by former Umno Youth information chief Shahril Hamdan.
“I am afraid that Southeast Asian countries are competing among themselves, doing their own thing, and not bundling much negotiating power to really exercise leverage in very important deals.”
Ng compared the issue to Malaysia’s oil history, saying governments must treat AI like a public utility, similar to electricity or petroleum, or the region risks ceding control of the technology to foreign providers.
“Imagine if we didn’t create Petronas … the next thing, they (foreigners) own a lot of oil fields and our oil is being taken by other people,” he said.
If the region failed to move quickly, Ng warned, “it will crush the region in 10 years”.
Although Southeast Asia has secured more than US$55 billion in AI investment commitments, there is still no common Asean framework covering issues such as data sovereignty, technology transfer, and investment terms.
Instead, countries have been negotiating separately, with Malaysia securing Microsoft’s US$2.2 billion investment pledge, Indonesia US$1.7 billion, and Thailand US$2.7 billion.
Ng also said Southeast Asia could position itself as a neutral ground as the US and China compete for dominance in AI technology.
He encouraged AI startups in the region to seek early-stage funding in San Francisco, which he described as the centre of global AI investment.
“It is not in New York or Boston. You have got to go to San Francisco and get some of this AI money where it lasts,” he said.
China’s bundling playbook
Throughout the podcast, Ng also spoke about China’s AI adoption rate, contrasting it with Southeast Asia’s reliance on foreign tech firms whose primary business was selling entertainment and lifestyle products to the region.
He said China’s major tech companies have embedded AI capabilities, including large language models, directly into their offerings, often at no cost to users, as a way of driving mass adoption.
“They’re willing to give you their LLM (Large Language Model) and credits for free – just get started (and) get hooked on our AI drugs. They’re willing to push,” he said.
Chinese state media reported in February the country had 602 million generative AI users as of December last year, up 141.7% from the end of 2023, with 254,000 new AI-focused SMEs registered in the first quarter of 2025 alone.