Extract from View From Asia, fDi magazine, Financial Times, London, Feb 2018

Forrester reported that Asian enterprises are fast adopting AI to reinvent their business models and perceive AI as a complete disruptive force. Led by China (from 31% to 61%) and India (from 29% to 69%), the investment and adoption in Asia has jumped significantly between 2016 and 2017. Spending on AI systems in Asia, excluding Japan, is expected to reach $4.6bn in 2021, with a CAGR of 72.9% between 2016 and 2021, according to IDC .

What stands out among Asian enterprises is the heavy focus on strategic, longer-term objectives and high outcomes compared with other regions and global enterprises. These firms prioritise industry disruption and new product development higher than other regions and global enterprises. Internal investments are driven by the marketing, sales, and customer support areas that are developing cognitive products and engaging with customers through intelligent agents.

Government-backed AI is fuelling innovation in existing tech firms, startups and academic communities. On 1 February 2018, an India national AI programme was announced. Japan, Singapore and South Korea are following closely by expanding their existing technology industry strength in robotics electronics.

Universities are research resources for companies like Huawei, which recently invested $1 million with UC Berkley for AI R & D.

Beijing is planning to build a 13.8 billion yuan AI development park as China pushes ahead to fulfil its ambition to become a world leader in AI by 2025. The new AI park will focus on attracting enterprises that work on big data, biometric identification, deep learning and cloud computing.

The push towards AI has seen organisations in Southeast Asia embrace innovative AI applications such as chatbots and recommendation engines.

Still, challenges to wider adoption remain. There is uneven access to connectivity and a lack of skills and understanding of the technology. Digital infrastructure that can systematically collect and disseminate large quantities of data is not evenly distributed across the region’s 11 countries, with just over half of the region’s population using the internet.

Progress on open data remains slow around 7% of Asia datasets being open. Data remains fragmented across multiple silo systems. The skills shortage is also a formidable challenge to AI adoption. Universities need to do better with producing coders and graduates in computer and software engineering.

Governments continue to play a key role to further AI adoption in Asia. For example, regulations to accelerate open banking initiatives that can democratise access to data.

For now, Asia AI remains nascent.