At the China-Asean Business Leaders Summit 2026 on Monday (Sep 21), panellists said South-east Asia is uniquely positioned, geopolitically and demographically, to benefit from artificial intelligence growth, citing a large young population and massive growth potential. Serena Yang, deputy chief executive officer of CGI, said the region attracted over US$55 billion in committed investment in AI infrastructure over the past one year, with data-centre capacity doubling within twelve months in Johor, and a population of nearly 700 million with an average age of under 30. Jeff Shi, Asia-Pacific president of SenseTime, said Asean can choose between US and Chinese AI technologies. Terence Koh of UOB described a five-layer AI ecosystem: energy, chips, infrastructure, models and applications, noting manufacturers entering Asean under the China +1 strategy seek structured trade financing to buy chips from Nvidia and Broadcom. Maple Xu of UniDT said growth opportunities come from computing power and industrial AI, with China focusing on foundation models and Asean on applications. Chris Li of Neolix noted the importance of supportive regulatory environments for AI adoption.