For the past 10 years, we have been watching a race for the desired status of “Asian Silicon Valley”. With each passing year, the scenario becomes increasingly intense, competitive and fascinating for those in love with the technological world.
Similar to the United States’ technology hub, all of these emerging hubs share thirsty millennials, inspiring environments, and visionary investors.
Hand in hand with this evolution here are the 5 artificial intelligence companies in Asia: Sertis – Bangkok, Adatos.AI – Singapore, Dropdeck – Ho Chi Minh City, Kata.ai – Jakarta and Glueck Technologies – Kuala Lumpur.
Take a look at what they are doing!
Bangkok
Tuk-tuk noise, 78.0 per cent average humidity, and the constitutional monarchy regime don’t seem to scare startups that are sprouting in the Thai capital.
Some companies are taking advantage of Thailand developed infrastructures, low prices and less competitive economy as a gateway to neighbouring markets.
Startup Thailand 2019, Southeast Asia’s biggest tech conference, placed Bangkok on the map and proved how vibrant is the panorama.
Image credit: Sertis
Sertis is a leading data and AI innovation company, established in 2014 with the belief that data analysis based on fact is the ‘heart’ of strategic decision making in businesses.
They bring data science innovation to uncover valuable insights and solve complex business problems.
Moreover, they apply advanced data analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning to tackle difficult problems faced by businesses.
Singapore
The prematurity of the country makes it feel an entrepreneurial spirit at a national level. The city-state has been recognised as the most “technology-ready” nation by the World Economic Forum.
Long established as a financial centre, Singapore has become the leading startup hub in Southeast Asia thanks to a combination of ready capital, government policies and quality of life. The latter facilitates the capture of the best talent in each area.
Image credit: Adatos.AI
Adatos.AI is focused on building artificial intelligence solutions for satellite remote sensing in sectors including agriculture, forestry, food security and sustainability.
Since its set-up in 2016, Adatos has been leveraging Singapore’s strategic location to tap client and talent networks across the region.
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Combining AI and geospatial data they created an effective and inexpensive tool that enables agricultural producers to gain a deeper understanding of their farms and plantations and better monitor operational efficiency.
Ho Chi Minh City
The government through various investment incentives is trying to revamp the Vietnam economy that is still today based on agriculture.
Ho Chi Minh City has kicked off construction of an incubator for local tech startups inside the Saigon Hi-Tech Park, already home to tech giants such as Intel and Samsung.
Much of the tech startup activity in Vietnam centres on blockchain and cryptocurrency technologies.
One of the most promising startups is DropDeck. Their product is a decentralized, cross-border investment & lending platform for startups & SMEs.
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They are trying to combine AI and blockchain elements in one platform in an attempt to streamline venture investment & lending.
Jakarta
Located on the northwest coast of Java island, the Indonesian capital can sometimes not seems the easiest place to live or even to make business, infrastructures are a real problem and the traffic jam is scary. But the world’s fourth-largest population, of over 260 million people, 60 per cent of whom under 40, really excite investors.
Despite the lower internet penetration rate (50 per cent), other Southeast Asia countries cannot compete with the Indonesian market because they have smaller populations.
It is impossible not to notice in the acceptance of ride-hailing apps (Uber, Go-Jek, Grab), green motorbike helmets are everywhere and delivering everything, food, hail motorbikes, get the plumbing fixed, and pay for it via e-wallet.
Kata.ai is an Indonesian conversational Artificial Intelligence company focused on understanding human conversation to empower the way humans collaborate with technology. Kata.ai’s Natural Language Processing (NLP) technology powers multi-purpose chatbots for major corporations in Indonesia across different industries, including FMCG, Telecommunication, Banking & Financial Service, and Retail.
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Kuala Lumpur
In the Petronas Towers shadows, the scene is not less vibrant, unlike most countries, it was the Malaysian government that led the beginning of the digital transformation. The former prime minister, Najib Razak, used cloud tech in the public sector as the starting point for the digitalization strategy.
In 2017, the country launched the Digital Free Trade Zone (DFTZ) initiative for local small-medium enterprises to gain more access to global markets by lowering trade barriers. For that reason, Malaysia became also a good gateway for tech startups to expand their reach to the Southeast Asia market.
Glueck Technologies
This AI startup is focused on understanding human emotions. They built a product that uses AI, data analysis and a camera to measure shoppers emotions in real-time. The algorithm should understand the human emotional state, profiles, and responses to real-life stimuli.
Using this technology media and advertising companies can more efficiently target their campaigns, segment their costumers and get better results.
These successful startups will help drive the transition from an industrial and manufacturing-based economy to a service and technology-based urban society.
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But will these technology-based urban societies be less uneven?
The factors that make this region a golden opportunity are at the same time very socially worrying, if we observe, for example, that while many in these developing countries live in poverty, they still spend considerably on smartphones. Over 50 per cent of the population is under the age of 30, and 90 per cent of the subset has internet access.
In places where wifi has come much sooner than piped drinking water, we all hope that this set of tech startups will have a more positive impact than the big multinationals that have settled in the past.
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Image Credit: Brady Bellini
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