Business

Asia-Pacific’s newest crop of entrepreneurs are rapidly turning to artificial intelligence, with founders both launching new AI startups and spending more on AI tools. Spending on AI tools by founders rose 20% last year, according to an in-house study of over 37,000 regional SMEs by Aspire, a Singapore-based fintech firm.  “This signals a reallocation of capital towards efficiency,” Andrea Baronchelli,…

The United States is now paying nearly $970 billion a year just to service the interest on its $38.8 trillion national debt—a figure that has nearly tripled since 2020 and already exceeds what the federal government spends on national defense or Medicaid, according to a February analysis by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB). For many Americans, the…

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman isn’t worried about AI’s increasingly glaring resource consumption, and argued humans require a lot too.  In an on-stage interview at the India AI Impact summit, he went on the defensive after he was asked about ChatGPT’s water needs. He dismissed claims that the chatbot uses gallons of water per query as “completely untrue, totally insane,” according…

Bill Deng, CEO of China-based fintech platform XTransfer, thinks stablecoins can help finally digitize business-to-business transactions, often still stuck in a world of PDFs and emails.  Much of cross-border trade now operates around the clock. Ports, airports, and fulfillment centers work at all hours of the day. But “when it comes to money, there’s no 24/7 infrastructure,” Deng complained during…

The way we teach students, from classroom structures to teaching methods and standardized instruction, has not changed much over human history. Despite schools, colleges and mass education becoming more important for social cohesion and economic development than ever, teaching has stayed remarkably consistent even as other sectors and institutions have been transformed by computers and smartphones. But now it’s the…

A new artificial intelligence video generator from Beijing-based ByteDance, the creator of TikTok, is drawing the ire of Hollywood organizations that say Seedance 2.0 “blatantly” violates copyright and uses the likeness of actors and others without permission. Seedance 2.0, which is only available in China for now, lets users generate high-quality AI videos using simple text prompts. The tool quickly gained…

Victoria’s Secret is betting that the generation raised on body positivity—not “heroin chic”—is ready to reclaim its famously glittering runway. Younger shoppers seem unabashed in their love of the spectacle and sparkle, the glamour of the lingerie, notes CEO Hillary Super. Formerly CEO of Anthropologie and competitor Savage X Fenty, she joined the company in the fall of 2024 after…

Defense spending is “growing everywhere” says Thales International CEO Pascale Sourisse, amid a global boom in the arms industry spurred by geopolitical tensions.  Arms spending in 2024 reached an unprecedented $2.7 trillion in 2024, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, a conflict think tank. The same think tank estimated that the world’s top 100 defense companies raked in…

Palantir Technologies declared, “We are an n of 1” in the artificial intelligence software market on Monday, as the data analytics group reported yet another set of record quarterly results, sending its shares surging nearly 8% in late trading. Investors cheered a powerful combination of faster growth, fatter margins, and a revenue outlook “crushing consensus expectations,” prompting a sharp rebound in a…

Indonesia plans to establish a new state-owned enterprise (SOE) to rejuvenate its struggling textile and garment industry and shield it from fallout from U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs. The decision, announced on Jan. 14 by Airlangga Hartato, Indonesia’s coordinating minister for economic affairs, places the SOE under the control of Danantara, Indonesia’s sovereign wealth fund, which will pump up to…