Artificial intelligence (AI) could add close to US$1 trillion ($1.28 trillion) to Asean’s collective GDP by 2030, according to research by EDBI and Kearney. That economic promise is adding urgency to an infrastructure race already underway. Tech giants, including Microsoft, Google and Amazon Web Services, have each deepened their Southeast Asian commitments with multibillion-dollar plans as governments race to attract the cloud and data-centre capacity needed for the next wave of AI.