AI Diffusion in Southeast Asia
A deep dive on AI, policy, and Southeast Asia, and what it means for Smart Cities
It was a pleasure for SgSMUUI to participate in a stimulating workshop on “AI Developmental States”, in support of the research for the Microsoft AI Economy Institute (AIEI), a think tank dedicated to navigating the opportunities and challenges of the AI era, ensuring that AI’s benefits reach everyone, everywhere – hosted at Singapore Management University.
Prof Andrew Stokols, SMU Urban Institute's Urban Fellow (Urban Governance) from the SMU College of Integrative Studies, and part of AIEI's 2025 Fall cohort, framed AI development as intensely physical, needing “chips” and energy, but stressed that adoption hinges on whether companies use the cloud. He contrasted China's state-led "AI Plus" industrial clusters with Singapore's role as a soft-power governance hub, showing how each builds on unique policy histories.
The dialogue was deepened by insightful shares from two researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, pursuing PhDs at MIT DUSP and MIT Political Science respectively:
💡 Hung Vo presented findings from his fieldwork in Indonesia, exploring the intersection of datacentre growth and the country's energy transition.
💡 Jerik Cruz discussed computational social science approaches to analysing the global diffusion of digital and AI policies.
A lively, cross-disciplinary discussion followed, joined by Davinder Dhillon, ST Telemedia Global Data Centres, and Alok Prakash, Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research & Technology's M3S, covering topics from green energy financing to the local implementation of national AI strategies.
Our Director Prof Orlando Woods, Research Fellow Dr Prerona Das, and visiting PhD student Oskar Steiner also connected the themes to ongoing work on smart cities and urban governance.
Supporting these rich conversations between academia and industry is a key part of our mission – a big thanks to everyone who shared their expertise!
For more information about AIEI and the 2025 cohort, please see links below.
Education in the AI Economy: the AI Economy Institute’s 2025 Fall Cohort
Microsoft AI Economy Institute