What stays yours when you buy tech?

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In focus

• Chinese tech is easy to buy. Turning it into a scalable business is harder
• From our archives: Uncovering the elusive Chinese tech founders dominating SEA

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Hello reader,

A wedding organizer’s 20th event should be easier to run than their first. After 19 weddings, they already know what tends to go wrong, which vendors to keep an eye on, and where schedules usually fall apart.

They may still rely on outside caterers, florists, and photographers, but they carry what they’ve learned from one wedding into the next. There’s no need to solve the same problems from scratch every time.

AI and robotics companies face a similar challenge. Many Southeast Asian firms are increasingly relying on Chinese suppliers not only for AI models but also for machines and components.

Those technologies give them the building blocks, but the real test is whether each deployment makes the next one easier. The same lesson applies when they build on tech from Western suppliers.

In today’s featured story, guest writer Jun Yan points out that solutions developed for one customer should be reusable for others. If an engineering team solves a problem for a client, for example, that work should ideally reduce the time and effort needed to serve the next customer or market.

That poses an important question for founders in Southeast Asia: Does every new customer take less time and engineering work to get up and running?

If not, their 20th deployment may end up being just as difficult as their first.

Glenn Kaonang, journalist

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Top Story

As Chinese tech arrives in pieces, what should SEA firms own?

Singapore’s YY Group illustrates how one deployment could help improve the next.

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When AI adoption grows, does impact follow?

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From our archives

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Meet AI and startup leaders