Sarah Chew covers Southeast Asia’s technology, fintech, digital policy, and AI adoption landscape for RECATOOLS. Her work focuses on how regulation, platform shifts, and emerging technologies affect businesses, consumers, and digital markets across Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines.

129
Articles
ASEAN Tech
Primary beat
May 2026
Writing since
~915 min
Total reading
All 129 ASEAN Tech 71 Finance 51 Business 4 AI & ML 3

Articles Showing 11–20 of 129

A daytime view over Manila with high-rise towers above dense low-rise blocks
ASEAN Tech

The Philippines Froze Its Own Tech Budget to Summon Zuckerberg

Lawmakers deferred their own technology department's 2027 budget to force Meta to answer on child safety. The lever they reached for says a lot about the one they do not have.

18 Sep 2026 · 5 min read
Thai twenty-baht banknotes overlapping, the top note showing its denomination in Thai numerals
Finance

Thailand's VAT rate is legally 10%, and the 7% expires every year

The Revenue Code sets Thai VAT at 10% and always has. The 7% everyone pays lives in a royal decree with an expiry date — the current one runs to 30 September 2027 — and the story that the 1997 crisis caused the cut has it backwards.

18 Sep 2026 · 6 min read
Two call-centre workers in headsets at a shared wooden desk, one typing at a monitor
Finance

Philippine 13th month pay is a wage, and a Christmas bonus can count as it

Thirteenth month pay has been compulsory in the Philippines since 1975, but a December bonus worth at least a twelfth of basic salary satisfies the obligation — the rules define it as an equivalent. The ₱90,000 tax exemption is also shared with those other bonuses, not reserved for the thirteenth month.

18 Sep 2026 · 7 min read
Steel transmission towers under construction in an open field at dusk with work vehicles below
ASEAN Tech

Data Centres Took 4% of Peninsular Malaysia's Power; Moody's Sees 31% by 2035

Meeting that needs 14 to 17 gigawatts of new capacity at up to RM95 billion, while 13 gigawatts of existing plant expires over the same ten years.

18 Sep 2026 · 5 min read
People seated around a wooden table with notebooks, drinks and a laptop
ASEAN Tech

Plaud Bets S$20m That Singapore Can Teach Its AI to Code-Switch

A wearable recorder company put its regional base at Marina Bay because Singapore meetings change language mid-sentence, which is the hardest thing its product has to do.

17 Sep 2026 · 6 min read
A long supermarket receipt lying across packets and tins of groceries.
Finance

Singapore's core inflation leaves out a third of the price index

MAS Core Inflation drops accommodation and private transport, which together carry 35.6% of the 2024-based CPI. Most of that accommodation weight is rent that home owners never pay, which is MAS's argument for leaving it out — and the gap between the two measures has run in both directions.

17 Sep 2026 · 5 min read
A miniature shopping trolley resting on a stack of printed supermarket receipts
ASEAN Tech

OpenAI Is Funding an NTU Tool That Predicts What People Do With Handouts

Trained on a million people's actual spending records, not surveys. Half the grant is model credits, and the data is South Korean.

17 Sep 2026 · 5 min read
A concrete hydroelectric dam with spillway gates, set in a green river valley under low cloud.
ASEAN Tech

Firmus Wants A$7bn on the ASX, With OpenAI as Its Anchor Tenant

Seven claimed AI factories across Australia, Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia, 900MW contracted, and a valuation that four reports put at four different numbers.

16 Sep 2026 · 6 min read
Aerial view of Manila, with high-rise towers lining a brown river and dense low-rise housing spreading behind them.
ASEAN Tech

The Philippines May Make Its National ID the Age Check for Social Media

The statistics authority says PhilSys can confirm an age threshold without exposing a name. The privacy commission wants the check to return yes or no, and nothing else.

16 Sep 2026 · 6 min read
Jakarta's high-rise skyline at dusk, with office and residential towers under a pink and blue sky.
ASEAN Tech

Indonesia Says X Has No Office There, and May Make Platforms Open One

X had locked about 250,000 under-16 accounts against an estimated seven million. Indonesia's minister says platforms may be required to keep a representative office.

15 Sep 2026 · 5 min read
Editorial Policy →
Advertisement