Tomiko Arthur Joins Gessner Wealth Strategies

A massive data breach that affected several airlines across Asia has underscored the need for industries in the region to revisit their reliance on third-party suppliers, analysts have said, warning that more critical infrastructure may soon be affected. Last week, a wave of airlines reported that customer information was accessed in a data security breach involving Spanish software provider Amadeus. Several of these breaches involved information found in booking details, including flight data,...

Chinese artificial intelligence models led by Moonshot AI’s Kimi family accounted for nearly nine-tenths of estimated global enterprise spending on open-source systems, according to a new study, even though proprietary US rivals continue to capture the vast majority of overall revenue. The report, released this week by Silicon Valley venture capital firm Menlo Ventures, said Chinese AI systems accounted for 89 per cent of global enterprise spending on open-source models. Kimi led with a 61 per...

A summit could bolster Xi Jinping’s stature. But talks about Ukraine’s future and limits on nuclear weapons pose uncomfortable choices for China.

Solana, one of the world’s largest blockchain networks, plans to expand in Hong Kong to tap the city’s growing demand for tokenisation, according to a senior executive. “I believe that the biggest opportunity for Solana is actually in [the Asia-Pacific region],” Solana Company chairman and CEO Joseph Chee said in an interview in Hong Kong earlier this week. Founded in the US in 2018, the company is behind one of the most popular cryptocurrencies. With a market capitalisation of about US$53...

A growing push among Indonesian lawmakers to investigate Vice-President Gibran Rakabuming Raka’s academic credentials is raising questions about the influence of his father, former leader Joko Widodo, as signs of a rift within the country’s ruling elite grow. The challenge comes from within President Prabowo Subianto’s own coalition, underscoring how the political alliance that helped propel him to power in 2024 may be unravelling, analysts have said. It also follows the arrest of a prominent...

China’s pure-play artificial intelligence chipmakers crossed an important milestone in the third quarter as several firms swung into profit, but severe supply chain hurdles and soaring memory costs cloud their long-term growth prospects. Domestic graphics processing unit (GPU) developers including Moore Threads, MetaX and Iluvatar CoreX are racing to fill the market void left by Nvidia, whose high-end processors face strict US export controls. These home-grown firms are competing fiercely to win...

Japan’s government on Friday compiled a package of emergency measures to address a spate of recent personal data breaches caused by unauthorised access, amid growing public concerns over cybersecurity. Among the measures are promoting the use of artificial intelligence to identify vulnerabilities in computer systems and creating several teams of highly skilled experts. The package was announced at a meeting of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and relevant ministers on Friday. Takaichi instructed...

China’s stocks pared weekly gains and the benchmark 10-year bond hit a record low as the global artificial intelligence (AI) stock bubble burst following the US Democrats’ landslide win in midterm elections. The CSI 300 equity index fell 1.4 per cent, weighed down by AI-related shares. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index dropped 1.3 per cent. The yield on China’s 10-year sovereign bond touched an intraday low of 1.58 per cent, according to Bloomberg, spurred by investor demand for safe-haven assets and...

Malaysia’s hope for a shift in US trade policy is unlikely to be realised for some time, experts warn, as the new Democratic-led Congress will face strong opposition from US President Donald Trump in its attempt to reverse some of his tariff measures. Trump’s Republicans suffered their worst rout in recent times in the US midterm elections on Tuesday, losing control of both Congress and the Senate by wide margins as voters made clear their anger at Trump over surging living costs caused by the...

Indonesia’s climate ambitions are being undermined by devastating wildfires that contradict its emissions-cutting strategy, casting a shadow over Jakarta’s push for a greener economy ahead of the 31st UN Climate Change Conference (Cop31). However, Environment Minister Jumhur Hidayat has doubled down, arguing that his country’s climate goals should not come at the expense of national development and that emissions reduction efforts must be fair. On Wednesday, he outlined six priority areas for...

A former Miss Thailand and well-known social activist was arrested on Friday alongside her husband, accused of siphoning off money from her charity to buy luxury homes as police examine an estimated 1 billion baht (US$30 million) in donations. Panadda “Boom” Wongphudee, 50, was detained at her Bangkok home early on Friday morning after the Criminal Court issued arrest warrants accusing the couple of public fraud and money laundering. Her husband, fitness influencer and businessman Atip...

The Democratic Party’s sweep of both houses of the US Congress could stabilise Washington’s commitment to the Philippines, bringing relief to allies rattled by President Donald Trump’s Iran war and his shifting foreign policy. Analysts expect bipartisan support for Manila to endure, with Democratic oversight set to rein in Trump’s unpredictability. But they warn that Washington could still turn inward to deal with domestic challenges, diverting attention from the Indo-Pacific. The rebuke of...