Asian stocks fall as tech jitters deepen ahead of Nvidia earnings By Investing.com

• Southeast Asia's data center investment is projected to more than double to $35.08 billion by 2031, according to research from Arizton. • Malaysia is emerging as a regional leader with a 6GW pipeline, supported by construction costs of $8m to $10m per megawatt and aggressive tax incentives.

• FinTech Futures highlighted the top five AI in fintech stories from August 2026, focusing on significant industry shifts. • A key highlight involves OpenRouter, which has seen a substantial increase in valuation since its $113 million Series B funding round in May.

• Moody's Analytics reported on Tuesday that the artificial intelligence boom is helping the Asia-Pacific region avoid a more severe economic slowdown. • Developed Asian economies are bucking the general trend, with Taiwan and South Korea expected to see accelerated growth driven by AI.

• Vietnam is experiencing a surge in large-scale data center investments driven by the accelerating demand for AI, cloud computing, and the broader data economy. • Current installed capacity of approximately 104MW is projected to grow five-to-six-fold, reaching nearly 600MW by 2030.

• Data centre values in the Asia Pacific region are projected to exceed USD $950 billion, driven by surging AI demand and power constraints. • Colocation revenue is expected to top USD $66 billion by 2030, with approximately 7.8 gigawatts of future capacity already secured across the region.

• Companies across the Asia-Pacific region are increasing their investments in artificial intelligence to keep pace with rapid adoption. • Executives are facing significant pressure to transition from experimental AI use to achieving measurable business gains within the next year.

• Southeast Asia's data center investment is projected to grow from $15.72 billion in 2025 to $35.08 billion by 2031, according to a report by Arizton. • The market is expanding at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14.32%, supported by 306 currently operational facilities across nine countries.

• Chinese AI firms, including DeepSeek, Moonshot AI, and Z.ai, are now providing consistent competition to leading AI models from the US and EU at the enterprise level. • The rise is driven by the technical capabilities and financial appeal of these models, challenging the previous dominance of Western AI ecosystems.

• XPeng’s robotics unit secured over $900 million in its first external financing round on August 24, 2026. • The funding round valued the robotics division at more than $6 billion, marking it as the defining transaction of the period.

• Brian Chau, founder of the startup Effort News, is utilizing AI to automate complex investigative journalism tasks. • Chau demonstrated the tool's capability by using AI to cross-reference donors of the Swiss Philanthropy Foundation with P4NE financials to uncover hidden donation rows.

• The National League of Cities has partnered with CyberAlliance to provide local governments with an AI-powered platform for cybersecurity risk assessments and guidance. • This initiative comes as cybersecurity incidents among municipalities surged by 42% in 2025, leading state CIOs to express concern over the safety of critical public-sector data.