Singapore captures 82.5% of blockchain funding in Southeast Asia

• Chinese AI startup Moonshot has confidentially filed for an initial public offering (IPO) in Hong Kong, according to sources. • The company is currently valued at US$50 billion in an ongoing funding round and is seeking to raise US$3 billion through the offering.

• Chinese AI startup Moonshot AI has reportedly filed confidentially for an initial public offering (IPO) in Hong Kong. • The company is targeting a valuation of approximately US$3 billion, positioning it as one of the largest Chinese AI listings in recent years.

• Singapore has emerged as the dominant hub for blockchain investment in Southeast Asia, capturing 82.5% of the region's total funding. • While Singapore leads, the overall sector has seen a sharp decline in annual deal counts compared to the peak levels recorded in 2022.

• Dutch tech funding in H1 2026 was characterized by large later-stage rounds, with the semiconductor sector attracting the most capital and healthtech leading in overall deal activity. • Hospitality tech company Mews secured $300 million during this period to scale its AI-driven cloud-native operating system, which is currently used by over 15,000 properties worldwide.

• Google and Meta launched competing "workhorse" AI models, while Anthropic's Claude introduced background computer use and OpenAI implemented agent shutdown controls. • Security researchers Zack Korman and Nirit Weiss-Blatt criticized the Hugging Face review for treating a cybersecurity forensics failure as an alignment issue, citing a lack of focus on network logs and engineering accountability.

• A federal judge has ruled against forcing Google to sell its AdX advertising exchange, marking the third failed attempt by regulators to break up a Big Tech company. • Instead of a divestiture, the court has ordered Google to implement behavioral fixes to address antitrust concerns regarding its ad tech dominance.

• Tech stocks, including Tesla, surged on Thursday due to easing rate-hike concerns. • Nvidia acquired Hugging Face, with CEO Jensen Huang highlighting the benefits of open models for safety, innovation, and sovereignty.

• Abliteration.ai is launching a business focused on making AI models without safety guardrails more accessible to the public. • The service utilizes "abliteration," a long-standing open-source technique used to remove refusal mechanisms from open-weight models, many of which are already hosted on Hugging Face.

• On September 3, 2026, Boston-based healthtech startup Elucid raised $55 million in a Series D round led by IAG Capital Partners and Elevage Medical Technologies, bringing its total funding to approximately $185 million. • Tel Aviv-based cybersecurity firm Guardio (formerly Castle) secured $40 million in new funding, pushing its post-money valuation to roughly $1.1 billion.

• September 2026 reports on open source AI highlight how founders can utilize portable open models to reduce operational costs, enhance data protection, and increase workflow control. • Key security recommendations include implementing default permission limits, isolating test environments, rotating credentials, and requiring human approval for external tool actions.

• The Sui Foundation has launched a $10 million ecosystem fund specifically targeting developers building decentralized AI infrastructure and DeFi-native protocols. • The initiative aims to attract more builders to the Sui ecosystem by leveraging its high-throughput blockchain and Move-based programming language.