Asia Tech Podcast

Artificial intelligence is forcing humanity to confront what truly makes us valuable. As machines become more capable of performing tasks once reserved for human intelligence, the definition of talent is shifting away from knowledge and efficiency toward qualities like judgment, empathy, creativity, and ethical decision-making.In this episode of ATP, Jeevika Makani, Francis Pẽna, and Kristen Lim posit that while AI levels access to information, it ultimately widens the gap between people who use it to deepen thinking and those who accept generic outputs.Some of the topics they covered in detail included:There is no room for nostalgia about grunt work. Offloading drudgery is progress if we use the time to think, decide, and connect.AI Tools do not replace creativity; they raise the bar for originality.The new premium skills are stubbornly human. Empathy, ethics, and relationship-building do not compress to an AI prompt.Mainstream exposure to AI is barely two years old. As a community, we will build collective intuition for what AI is good at and where it fails.AI is democratizing product creation for SMEs and other small companies.

Across Southeast Asia, small and medium-sized enterprises are the driving force of economic growth, yet many still face obstacles when accessing financing, managing payments, and expanding beyond their home markets. Fintech innovation is reshaping this reality by bridging gaps through digital payment infrastructures, data-driven lending, and localized financial tools.In this episode of ATP, Chen Yu (Nicholas) Liao, CEO of Whalet, and Vikas Jain, Country Head (Thailand) at Funding Societies, argue that the region’s fragmentation, multiple currencies, regulations, and languages, makes regional trade complex and that the path forward is “global vision, local rails”.Some of the topics that Nicholas and Vikas covered in detail include:Cross-border revenue is the most resilient, highest-quality revenue an SME can earn. The difference between aspiration and execution is whether you meet customers where they already areIn fragmented markets like Southeast Asia, trust is the conversion rate. Every mismatch between what a customer expects and what your business actually offers is silent churn.Payments data is the new collateral. Alternative data collapses the time it takes to earn credit trust. The faster an SME can turn “sales” into “creditworthiness,” the faster it can inventory up, hire, and expand.Lending and payments are two sides of the same coin. If a payment platform can provide verifiable, permissioned sales data to a lending platform, you can unlock pre-approved, one-click offers at the moment of need.AI could now be the SME’s unfair advantage if they know how to use it well. AI narrows the talent gap and turns lean teams into leverage.

WEB3 gaming has experienced a turbulent journey, from the early excitement of play-to-earn models and scholarship programs to the realization that crypto speculation alone cannot sustain an industry. The promise of digital ownership drew millions into the space, offering real economic impact for players, particularly in Southeast Asia, during moments of global crisis.On this episode of ATP, Chin Yaul Yu, co-Founder and CEO at W3GG, explains, many studios tied their survival to token prices; when crypto fell, earnings collapsed, treasuries dried up, and hundreds of projects shut down. The core lesson: speculation can’t substitute for product-market fit.Some of the topics that Chin covered in detail:Axie Infinity felt like a paradigm shift and it brought institutional capital and mainstream attention. But much of the surge rode on speculation.WEB3 games correlate tightly with broader crypto markets.Most WEB3 games are hybrids: gameplay lives on centralized servers, while ownership and trading sit on chain. As agentic AI improves, detecting and deterring non-human participation becomes existential across the WEB3 gaming landscape.For W3GG, the goal is to export great games from Southeast Asia, cultivate communities where contribution earns recognition and rewards, and manage a robust digital-asset treasury aligned to gameplay.

Digital transformation is often associated with industries that are already forward looking and generally technologically savvy. However, its greatest impact may come in areas that have traditionally resisted change.Grassroots football and the global seafood trade may seem worlds apart, but both face similar challenges. ATP was joined by Tariq Cassim, co-Founder and CEO of Koach Hub and Scott Chambers, a co-CEO at Seafood Souq to discuss how transformation is not about shiny new tools. It is about rethinking how value and opportunity are distributed across ecosystems that involve millions of lives.Some of the topics that Tariq and Scott covered in detail include:Before you digitize anything, understand the size and scope of the system you are impacting.If digital transformation threatens established advantage, expect pushback. Plan for trust-building as carefully as you plan for features.Stakeholder transparency forces clarity. Once they can see the benefits, adoption accelerates.If you want to sell digital transformation, do not sell dashboards, sell value recovery.Immutability builds trust. When stakes are high, data and the reports they produce need to be trusted.

Wealth management is facing a critical inflection point. Legacy systems built decades ago still power many private banks, creating inefficiencies that slow down operations and frustrate clients. Manual processes like emailing PDFs and reconciling data across multiple custodians remain common, leading to errors and missed opportunities.In this episode of ATP, Olzhas Zhiyenkul, Founder of InvestBanq, contends that private banking runs on a fragile trio of Excel, PDFs, and eMail, because rebuilding the multi-layer “wealth stack” requires years of orchestration and leadership courage.Some of the important topics that Oz covered in detail included:The biggest impediment to digital transformation is not technology is disarmingly human: incentives and incumbency. It requires courageous leadership making multi-year investments,Wealth management is harder to digitize than payments because digitizing wealth is orchestration engineering and filled with unseen complexity.Over the next two decades, more than $100 trillion of wealth will shift to millennials and other digital natives. They want “software first, human second” service, with expert help available when it adds real value.Fragmentation is wealth management’s defining feature and is biggest opportunity.The “connect-everything” problem is the core digital wealth management product.

AI is evolving from static question-and-answer systems to dynamic agents capable of reasoning, learning, and making decisions in real time. These intelligent systems rely on vast amounts of data to function, but the real challenge lies not in building the AI itself, but in ensuring that the data feeding it is clean, accurate, and accessible.In this episode of ATP, Shanmuga Muniandy, Director of Architecture & Chief Evangelist, APAC at Denodo, argues that most AI failures are really data failures: stale copies, siloed systems, and patchwork security.Some of the topics that Shan covered in detail included:Agentic AI chains reasoning steps, maintains context, calls tools/APIs, and makes decisions toward a goal.To get accurate agent behavior, data must be complete, clean, contextual, and timely.Real-time decisions require live context, which requires real-time access to data.Business leaders should not need to hunt tables or beg IT for extracts. Self-service data unlocks velocity. It also gives agents stable, well-defined inputs aligned to outcomes.Ethics and regulation should be part of the architecture that drives Agentic AI.

Artificial intelligence and blockchain are no longer separate innovations. They are beginning to merge, creating systems that are both intelligent and trustworthy. AI brings automation, reasoning, and decision-making, while blockchain provides transparency, provenance, and security.On this episode of ATP, Qin En Looi⁠, a Partner at Onigiri Capital & Saison Capital and Ganesh Kompella, a Founding Partner at Tykhe Ventures, highlight that this moment is different because of a shift in mindset and infrastructure.Some of the topics Qin En and Ganesh covered in detail:Together, AI and blockchain unlock 'decentralized intelligence'.The AI and blockchain ecosystem has matured with stronger infrastructure, institutional adoption, and broad developer access.Clear, supportive regulation is shifting from hindering innovation to driving it.While core AI infrastructure may remain centered in the West, Asia’s talent and scale position it to lead in applied AI and blockchain use cases.DeFi will not replace traditional banks but will serve as their middleware, enabling faster, more transparent, and programmable financial services.

The global financial system is entering a period of profound change driven by the convergence of blockchain, artificial intelligence, and decentralized infrastructure. At the center of this transformation is tokenization, which converts real-world assets into programmable digital representations that can move seamlessly across modern, borderless rails.In this episode, Nikhil Joshi, Chief Operating Officer at EMURGO, explores how the convergence of blockchain, AI, and decentralized finance is reshaping global markets.Some of the topics Nikhil covered in detail:Anything can be tokenized, but not everything should be tokenized.Stablecoins are the bridge between traditional finance and decentralized finance.Agentic AI combined with programmable money can lead to automated treasury functionality.Institutional adoption is real, growing and nuanced.Interoperability is essential with payments and settlement rails first, then lending/borrowing, eventually hedging and structured products.

Karl Mohan, EVP Financial Services and GM International at Crypto.com, sheds light on how AI and asset tokenization are revolutionizing the financial landscape. He discusses the shift towards a machine-native financial system and emphasizes how blockchain can enhance transaction transparency. Karl highlights the role of stablecoins in providing services to the unbanked and calls attention to anchoring bias as a major hurdle for crypto adoption. He also explores the evolution of financial tech and the increasing importance of transparency in cross-border transactions.

As digital ecosystems grow more connected, APIs have become the core channels through which data flows, services interact, and innovation happens. But this shift has also introduced new risks.In this episode of ATP, Reuben Koh, Director, Security Strategy - Asia Pacific & Japan at Akamai Technologies, explains how essential APIs are to digital experiences.Some of the topics Reuben covered in detail include:In today's digital world, APIs are no longer behind-the-scenes components—they are mission-critical interfaces that power user experiences, connect systems, and move sensitive data at scale.Despite their proliferation, most organizations have shockingly poor awareness of their own API infrastructure.One of the most revealing insights from Reuben was the scale of API abuse, not just mere attacks. Abuse happens when APIs are used in ways for they were not intended, oftentimes creating malicious, unexpected consequences.In 2024, for the first time, Akamai saw more internet traffic generated by APIs than by humans. Bots now dominate the digital landscape, probing, testing, and exploiting vulnerable endpoints.The finance sector, unsurprisingly, remains the top target for web application and API attacks. Reuben share some shocking examples.