Analyse Asia with Bernard Leong

"In the context of where Confluent can play a critical part, it's also the interoperable integration with all the respective AI ecosystems. If you think about what AI is doing, it's working across microservices, working across data lakehouses, databases - could be a different endpoint service. Bringing all that together in a secure and consistent manner, constantly serving that information, is where I think it plays the most pivotal role." - Kamal Brar Fresh out of the studio, Kamal Brar, Senior Vice President of Worldwide ISV and Asia Pacific/Middle East at Confluent, joins us to explore how data streaming platforms are becoming the critical foundation for enterprise AI across the regions. He shares his career journey from Oracle to Confluent, reflecting on his passion for open source technologies and how the LAMP stack era shaped his understanding of real-time data challenges. Kamal explains Confluent's evolution from the category creator of Kafka to a comprehensive data streaming platform combining Kafka, Flink, and Iceberg, emphasizing how real-time data infrastructure enables businesses to harness both public AI models and proprietary enterprise data while maintaining governance and security. He highlights compelling customer stories from India's National Payments Corporation processing billions of UPI transactions daily to healthcare AI applications serving patient needs, showcasing how data streaming solves fragmentation challenges that plague 89% of enterprises attempting AI adoption. Addressing implementation hurdles, he stresses that data infrastructure is the most critical piece for AI success, advocating for standards-based interoperability through Kafka's protocol and Confluent's extensive connector ecosystem to unlock siloed legacy systems. Closing the conversation, Kamal shares his vision for Asia Pacific becoming Confluent's largest growth region, powered by massive-scale innovations in payments, mobile transformation, and AI on the edge for autonomous vehicles and next-generation interfaces. Episode Highlights: [00:00] Quote of the Day by Kamal Brar [01:00] Kamal's Career journey from computing to open source [04:00] Attraction to data streaming and Kafka ecosystem [07:00] Confluent's mission: data streaming platform leadership [10:00] Why data streaming is critical for AI [13:00] Report findings: 89% eager to adopt DSP [14:00] Data fragmentation remains biggest enterprise challenge [17:00] Real-time visibility becomes competitive differentiator [20:00] AI-enabled applications transforming enterprise stack [24:00] India payments: Kafka powers UPI infrastructure [27:00] Data governance and security in AI [33:00] Data infrastructure: foundation for scalable AI [35:00] Connectors enable seamless system interoperability [38:00] Interoperability unlocks fragmented enterprise data [39:00] Asia Pacific driving aggressive regional growth [42:00] What does great look like for Confluent [44:00] Closing Profile: Kamal Brar, Senior Vice President WW ISV [Independent Software Vendor] & Asia Pacific/Middle East, Confluent https://www.confluent.io https://www.linkedin.com/in/kamalbrar Podcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the show. The proper credits for the intro and end music are "Energetic Sports Drive." G. Thomas Craig mixed and edited the episode in both video and audio format. Here are the links to watch or listen to our podcast: Analyse Asia Main Site: https://analyse.asia Analyse Asia Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1kkRwzRZa4JCICr2vm0vGl Analyse Asia Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/analyse-asia-with-bernard-leong/id914868245 Analyse Asia LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/analyse-asia/ Analyse Asia X (formerly known as Twitter): https://twitter.com/analyseasia Sign Up for Our This Week in Asia Newsletter: https://www.analyse.asia/#/portal/signup Subscribe Newsletter on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7149559878934540288

“I think this is a sort of coming-of-age moment. When I say coming of age, I mean collectively for Chinese entrepreneurs. Many of these founders are my age, or even younger, and I’ve spoken with some of them. I can really relate to why they want to build businesses that target the global market instead of just China. In the past, you could build a company in China first and then think about expanding outward. That’s no longer possible. For any consumer-facing software company today, from day one you must decide: Do I build for China, or do I build for Global minus China? The examples of TikTok, Shein, and many others show that you cannot do both. It’s not possible to serve both markets at once.” - Jing Yang Fresh out of the studio, Jing Yang, the Asia Bureau Chief from The Information, shares her insights on ByteDance's pivotal moment, China's venture capital challenges, and the emerging U.S.-China competition in AI and robotics. Starting with ByteDance's latest financials, she revealed how the company now exceeds Meta in revenue but still lags significantly in profit margins, with its domestic business—Douyin and Toutiao—continuing to drive the lion's share of profits while TikTok remains unprofitable. Jing Yang explains how founder Zhang Yiming has entered "founder mode," dramatically increasing CapEx spending on AI development while ByteDance mysteriously went quiet on the AI leaderboard despite earlier dominance. Moving to venture capital, she unpacks why HongShan Capital has only deployed a quarter of its $9 billion fund raised in 2022, citing the collapse of exit opportunities, new overseas listing regulations from Chinese regulators, and the disappearance of big-ticket growth deals. She then explores the new wave of Chinese AI startups targeting global markets from day one, explaining how censorship and geopolitics force founders to choose between building for China or building for the world—they cannot do both. Finally, Jing Yang breaks down China's non-obvious advantage in humanoid robotics: not manufacturing prowess, but access to advanced manufacturing test beds where robots can be deployed, iterated, and refined at scale—an advantage The U.S. simply cannot match beyond Tesla. Episode Highlights: [00:00] Quote of the Day by Jing Yang from The Information [02:14] ByteDance revenue exceeds Meta, profit lags [05:01] Zhang Yiming goes founder mode with AI [08:24] TikTok's significance to ByteDance's future [10:18] China signals willingness on TikTok deal [13:02] Chinese tech giants pivots to semiconductors, hard tech [14:27] ByteDance's quiet AI strategy and leadership [19:11] Why HongShan, formerly Sequoia China deploys only quarter of $9B fund [21:00] China VC market lacks big growth deals [24:20] New overseas listing regulations hinder exits [26:15] Chinese VCs struggle with US investments [29:53] Chinese founders target global markets from day one [32:20] What forces global versus China product split [38:28] Chinese apps feel holistic but culturally distinct [43:00] ChatGPT arrival sparked physical AI revolution [47:23] Chinese AI companies prioritize commercial use cases over AGI [50:13] China's manufacturing provides crucial test beds advantage [53:42] Redefining what constitutes a Chinese startup [54:55] AI race between Chinese in China vs US [58:00] Closing Profile: Jing Yang, Asia Bureau Chief from The Information LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jing-yang-33548123/ Podcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the show. The proper credits for the intro and end music are "Energetic Sports Drive." G. Thomas Craig mixed and edited the episode in both video and audio format. Here are the links to watch or listen to our podcast: Analyse Asia Main Site: https://analyse.asia Analyse Asia Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1kkRwzRZa4JCICr2vm0vGl Analyse Asia Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/analyse-asia-with-bernard-leong/id914868245 Analyse Asia LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/analyse-asia/ Analyse Asia X (formerly known as Twitter): https://twitter.com/analyseasia Sign Up for Our This Week in Asia Newsletter: https://www.analyse.asia/#/portal/signup Subscribe Newsletter on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7149559878934540288

Craig Wiley, Senior Director of Product Management at Databricks, leads the conversation on the crucial link between data and AI in accelerating ML development. He shares eye-opening statistics: 85% of AI evaluations are done solely by engineers. Craig dives into the evolution from classical ML to GenAI, revealing tools like Agent Bricks for better evaluations. Customer success stories from Suncorp and AstraZeneca illustrate the real-world impact of Mosaic AI. He champions the need for trustable and systematic model evaluations in enterprise AI.

"I think the biggest trap to potentially fall into is, "Hey, it's moving so fast, so much is changing. Let's just wait it out." Completely the wrong approach. You just gotta get started." Nick Eayrs from Databricks "As tech people within the shipping industry, how do we explain, how do we make it accessible to all our users? So that's where we came up with the idea of a data supermarket, with in mind really the target of enabling self-service for our business. So by giving the analogy of a supermarket, it was much easier at the beginning to explain our business." - Simon Fassot from Hafnia Fresh out of the studio, Nick Eayrs, Vice President of Field Engineering for Asia Pacific and Japan at Databricks, and Simon Fassot, General Manager and Head of Global Data and Analytics at Hafnia, join us to explore how data intelligence is transforming enterprise AI across diverse industries in Asia. Nick explained the fundamental distinction between general intelligence and data intelligence - emphasizing how enterprises gain competitive advantage by training AI on their proprietary data rather than public knowledge. Nick showcased customer success stories including Standard Chartered Bank and TechComBank and shared his perspectives on how senior executives can take advantage of AI by moving fast rather than wait and see. Last but not least, Nick offered what great would look like for Databricks in Asia Pacific and Japan in serving their customers. Adding the lens of the customer, Simon shared Hafnia's transformation from legacy SQL Server systems to a unified Databricks architecture serving their global shipping operations and elaborated on how the company is breaking down silos with their data supermarket and "Marvis" AI copilot for maritime operations based on retrieval augmented generation. This is Part 1 from Databricks Data + AI Event Singapore.  Episode Highlights: [00:00] QOTD by Nick Eayrs and Simon Fassot [00:49] Introduction: Nick Eayrs from Databricks [03:32] Customer obsession means deeply understanding their business context [05:22] Data intelligence versus artificial general intelligence explanation begins [06:42] AI trained on your data creates competitive advantage [08:17] Only 15% of companies have correct AI infrastructure ready [11:17] Don't wait for AI perfection, just get started now [12:30] Agent Bricks simplify AI development using natural language [13:49] Standard Chartered Bank cybersecurity use case with SIEM [16:22] TechCom Bank in Vietnam customer brain with 12,000 customer attributes [18:32] Shared responsibility model for ethical AI deployment [25:24] Asia Pacific psychology focuses on future, not past [26:28] Most important question: How do you get started? [30:18] What does great look like for Databricks? [33:16] Introduction: Simon Fassot from Hafnia [35:18] How Hafnia transformed to full cloud architecture centralizes data through Databricks [36:28] Self-service access needed for 300 onshore, 4000 vessel employees [37:00] Three user types: operations, business intelligence, domain experts and Use Cases for Hafnia [41:32] Unity catalog controls data quality for AI cases [42:21] Two-phase Gen AI: ingest unstructured, then consume data [44:25] How to implement Generative AI: One bad AI answer loses all user trust [45:31] How reports in Hafnia use RAG embedded in workflows [46:47] Data supermarket analogy simplifies self-service for business [48:39] Marvis AI personalizes Gen AI within company context [49:46] Neo4j partnership adds graph capabilities to ecosystem [53:33] DNA Port platform unifies scattered dashboards and applications [54:22] Databricks enables focus on business value over operations Profiles: Nick Eayrs, Vice President of Field Engineering, Asia Pacific & Japan at Databricks LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-eayrs/ Simon Fassot, General Manager and Head of Global Data and Analytics at Hafnia LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simon-fassot-68b95135/ Podcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the show. The proper credits for the intro and end music are "Energetic Sports Drive." G. Thomas Craig mixed and edited the episode in both video and audio format. Here are the links to watch or listen to our podcast. Analyse Asia Main Site: https://analyse.asia Analyse Asia Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1kkRwzRZa4JCICr2vm0vGl Analyse Asia Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/analyse-asia-with-bernard-leong/id914868245 Analyse Asia LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/analyse-asia/ Analyse Asia X (formerly known as Twitter): https://twitter.com/analyseasia Sign Up for Our This Week in Asia Newsletter: https://www.analyse.asia/#/portal/signup Subscribe Newsletter on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7149559878934540288

Beatrice Lion, CEO and Global Partner at True Global Ventures, dives into the world of venture capital. She shares her journey into VC straight from university in 2017 and their focus on investing in seasoned entrepreneurs in AI and blockchain. Beatrice explains the significance of TGV obtaining a Capital Markets Services licence in Singapore for strategic investments, especially in stablecoins and secondaries. She discusses the future of AI and crypto, emphasizing adaptability and innovation in corporate treasury strategies.

Reuniting after more than a decade since their days in This Week in Asia Podcast from 2009, Michael Smith Jr., co-host of The Generalist podcast, and Daniel Cerventus Lim, semi-retired entrepreneur and community builder in Malaysia, join us for a candid assessment of Southeast Asia's tech ecosystem evolution. In this raw conversation, Michael offers his unflinching perspective on what he calls the 'broken windows era' of Southeast Asian tech, arguing that recent alleged fraud cases like E-Fishery and Tanihub require serious consequences to restore investor confidence, while questioning whether the region was ever correctly modelled for Silicon Valley-style outcomes. Daniel shares his pivot from startup founder to search fund advocate, explaining his bullish view on acquiring profitable traditional businesses and reflects on whether the region's potential was genuinely unrealized or simply impossible to achieve. Together, they explore the shift from venture-backed unicorn dreams to bootstrap realities, debate work ethic of Southeast Asia founders in comparison with Chinese and Indian founders, and discuss why the future of Southeast Asian tech may lie in smaller, profitable exits rather than the massive IPOs once envisioned. "I think wealth creation here is very SME-focused." - Daniel Cerventus Lim "Basically whether, it's SME or startup, to me now it's just: can you build a profitable business?" - Bernard Leong "I have this philosophy that I think people don't agree with me, but we're in a broken Windows era of Southeast Asia and the only way in my opinion, the windows get fixed is if some of these people are behind bars." - Michael Smith Jr. Episode Highlights: [00:00] Quote of the Day by Daniel Cerventus, Bernard Leong & Michael Smith JR [00:59] Introduction: Daniel Cerventus and Michael Smith Jr. from the Generalists Podcast [06:00] Multiple alleged frauds in Southeast Asia: E-Fishery, Tanihub [09:57] Southeast Asia in "broken windows era" [11:26] Only exits from seed to Series A [11:47] B rounds virtually gone, A rounds endangered. [14:00] 50-100 million exits still viable [16:30] Malaysian crypto companies globally focused [19:25] Country expansion model in ASEAN doesn't work [23:02] Israel model: never think local market [24:15] Razer story: HP Mafia network backing [25:07] Supabase: not really Singapore capital, but globally successful [30:18] Chinese founders arriving with speed [31:19] Work ethic comparisons with India [32:34] Search funds emerging in Singapore [37:25] Mainstream media ignores bootstrap success [39:50] Search fund model targeting aging operators [41:21] SME vs startup distinction blurring [46:20] Hedge funds questioning regional companies [49:32] Unrealized vs impossible potential debate [51:07] Bangladesh ecosystem showing promise [53:20] Structural exit issues remain unsolved [54:31] Reset creating better founder discipline [55:40] Optimistic on Southeast Asia's startup ecosystem [57:21] Closing Profile: Michael Smith Jr., Tech Evangelist from Oracle & Co-Host, LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/smittysgp/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheGeneralistsPodcast   Daniel Cerventus Lim, semi-retired entrepreneur, Community Builder in Malaysia and TEDxKL founder. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cerventus/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/80164351656   Podcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the show. The proper credits for the intro and end music are "Energetic Sports Drive." G. Thomas Craig mixed and edited the episode in both video and audio format. Here are the links to watch or listen to our podcast. Analyse Asia Main Site: https://analyse.asia Analyse Asia Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1kkRwzRZa4JCICr2vm0vGl Analyse Asia Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/analyse-asia-with-bernard-leong/id914868245 Analyse Asia LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/analyse-asia/ Analyse Asia X (formerly known as Twitter): https://twitter.com/analyseasia Sign Up for Our This Week in Asia Newsletter: https://www.analyse.asia/#/portal/signup Subscribe Newsletter on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7149559878934540288

Jamus Lim, Associate Professor at ESSEC Business School and recently elected Member of Parliament in Singapore, delves into the intricacies of Asian economies. He discusses how geography, history, and institutions drive economic outcomes, emphasizing the shortcomings of traditional economic models. Jamus also explores China’s demographic challenges, its industrial evolution, and the implications of its dual circulation strategy. His insights extend to South Korea's and Japan’s unique economic trajectories, shedding light on the persistent influence of historical institutions on contemporary development.

Paul Harapin, Chief Revenue Officer for APAC and Japan at Stripe, shares insights on Stripe's impressive growth in a region contributing 40% of global GDP. He highlights the vital role of AI and stablecoins in revolutionizing commerce, tailored for diverse markets like Japan, China, and India. Paul discusses innovations like agentic commerce toolkits and adaptive pricing solutions that drive scalability. He also explores key trends in AI-powered payments, making a case for stablecoins as a transformative solution for emerging markets.

Feon Ang, Managing Director of LinkedIn Asia Pacific, shares her journey from publishing to leading tech, emphasizing LinkedIn’s role in empowering professionals amidst the AI revolution. She discusses the critical skills gap and the importance of online learning for job seekers. The conversation covers the rapid hiring shifts in the region, emphasizing the necessity for fluency in emerging technologies. Additionally, Feon highlights LinkedIn's initiatives to create economic opportunities and its commitment to supporting disadvantaged communities.

Doug Burger, a Technical Fellow at Microsoft Research, shares insights from his journey in elite research. He emphasizes the importance of trust and empowerment within research teams, enabling groundbreaking advancements in AI and quantum computing. The conversation covers Microsoft's expansion into Southeast Asia, collaborative innovations in healthcare, and the evolution of coding towards natural language programming. Burger also discusses the transformative impact of AI while addressing ethical considerations and the necessity for regional collaboration in driving societal benefits.