The AI boom is lifting economies across Asia. But for Southeast Asia, it might just be a ‘short-term blip’

Economists who study the region are worried that AI's gains won't be evenly shared across Asia—and that for Southeast Asia's economies, which sit on the lower end of the value chain, the boom could be more of a "short-term blip." To some experts, the ASEAN Digital Economy Framework Agreement, or DEFA, presents a possible solution. It's the world's first region-wide digital economy treaty, which unifies rules for digital trade and e-commerce across Southeast Asia, and is set to be signed in November. "Geopolitical fragmentation makes DEFA considerably more important because ASEAN needs a mechanism for maintaining economic interoperability, even when its members adopt different technological alignments," explains Tan Kong Yam, an emeritus professor of economics at Singapore's NTU.

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