Analyse Asia with Bernard Leong – Détails, épisodes et analyse

Fresh out of the studio, Jay Park, Chief Development Officer of Digital Edge, explores the rapidly transforming landscape of data centres in the Asia-Pacific region. Kicking off with the story of Jay’s remarkable career in building cutting-edge data centres, we dive into the explosive growth fueled by AI and the innovative cooling and energy solutions Digital Edge is pioneering to address environmental challenges. Jay also examines the impact of advanced AI chips on next-generation data centre engineering and shares his vision of what great would look like to design efficient and sustainable infrastructure in one of the world’s fastest-growing markets.

"So if you look at this, according to this recent structural research report, the data centre industry will spend 100 billion dollars, and about 50 per cent of that growth will be happening in APAC. So, this is massive growth. If you look at the data centres, they have to be built where people are to better support them. But we have a new kid on the block. It's called AI servers, and it's something I have never experienced before in any industry, and this is massive. It'll do a lot of things, but it has to do data processing. So you cannot have all these data centres in, let's say, North America, have people in the APAC area grab that data, send it back to the U.S. or North America, do all the processing, and then send it out to APAC. I just don't see that happening. So, they're building the data centres closer to the users, where people are. And then you do all the processing there. The growth is going to be gigantic, and that's what we are seeing today."

You can find Jay Park on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jay-park-b5b579335/ and on Digital Edge: https://www.digitaledgedc.com/about

Episode Highlights:
[00:00] - Quote of the Day by Jay Park #QOTD
[01:07] - Jay Park’s Background
[02:38] - Becoming Chief Development Officer at Digital Edge
[03:22] - Data Center Evolution and Power Density Growth
[05:24] - Digital Edge’s Mission and Approach
[07:30] - Supply Chain Challenges and Skid-Mount Equipment
[09:25] - Scaling Data Centers for Increased Power Needs
[12:19] - Cooling Systems and AI Server Requirements
[15:39] - Modular Data Center Design: Pros and Cons
[18:57] - Balancing Efficiency, Scalability, and Cost
[22:08] - Challenges in Data Center Engineering in APAC
[27:25] - AI Chips and Their Impact on Data Centers
[31:29] - Principles for Designing Efficient Data Centers
[34:04] - Water Usage and Environmental Impact
[37:39] - Exciting Advancements in Data Center Technology
[42:54] - Advice on Innovation in Data Center Engineering
[43:36] - Digital Edge’s Vision for the Future
[44:42] - Personal Inspirations and Emerging Technologies
[46:26] - Closing

Podcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the show. Proper credits for the intro and end music: "Energetic Sports Drive" and the episode is mixed & edited in both video and audio format by G. Thomas Craig

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 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AnalyseAsia

Analyse Asia LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/analyse-asia/

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Analyse Asia Threads: https://www.threads.net/@analyseasia

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"So that's why if you have 1 billion to invest, we're not expecting the same return as if you invest 10 million. At that time, when all this money flowed to Southeast Asia, people there thought, "Oh, we made it. Now the world is looking at us. We're finally a good ecosystem.' Everyone was ready to invest in us, but that was just the tide, right? And when the tide recedes, the first place the money will leave is Southeast Asia because it's not offering the best returns. So, the money is going out, and I don't think it's coming back anytime soon. People shouldn't expect investors to be as aggressive as they were. Lastly, great companies will always raise capital. The top ones will always find their way, so there's no issue for them. The challenge is for the ones just below them. It will be very difficult for those companies. Some will have to become much more capital-efficient, for sure."

Fresh out of the studio, Arnaud Bonzom, founder of Black Mangroves and angel investor, engages in a lively discussion with our host about the entrepreneurial and venture capital landscape in Southeast Asia for 2024. Arnaud shares his insights on the evolution of late-stage funding and the resetting of expectations in the region’s venture capital scene. He also offers valuable advice to founders on how to navigate the challenging fundraising climate and what success could look like for the region in the coming years.

You can find Arnaud Bonzom at LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arnaudbonzom/ and X (formerly known as Twitter): https://x.com/ArnaudBonzom?

Audio Episode Highlights:
[0:44] Quote of the Day by Arnaud Bonzom #QOTD
[2:09] Arnaud’s Reflections on Southeast Asia Since 2018
[5:28] Southeast Asia’s Economic Challenges
[6:15] New Outlook for the Region’s Startup Ecosystem
[10:37] Lessons from India’s B2B Market
[14:31] How Venture Capital Works in Southeast Asia
[16:52] Over-Optimism in Southeast Asia’s VC Landscape
[24:27] Challenges in Attracting Foreign Investments
[27:38] The U.S. as the Biggest Accessible Market
[30:29] Market Segmentation in Asia Pacific
[35:44] IPO Slowdown and M&A Challenges
[37:59] Zombie Companies in Southeast Asia
[39:14] The One Thing Arnaud knows about the SEA ecosystem that very few do
[41:28] Explaining DPI (Distributions to Paid-In Capital)
[47:48] Timing in Venture Capital Investments
[51:48] Advice for Founders in 2023-2024
[53:33] Bottlenecks in Southeast Asia’s Startup Ecosystem
[56:40] What does great look like for the Southeast Asia ecosystem?
[58:45] Crypto Companies in Southeast Asia
[60:44] Final Thoughts and Future of Southeast Asia’s Startup Ecosystem
[61:10] Closing

Podcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the show. Proper credits for the intro and end music: "Energetic Sports Drive" and the episode is mixed & edited in both video and audio format by G. Thomas Craig

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 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AnalyseAsia

Analyse Asia LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/analyse-asia/

Analyse Asia X (formerly known as Twitter): https://twitter.com/analyseasia

Analyse Asia Threads: https://www.threads.net/@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

"So already this year we've rolled out 10 of these regions. So two in APJ and Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong. But 75 of these locations by the end of the year along with our core computing regions will give us 100 locations where customers can run these workloads, and we're not going to stop there. So we're going to have hundreds of these regions over the next few years, and we're going to focus on those locations where hyper-scalers don't have compute. Africa and South America, for example, have been extremely underserved when it comes to computing capabilities. There's a huge potential for those countries if we could get them the compute. And that's exactly what we intend to do. But, those are extreme regions. Even in places like the U.S., which are well served by the hyper-scalers, there's certainly the middle of the U.S. which is ignored. In Southeast Asia, if you're in Singapore or Jakarta, you're served by everybody. But if you're in Vietnam, how are you served? If you're in Thailand, how are you served? The internet is inherently unfair. We want to make it more fair for our customers and our customers' customers." - Jay Jenkins

Fresh off the studio, Jay Jenkins, CTO of Cloud Computing in Akamai, dives deep into the transformative potential of edge AI in a dynamic conversation on Akamai's latest technological advancements. Discussing the company's strategic edge computing platform, Gecko, Jenkins describes how it is redefining cloud computing paradigms by embedding capabilities directly into the edge network. He explores the broader implications of edge AI for real-time applications and generative AI technologies, highlighting Akamai's vision to support the burgeoning demands of data processing and AI inferencing at the network edge. With insights into early trials and future use cases, he shares how Akamai is set to revolutionize industries, from immersive retail to spatial computing and explores what great would look like for Akamai in cloud computing and AI at the edge.

Episode Highlights:
[0:40] Quote of the Day #QOTD by Jay Jenkins.
[1:45] Introduction: Jay Jenkins, CTO of Cloud Computing from Akamai.
[4:29] Lessons learnt from Jay’s career journey.
[6:31] Total Market Opportunity for AI at the Edge and Akamai’s value proposition.
[8:55] Introduction to Akamai and its global footprint.
[11:18] Jay’s role as global CTO in Cloud Computing and future vision.
[16:23] Generalized Edge Compute aka Gecko and why it differs from the hyper-scalers such as AWS.
[19:53] How Gecko enhances the user experience in terms of performance and latency.
[22:59] Challenges to integrate cloud native computing at a massive edge network.
[25:38] Lessons learned from Gecko’s early trials with enterprise customers of Akamai.
[28:01] Applications of Gecko beyond immersive retail.
[30:33] The One Thing that Jay knows about Gecko in generalized edge computing that very few do.
[33:07] Generative AI with Akamai Gecko’s platform.
[37:30] Inference at the edge with Large Language Models (LLMs).
[39:41] Role of Edge Computing for real-time AI processes.
[41:47] What does great look like for Akamai in the cloud computing space?
[43:53] Closing.

Podcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the show. Proper credits for the intro and end music: "Energetic Sports Drive" and the episode is mixed & edited in both video and audio format by G. Thomas Craig

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 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AnalyseAsia

Analyse Asia LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/analyse-asia/

Analyse Asia X (formerly known as Twitter): https://twitter.com/analyseasia

Analyse Asia Threads: https://www.threads.net/@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

"If the goal is to really democratize finance of businesses and consumers imagine that Mastercard and Visa has built an interchange network to facilitate payments across the globe. What if Pace can establish a similar global interchange network? For digital financing, covering a myriad of services to consumers, businesses, and even financial institutions, basically building the digital financing engine that lives on the cloud powered by blockchain on a web3 infrastructure and serving the needs of, you know, the future consumers, businesses, and even financial institutions down the road." - Turochas Fuad  

Fresh out of the studio, Turochas "T" Fuad, CEO and co-founder of Pace Enterprise joined us in a conversation to discuss his latest venture, Pace Enterprise and dived deep into the weeds of the "Buy Now, Pay Later" (or BNPL) space. He shared his thoughts on why BNPL can lead to sustainable companies and not just being a feature of a fintech company. Last but not least, Turochas offered his perspectives on how the different accelerating trends: fintech, decentralized finance and web3 are converging towards a coherent future of finance.

 

Podcast Information: The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Sound credits for the intro and end music: "Run it" by DJ Snake, Rick Ross and Rich Brian and the episode is mixed edited by Geoffrey Thomas Craig (LinkedIn).

But fundamentally the core of the business, at least the way we see it, is that, we need to be great operators of these brands as a start, in fact the best operators for these brands. For us here, it's about looking into ways to be differentiated around how to run those brands better than anyone else, and definitely better than the last owner. - JJ Chai

 

Fresh out of the studio, JJ Chai, CEO and co-founder of Rainforest, joined us in a discussion on his company, a leading eCommerce aggregator that focuses on brands and products for the modern mum and offered his perspectives on the rise of ecommerce aggregators in Asia Pacific region. We dived into how JJ shared the vision and mission of Rainforest and their customer focus for the ecommerce aggregator. From there, we broadened the conversation with JJ explaining how ecommerce aggregators work with platforms such as Amazon and their playbook in selecting the right brands to acquire, scale and distribute. Last but not least, JJ offered his perspectives on how the landscape of ecommerce aggregators will change in the next couple of years globally.

 

Podcast Information: The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Sound credits for the intro and end music: "Run it" by DJ Snake, Rick Ross and Rich Brian and the episode is mixed edited by Geoffrey Thomas Craig (LinkedIn).

"So as of today, I think the choice between DAO and equity is how bullish you are in the project. So if you're thinking that companies launching its first or second project, there's still a highly likelihood that it's not gonna be hugely successful and you want to bet on the entire life cycle of the company, then right now, maybe equity is still a better tool. If you're really bullish on the project, but you're not as bullish on the company that maybe the DAO is a better way to go." - Jamie Lin

Fresh out of the studio, Jamie Lin, chairman and partner of AppWorks, an accelerator and venture capital form shares the backstory of the company and how it started his investments across Taiwan and Southeast Asia and grew to its present state today. Jamie shares the investment thesis of the firm and the key traits of entrepreneurs and verticals which they can invest into. Last but not least, Jamie shares his perspectives in how venture capital will be transformed by web3 and offers his point of view on how AppWorks will position itself in this new era.  

 

Podcast Information: The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Sound credits for the intro and end music: "Run it" by DJ Snake, Rick Ross and Rich Brian and the episode is edited by Geoffrey Thomas Craig.

"The important thing is, look, our mission hasn't changed. We're still focusing on helping people connect and finding communities and, and grow businesses. We've just very clearly put a stake in the ground around what we believe is the future. And more and more that's going to take place in the metaverse." - Dan Neary

 

Fresh out of the studio, Dan Neary, Vice President for Meta (formerly Facebook) APAC joined us for an interesting conversation on the company’s re-brand, vision for the metaverse and why this may the biggest opportunity for businesses in Asia Pacific. In the conversation, Dan describes how Meta is helping to build the metaverse & talks about how the current ecosystem of communities, creators, commerce will converge with the next computing platform and create a completely new generation of experiences. Last but not least, he also shares how Meta is working with small businesses  to support their digital transformation journey and get them future-ready.

 

Podcast Information: The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Sound credits for the intro and end music: "Run it" by DJ Snake, Rick Ross and Rich Brian and the episode is edited by Geoffrey Thomas Craig.

"There's definitely decoupling happening in terms of tech. And I actually was really skeptical of the coupling until this year. And I'm like, wow, you're really going to be seeing it. But on the other hand, the financial services sector is opening up much more this year than before." - Shai Oster

 

Fresh out of the studio, Shai Oster, the Asia Bureau Chief for The Information returns for the sixth year to discuss the state of China in 2021. Shai reviewed his predictions in 2021 and offered his perspectives on what surprised him the most on China tech from the regulatory tsunami from the Chinese government to dwindling funding of the startup ecosystem. We discuss how the Chinese economy is undergoing major transformation and whether we have a China tech ecosystem in 2022. Last but not least, Shai Oster provided glimpse of what is to come for 2022.

 

Podcast Information: The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Sound credits for the intro and end music: "Run it" by DJ Snake, Rick Ross and Rich Brian and the episode is edited by Geoffrey Thomas Craig.

"You're actually helping people, escape, lockdown, escape, poverty, and most of all, you're providing equal economic access to crypto based economies anywhere in the world. So now you don't have to be super crypto or tech savvy. What you really need is an internet connection in a device, in a crypto wallet, and you can start earning money. And if you don't know how to do that, your community managers are there to help you how to do it." - Gabby Dizon

 

Fresh out of the studio, Gabby Dizon, co-founder of Yield Guild Games (YGG) joined us in a conversation to share the origin story of YGG and how it builds the guilds with community managers and players to bring financial inclusion globally with play to earn crypto gaming. Gabby explained the role of YGG and how play to earn is transforming the gaming industry and what it means for the industry moving forward. Last but not least, Gabby offers his perspectives in the metaverse and what it means for the Web3 movement going forward.

 

Podcast Information: The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin). Sound credits for the intro and end music: "Run it" by DJ Snake, Rick Ross and Rich Brian and the episode is edited by Geoffrey Thomas Craig.

"And right now the internet is the metaverse to an extent. The only difference here is that it's not truly decentralized and you didn't have ownership on the internet before now you have ownership through the blockchain. So that means that the internet is now becoming more metaverse like, because people can own their own assets. They can interact with the blockchain through their web explorer for the front ends to where the metaverse are right now." - Aleksander Larsen

 

Fresh out of the studio, Aleksander Larsen, co-founder and chief operating officer of Sky Mavis, the studio behind the first successful blockchain game, Axie Infinity, joined us to discuss the origin story of the company and how it jumpstarted the NFT and play to earn games to life. Aleksander shared the early days of Axie Infinity and explained why they ended up building the Ronin side chain to launching the decentralized exchange, Katana. Last but not least, Aleksander offered his thoughts on how Axie Infinity will contribute to the metaverse conversation in the years ahead.

 

Podcast Information: The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin). Sound credits for the intro and end music: "Run it" by DJ Snake, Rick Ross and Rich Brian and the episode is edited by Geoffrey Thomas Craig.