ASEAN To See Stronger Digital Growth As AI Adoption Expands - AWS

From Siti Noor Afera Abu

LAS VEGAS, Dec 2 (Bernama) -- ASEAN is expected to see stronger digital economic growth over the next two years as the region moves from early artificial intelligence (AI) adoption to fully AI-driven business model, supported by rising cloud demand and the rollout of the ASEAN Digital Economy Framework Agreement (DEFA).

AWS ASEAN managing director Jeff Johnson said that in ASEAN, there is an industrial scale up of AI as customers gain confidence and start reimagining business processes with an AI native mindset.

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“Malaysia continues to strengthen its position through DEFA’s AI governance pillar, which calls for explainable and safe AI system across member states.

“Trustworthy AI has been our focus from the start. We are building these capabilities directly into services to support the requirements emerging under DEFA,” he said during a media briefing for ASEAN countries at AWS re: Invent 2025 here on Tuesday.

On infrastructure, Johnson said AWS has been working in Malaysia to help deliver a water reclamation facility of 6.5 billion litres of reclaimed water annually, equivalent to 2,600 Olympic-size swimming pools, to support data centre cooling and long-term digital infrastructure sustainability.

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He said AWS sees significant opportunities in Malaysia, and stated that AI is helping both large enterprises and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) accelerate adoption, especially through tools that lower the skill barriers to software development and cloud migration. 

At the regional level, Johnson said ASEAN remains a high priority growth region for AWS, reflected in increased engagement and continued investments in infrastructure, talent development and innovation programmes.

“Our priority is to build digital skills, create economic opportunities and support nation building efforts. As ASEAN moves toward a US$1 trillion digital economy, the impact on jobs, families and long-term growth will be substantial,” he said.

Furthermore, he said AWS is focusing on new users, companies upgrading older systems, and SMEs that are using AI to develop and launch products faster.

“As AI accelerates cloud migration, particularly for legacy environments, we expect strong enterprise momentum over the next one to two years,” he said.

AWS re: Invent 2025, being held on Dec 1-5, 2025 at Las Vegas in the United States, with the in-person event featuring keynote announcements, training and certification opportunities, access to more than 1,000 technical sessions, and the expo. It is expected to gather around 60,000 attendees from across the world.

-- BERNAMA