Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings is using Southeast Asia as a launch pad to take its “cost-effective” artificial intelligence tools global, fronted by its workplace assistant WorkBuddy, amid cutthroat competition at home. The company was targeting existing regional customers of its cloud computing and big data services, particularly in markets such as Indonesia, according to Dowson Tong, CEO of Tencent’s Cloud and Smart Industries Group. The international push coincided with triple-digit...

As investor anxiety over an artificial intelligence bubble mounts, SpaceX’s Elon Musk and Nvidia chief Jensen Huang have offered starkly divergent outlooks on whether the specialist cloud providers powering the boom can survive their mounting debts. While Musk has warned of impending collapses and consolidation among the more than 200 dedicated graphics processing unit (GPU) rental ventures known as “neoclouds”, Huang remains bullish, insisting that robust market demand will unlock the capital...