Analyse Podcast

Simon Milner, Vice President of Public Policy for Asia Pacific at Meta, joins us to explore how Meta's deliberate commitment to open source AI is reshaping innovation across the world's most diverse and dynamic region. He shares his journey from the BBC to nearly 14 years at Meta, where he built policy teams from the ground up to lead Meta's Asia Pacific strategy. Simon unpacks Meta's open source philosophy behind the Llama models, explaining how openness accelerates innovation through community scrutiny, provides governments greater control over sensitive data, and enables local developers to fine-tune models for languages like Korean, Vietnamese, and Bahasa Indonesia. He highlights compelling use cases across the region in Japan and Korea. Looking ahead, Simon reveals why the future of AI is not on our phones but in wearables like AI-enabled glasses that create always-on assistants seeing what we see and hearing what we hear, enabling us to be more present in the world while Meta supercharges its family of apps serving billions globally. Last but not least he shares what great looks like for Meta in the Asia Pacific on open source AI.

"We believe that openness is actually a really key feature of accelerating innovation because it fosters inclusion, it builds trust, and it ensures that the benefits of AI are more evenly distributed around the world.The openness of models allows other people to, as they were, push and pull and prod at the models at a fundamental level in order to see where might the problems be. And so that kind of community, the developer community scrutiny around open source is fundamental to spotting issues and addressing them quickly.Actually, the story of AI is about yes... that is important. The investments that companies like Meta and others are making is important, but actually, it's really about local ownership and local innovation." - Simon Milner

Episode Highlights: [00:00] Quote of the Day by Simon Milner from Meta[01:37] Simon's journey: BBC, BT, Meta's 14-year evolution[03:12] Navigating diverse regulatory landscapes across global markets[05:24] Career advice: Take risks, embrace unexpected opportunities[07:54] Open source AI democratizes access and innovation[10:21] Meta sparked open model trend, others followed[14:49] Open models enable faster innovation through community[16:21] Government control and data sovereignty with open[19:13] Governance mechanisms: transparency, red teaming, community engagement[22:49] Meta learned responsible AI through 20 years experience[25:49] Singapore, Japan, Korea developers using Lama locally[28:26] AI isn't just big companies and includes local innovation[31:15] Keeping AI open prevents fragmented national bubbles[34:01] Governments balancing open innovation with national interests[37:00] Future AI: wearables and glasses, not phones[38:19] Always-on AI assistants seeing and hearing you[41:35] Supercharging Meta apps and building new products[42:00] 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 and edited in both video and audio format by G. Thomas Craig. Visit our Analyse main site: https://analyse.asia

Fresh out of Oracle AI World 2025, Chris Chelliah, Senior Vice President of Technology and Customer Strategy for Japan and Asia Pacific at Oracle, joins us to unpack how Oracle is positioning itself as the definitive enterprise AI platform across the region. He shares his career journey from a computer science geek working on distributed databases to leading technology strategy across a market representing two-thirds of the world's population. Chris explains Oracle's comprehensive four-tier AI stack—infrastructure, data platform, applications, and agentic orchestration—emphasizing how this unique full-stack ownership enables enterprises to consume AI out of the box and extend seamlessly without ripping and replacing existing systems. He highlights compelling use cases from financial fraud detection and healthcare automation to precision agriculture and energy grid optimization. Closing the conversation, Chris shares his vision for what great Oracle will look like in Asia Pacific, continuing its 50-year legacy as the behind-the-scenes platform provider powering everything from OpenAI and TikTok to global banking infrastructure.

What's been consistent for Oracle is to be a platform provider that helps organizations unlock full value of their data. Today it is all about AI and unlocking the value of your data in AI, and cloud is a mandatory enabler. With AI and agentic AI, an agent is effectively an employee—it's an automated employee, a process, a workflow. You want your employees to be within your ecosystem, within your firewall. AI thrives at the edge because that's where inference happens. With AI and agentic AI, an agent is effectively an employee—it's an automated employee, a process, a workflow. You want your employees to be within your ecosystem, within your firewall. AI thrives at the edge because that's where inference happens. - Chris Chelliah

Profile: Chris Chelliah, Senior Vice President of Technology and Customer Strategy for Japan and Asia Pacific at Oracle https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrischelliah/

Episode Highlights:
[00:00] Quote of the day by Chris Chelliah
[02:10] Chris's journey from computer science to enterprise tech
[03:13] Technology tinkering and Oracle's innovation culture explained
[04:17] Two-thirds world population drives APJ market potential
[05:06] Career advice: Find passion, own your brand
[06:54] Oracle's mission: Unlocking data value for enterprises
[07:58] 47,000 customers, 44% yearly consumption growth in JPAC
[08:51] Oracle AI World 2025: AI changes everything announcement
[09:12] Four-tier stack: Infrastructure, data, applications, agents
[11:25] AI Data Platform enables production-grade AI systems
[14:14] AI Agent Studio and Marketplace solve scaling challenges
[15:12] Agents as higher-level abstraction for enterprise automation
[16:27] Real-world AI use cases across industries shared
[18:49] Multi-cloud strategy accelerates enterprise AI adoption
[21:16] Partners enable scale with 100 marketplace solutions
[23:01] Convergent AI: Consume applications then extend capabilities
[26:51] Multi-cloud and multi-model future requires strong governance
[27:31] Four-tier security isolation from infrastructure to applications
[29:57] AI agents need enterprise-level data residency controls
[31:02] Using AI to accelerate cloud migration skills
[[33:08] Design thinking to working prototype in days
[36:10] Success metrics: Beat your personal best daily
[39:55] Why Oracle differs: Only four-tier stack player
[43:01] What great looks like for Oracle in the Asia Pacific
[45:51] Closing

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.

Fresh out of the studio, we commemorated the 10th anniversary of the e-Conomy SEA [Southeast Asia] Report with Sapna Chadha from Google, Florian Hoppe from Bain & Company, and Cassie Wu from Temasek, celebrating a decade of tracking Southeast Asia's digital transformation. The panel reflected on the region's remarkable achievement of reaching $300 billion in GMV—exceeding the original $200 billion goal by 1.5x—alongside revenue growth of 11x over the past decade. The panellists examined pivotal themes including Southeast Asia's position as the world's most AI-curious region with three times more interest than elsewhere, the explosive rise of video commerce and the maturation of digital financial services. The conversation explored the expansion from SEA-6 to 10 ASEAN countries, the ecosystem's resilience through multiple crisis cycles, and the shift from growth-at-all-costs to sustainable profitability. The episode concludes with each panellist sharing their vision for 2030, emphasizing building trust in AI adoption, creating an inclusive AI economy that benefits SMEs alongside large platforms, and navigating the AI transition gracefully to unlock innovation while addressing employment challenges—underscoring Southeast Asia's evolution from digital catch-up player to global innovation leader rewriting the playbook for digital adoption.

"We set this audacious goal of 200 billion by 2025. People told us we were crazy. In 2016 when we put that ambition out there, we've actually reached 1.5x that and we've hit 300 billion. And so it's just reflective of this incredible economy." - Sapna Chadha"Indonesia e-commerce still I think is larger or about the same size as all of India e-commerce. And yet the attention tends to be a little bit veering away from Southeast Asia, but this is actually a real economic powerhouse I think for all of Asia Pacific." - Florian Hoppe"Southeast Asia as a region, as we think about digital economy adoption, we are not playing catch up anymore. In many ways we're leading the digital adoption. We're writing how digital economy, how digital adoption could look like for a population and demographic like us." - Cassie WuProfiles: Sapna Chadha, Vice President Southeast Asia and South Asia Frontier, Google Asia PacificFlorian Hoppe, Partner at Bain & CompanyCassie Wu, Director, Southeast Asia at Temaseke-Conomy SEA 2025: https://economysea.withgoogle.com/Episode Highlights:[00:00] Quote of the Day by Sapna Chadha, Florian Hoppe & Cassie Wu[01:17] 10th anniversary of e-Conomy SEA Report[03:00] Digital economy hits 300 billion, exceeding goals[04:09] Ecosystem resilience through multiple crisis cycles[06:10] Report expands from SEA-6 to ASEAN-10[08:13] Southeast Asia most underappreciated AI opportunity[09:31] Indonesia e-commerce matches all of India[10:04] Region leading digital adoption, not catching up[12:13] Cash no longer king, payments fully inverted[13:00] Revenue growth 11x over past decade[15:00] 300 billion GMV despite headwinds and tariffs[16:00] Video commerce grew 5x in three years[19:03] Digital payments north of 60% of transactions[23:32] Super apps unique to Southeast Asia ecosystem[25:45] Data center capacity growing faster than anywhere[27:01] Lower labor costs delayed AI adoption initially[31:00] Ecosystem healthier than ever before[33:08] Talent is the critical AI bottleneck[35:19] Digital infrastructure must align with green economy[39:00] Southeast Asia remains globally underappreciated[40:39] Can Southeast Asia leapfrog into AI era[43:00] ClosingPodcast 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.

Fresh out of the studio, Arnaud Frade, Managing Partner at Mesh Advisory and author of the upcoming book The Sentient Startup, joins us to explore how AI is fundamentally transforming entrepreneurship through the radical concept of AI as a true co-founder rather than merely a tool. He distinguishes between startups that are merely "AI-onboard" versus true sentient startups where AI operates as part of how the business is run, and introducing the concept of Machine Resources (MR) as a new organizational function alongside Human Resources to manage evolving AI models and maintain knowledge integrity. He emphasizes the co-intelligence model over the sterile human-versus-machine debate, highlighting how the 95% AI project failure rate stems from organizational issues rather than technology problems—a reality perfectly captured by the Banani framework (Brittle, Anxious, Non-linear, Incomprehensible) that explains why companies struggle with AI readiness. Closing the conversation, Arnaud shares what great looks like for The Sentient Startup: being part of the essential conversation about AI governance, accessibility across income levels, child safety, and building better regulations.

Episode Highlights:
[00:00] Quote of the Day by Arnaud Frade

[01:00] Introduction: Arnaud Frade

[02:49] Arnaud's career journey

[05:27] Advice: stick to values and volunteer for opportunities

[07:21] Arnaud's story on his first book about algorithmic marketing

[09::32] Sam Altman's solopreneur unicorn comment was the epiphany

[10:04] Sentient startup: AI as co-founder, enhanced by co-intelligence

[12:15] AI onboard versus AI as true co-founder distinction
[16:45] Barriers to entry reducing with AI and agentic models
[23:40] MIT report: 95% of AI pilots fail organizationally
[28:15] Need overlay systems for effective agentic AI
[30:45] Culture: retain humanity when engaging with AI
[36:10] Governance frameworks for AI decision-making transparency
[40:10] Banani framework: brittle, anxious, non-linear, incomprehensible
[42:16] Co-intelligence model versus human versus machine debate
[43:19] Goal: be part of the conversation on AI
[44:15] Focus on regulations, access equity, and child safety[45:00] Closing

Profile: Arnaud Frade, author of "The Sentient Startup" which will launch on May 19, 2026 via Penguin Random House. Register at thesentientstartup.com for community updatesLinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arnaudfrade

Fresh out of the studio, Ralph Haupter, President & CRO, Small Medium Enterprises and Channels at Microsoft, joins us to explore how Microsoft is empowering 400 million small and medium businesses globally across 56 counties through a partner-first strategy that combines platform standardization with deep specialization. He shares his career journey spanning over 20 years at Microsoft, from running Europe to leading Greater China, building Asia's geographical operations in Singapore, and eventually taking on global SME strategy. Ralph explains that Microsoft's unique advantage lies in being a platform company at its finest, offering a complete technology stack from productivity to infrastructure, security, and applications—all with core AI integration—while relying on a specialized partner ecosystem to deliver local expertise and support. He highlights how partners are creating entirely new business models on agentic AI while emphasizing the four critical partnership moments from transaction to ongoing support that most companies neglect. Closing the conversation, Ralph shares what great looks like for Microsoft.

“The partner program for us is a place where we want to have expertise for our customers. The only way to make that happen is to standardize on portfolio and standardize on offering.If you don’t provide standardized offers — if the experience in Word, for example, is different in one country than in another — you can’t build an ecosystem that helps partners scale with expertise. I call that a platform company at its finest.We have the full assortment — from the productivity world to infrastructure, security, and applications. And if you’re a small or medium enterprise, the last thing you want is to have four meetings with four people, serving four different types of coffee to four different vendors, just to get a full-stack solution for your business.” - Ralph Haupter

Episode Highlights:
[00:00] Quote of the Day by Ralph Haupter
[00:54] Ralph's 20+ year Microsoft career journey from Europe to China to Global
[02:19] Ralph's Experience in Microsoft Greater China
[04:24] Giving space to local country leaders
[06:16] Career advice: Get out of comfort zone
[08:02] Microsoft's 400 million SME customer
opportunity
[11:00] AI accessibility for small business competitiveness
[13:09] Satya's vision: Empower every organization globally
[15:00] Microsoft as AI platform company strategy
[17:24] Standardization enables partner ecosystem at scale
[21:22] Security partners drive consultative innovation
[25:15] Full stack portfolio simplifies SME technology
[28:00] Training investment for partners and customers
[32:00] Four critical partnership moments: Sales to support
[35:00] Local partner presence matters by geography
[40:36] Scale requires clarity, simplicity, and standards
[42:36] Global Leadership Lessons: Learning from positive performance signal deviations
[45:22] Customers should ask partners for expertise
[47:34] What does Great Look Like for Microsoft SME & Channel Globally
[48:00] Closing

Profile: Ralph Haupter, President and CRO, Small Medium Enterprises and Channel (SME&C), Microsoft

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ralphhaupter/

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.