“Consumers are not prompt engineers, so they should use the AI device very easily, very simply,” he said during a panel session titled Navigating Regional Strategy in a Shifting Global Order at M360 ASEAN 2026 here today.

Chen noted that greater openness and collaboration among device manufacturers, telecommunications operators, application developers and AI platforms would help dismantle existing technological boundaries and provide consumers with a more comprehensive experience.

“We see a lot of devices in the ecosystem or applications of the system; they have their own boundaries. So through openness and collaboration, they can together make a safe or trust environment or good experience for customers,” he said.

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The panel session, moderated by Match-Maker Ventures Chief Executive Officer Nicolai Schaerrgen, also discussed wider regional integration, with panellists advocating a ‘gotong-royong’ (mutual cooperation) approach to develop ASEAN's AI ecosystem by pooling regional data, talent and compute resources, rather than having individual nations attempt to build everything independently.

Meanwhile, AI Singapore Senior Director Leslie Teo said such a community-driven, open-source approach is indispensable for Southeast Asia, which is home to about 1,200 languages alongside diverse cultures, histories and socio-economic realities.

“The concept of communities jointly developing technology is not new, with much of today's AI development itself benefiting from the global open-source movement where knowledge is made available for others to build upon.

“We are trying to build an ecosystem and a platform, and it has to be open. Collaboration is necessary because Southeast Asia does not possess sufficient data, graphics processing units (GPUs) or AI talent individually to match China and the United States,” Teo said.

He noted that AI Singapore was building on global knowledge while uniting a regional network, comprising leading Southeast Asian language and natural language processing (NLP) groups, universities, and major American and Chinese technology companies, to lay the groundwork for countries and enterprises to develop their own AI solutions.

“It is again back to the concept of an open-source ecosystem, let everyone build on top of each other to raise all boats, and then we compete. We are going to compete, but let's compete from a higher base so that our region has models that are closer to our reality,” he added.

NTT DOCOMO Vice-President Yoshio Umezawa, meanwhile, said regional AI collaboration needs to distinguish between data sovereignty and AI itself, with sensitive data requiring appropriate control while AI models could potentially be shared more widely.

“In terms of data, it is about trust and sovereignty, so most countries will keep their data in their country. AI is different, as long as stability and governance are assured, I do not mind where the model is coming from,” he said.

While economic scale favours shared regional AI foundations, Umezawa said telcos could anchor trust across the ecosystem by leveraging customer authentication and verified data.

“As an operator, we want to provide provenance and authentication. We have authentication functions and strong data to deliver to consumers and contribute to the industry,” he said.

M360 ASEAN 2026, organised by the GSMA on Sept 9 and 10, brings together ministers, regulators and industry leaders to discuss digital trust, artificial intelligence, resilient infrastructure and regional digital integration.

The event, held for the first time in the ASEAN region and in Malaysia, is endorsed by the Ministry of Communications, with the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) as host partner.

-- BERNAMA