Key Takeaways
- Driven by large markets, low-cost scalability, and swift commercialization, Asia’s technology sector is driving innovation in sectors including AI, healthcare, consumer tech, and deep tech
- Deep talent pools, world-class research institutions, cost advantages, rapid iteration cycles, and vast markets are helping to position Asia as an attractive destination for technology investment
Long recognized as a global growth engine, Asia has emerged as a compelling destination for many technology investors in recent years. A combination of large and expanding addressable markets, deep pools of talent, strong foundational research capabilities and growing technology market capitalization are giving rise to innovative companies in sectors including artificial intelligence (AI), healthcare and consumer, along with a range of deep tech applications.
Asia can offer multiple potential advantages for investors which, taken together, help companies to scale quickly and expand globally. Our market observations and conversations with industry participants tell us that Asian companies are often able to deliver innovation at a lower cost, and can often test, refine, and commercialize products faster than companies in other parts of the world. Another advantage is the region’s speedy technological progress.
A deep talent pool and improvements in fundamental research capabilities are also helping to underpin Asia’s swift technological progress. Based on 2021 enrollment figures, the Center for Security and Emerging Technology forecast that the number of STEM PhD graduates produced by Chinese universities would be almost double the US from 2025,1 cementing the region’s position as the world’s largest source of deep technical expertise.
Figure 1: STEM PhD Talent Pipeline2
Universities and research institutes in Asia are contributing to advances in AI, semiconductors, and life sciences, with many of the world’s most cited research papers in AI and life sciences originating from Asian institutions. Multinational firms have also established research and development (R&D) hubs in the region to access this expertise.7 Asian institutions are climbing global rankings for scientific output, with 13 of the world’s top 20 research institutions now based in Asia, compared with only three a decade ago, according to the 2025 Nature Index.8
Figure 2: Regional Distribution of Top 20 Institutions Rank by Nature Index9
From the perspective of venture and growth investors, the expanding pools of technical talent and fundamental research capability have the potential to further accelerate the pace of innovation in years to come. When it comes to technology investment opportunities, several key areas are attracting significant interest and capital.
Consumer Digitalization and Innovation
With a population of 4.84 billion and a median age of 32,10 Asia is undergoing a historic digital adoption cycle, following similar trends in the US and Europe. Mobile internet penetration, digital payments, and e-commerce adoption have accelerated dramatically. The region is also quickly emerging as a crucible of consumer-driven innovation, where locally inspired products and cultural content resonate strongly with younger demographics and increasingly shape regional and, in many cases, global trends. Think of the K-wave, or hallyu, as it is known locally, the name given to the rise in global popularity of Korean pop music, entertainment (e.g. Squid Game), fashion, food and other aspects of Korean culture.
In India, Swiggy provides food delivery, groceries, quick commerce, and supply-chain services to more than 580 cities. Its quick commerce arm alone recorded more than 100% year-over-year growth in gross merchandise value11 from January to March 2025, supported by an expanding network of dark stores – mini urban warehouses that fulfill online deliveries. And its peer, Zepto, has scaled order volume by 200% over the past 18 months.12
Asia-based innovators have parlayed the knowledge and experience gained from working with global companies to establish their own businesses
In South Korea, Viva Republica’s Toss “super app” integrates payments, banking, investing, insurance, and credit services into a single platform. Toss has attracted more than 30 million users — nearly 60% of South Korea’s population — illustrating the scale of Asia’s digital transformation.13 Toss is now seeking to expand in Australia, other southeast Asia markets, and the US.14
Meanwhile, in China, Pop Mart has sold about 300 million units in the past 12 months in the collectibles market. Its blind boxes – whose contents aren’t known by the recipient prior to opening – include iconic characters such as Labubu and Molly, and have helped propel the company’s international expansion through flagship stores and “Robo Shops” across Asia, Europe, and North America.
Global SaaS and AI
Indian software companies such as Infosys, HCLTech, Tata Consultancy Services and Wipro have leveraged Asia’s talent pool and cost advantages to deliver competitive solutions to global markets for years. In turn, Asia-based innovators have parlayed the knowledge and experience gained from working with global companies to establish their own businesses.
Notable examples include Chennai-based Zoho and Nasdaq-listed Freshworks. Founded in India and backed by Accel Ventures, Freshworks offers customer support, customer relationship management, IT service management, and marketing automation solutions to more than 65,000 customers worldwide, including HP, Bridgestone, and Klarna.15
Another India-based company, Darwinbox, provides cloud-based human resources software across recruitment, payroll, performance, and employee engagement. Backed by investors including Salesforce Ventures, Lightspeed, Sequoia and KKR,16 Darwinbox supports 850+ enterprises and millions of employees in over 100 countries. Digital design platform Canva, which began in Australia, now serves over 200 million monthly active users across 190 countries and generates about $3 billion in annual revenue.17
While operating in different verticals, Canva, Freshworks and Darwinbox have common traits: ease of use and affordability. Each simplifies complex workflows and lowers adoption costs, making their products especially attractive to small and medium-sized businesses and fast-growing enterprises worldwide.
In the AI era, Asian talent will likely play an important role as “Forward Deployed Engineers” within global companies that deploy engineers in the region to work on customer-facing AI projects. These engineers help customers build AI and machine learning (ML) solutions, often focused on generative AI and ML Ops, by working to integrate and customize AI-powered products. The roles require a blend of technical expertise and customer-facing skills to solve real world business problems, and may involve developing cutting-edge solutions, designing integrations, and mentoring junior engineers.
Deep Tech and Hardware Innovation
Asia accounts for more than half of global manufacturing value-added18 – the difference between the value of manufactured output and the cost of goods used in production. This strength supports large-scale production while accelerating advances in emerging technologies. For instance, Asia is expected to continue to lead in industrial robotics,19 since combined installations in China, Japan, South Korea and India were 11 times higher than in the US in 2024. China is the overwhelming leader in the space, accounting for 54% of global deployments. Companies such as Unitree Robotics exemplify the trend, offering cost-effective quadruped robots for logistics and industrial use at less than 10% of the cost of comparable US systems.20
While the US leads global disruption in generative AI, Asian innovators are making what was once a prohibitively expensive space more accessible and scalable across industries and geographies
Asia also produces globally competitive smart devices. For example, Bambu Lab, founded in 2020, is a dominant player in desktop 3D printing with advanced smart features at more affordable prices than competitors.21 The region is also at the forefront of the energy transition. South Korea’s EcoPro, with revenue of more than $2 billion in 2024,22 is among the few companies capable of reliably producing high-nickel cathode active materials for lithium-ion batteries at scale.
Health Tech and Life Sciences
Demographic shifts such as aging populations in some markets, and the continent’s deep pool of engineering and science talent, are supporting advances in health tech and life sciences. Using AI, South Korea’s Lunit’s chest X-ray and mammography solutions are deployed at more than 600 sites across more than 40 countries.23
SystImmune, a unit of China’s Sichuan Biokin Pharmaceutical that develops antibody-based therapies for the treatment of cancers, in 2023 signed an $8.4 billion licensing deal with Bristol Myers Squibb for its pipeline of antibody-drug conjugate for lung and breast cancer, as well as other solid tumors.24 By leveraging China’s extensive clinical resources and cost-efficient R&D capabilities, SystImmune has accelerated the validation and advancement of innovative therapies.
Generative AI
While the US leads global disruption in generative AI, Asian innovators are making what was once a prohibitively expensive space more accessible and scalable across industries and geographies. China has developed a vibrant Large Language Model (LLM) ecosystem, particularly in open source. DeepSeek made headlines in early 2025 with its announcement that it had reached performance on par with leading US LLMs at a fraction of the cost.25 South Korea’s FuriosaAI produces neural processing units – microprocessors that accelerate data center AI tasks – that deliver about 2.25 times better performance per watt compared with typical GPUs,26 a breakthrough for scaling generative AI workloads.
Canva’s acquisition of Leonardo.ai27 gives users more creative control over image and motion generation, strengthening Canva’s generative design suite. And Singapore-based Manus’s general purpose AI agent, which can decompose complex tasks into subtasks and execute them with minimal human input, directly integrating with real world platforms to deliver applied outcomes, was downloaded 130,000 times in the first two weeks after launch.28
As in other regions, the growth potential of generative AI in Asia is significant, driven by a combination of market scale, technological capability, and cost efficiency. With large, digitally engaged populations, Asia offers vast datasets and diverse application scenarios that can accelerate model training and deployment. We also believe that, because of fast adoption by a digitally native population – for example, India is the second-largest market for Open AI after the US – Asia will be competitive in the development of AI applications.
Strong engineering talent pools and advanced manufacturing ecosystems should also help to drive software innovation and the development of specialized AI hardware at lower costs
Strong engineering talent pools and advanced manufacturing ecosystems should also help to drive software innovation and the development of specialized AI hardware at lower costs. Governments across Asia are also actively supporting AI adoption through funding, infrastructure, and regulatory frameworks. Together, we believe these factors can help Asia to shape its technological progress by lowering costs and providing pathways to widespread adoption across industries.
Risks and Considerations
While opportunities are significant, risk is ever present. Potential headwinds for investors in Asia’s technology sector may include:
- Geopolitical uncertainty: US-China trade tensions could disrupt supply chains, cross-border capital flows, and technology transfers;
- Regulatory variability: Each Asian market has distinct regulatory environments, which could materially impact growth trajectories, valuations, and exit options.
Mitigating factors may include:
- Diversification across geographies and sectors reduces exposure to any single regulatory regime or geopolitical event;
- Selecting sophisticated local general partners with deep market knowledge and on-the-ground networks who are better positioned to navigate regulatory complexity and political shifts.
Conclusion
Asia has evolved from simply copying US technology to become a global innovation hub. Deep talent pools, worldclass research institutions, cost advantages, rapid iteration cycles, and vast markets position the region as an attractive destination for technology investment.
From AI and digital platforms to deep tech, healthcare, and consumer applications, Asia’s breadth of opportunity is expanding. While there are always risks, in our view the underlying fundamentals are robust, and the region’s influence on the global innovation landscape is deepening.
While we think Asia’s overall technology opportunity is compelling, each market offers unique characteristics. China has advanced R&D capabilities, particularly in AI, consumer electronics and life sciences. India stands out for its software engineering strength and cost-efficient software innovation. Japan and Korea excel in hardware and semiconductor technologies, as well as content and entertainment. Australia contributes through user-centric software and design-led innovation, while Southeast Asia provides large consumer-driven digital opportunities fueled by rapid adoption and youthful demographics. Understanding and balancing these diverse drivers will be among the keys to capturing Asia’s technology potential.
For limited partners, we think the challenge is not whether to engage with Asia’s technology sector, but how best to allocate capital across a diverse and quickly evolving ecosystem. We believe diversifying exposure and partnering with local general partners offers an effective way to secure opportunities while helping to mitigate risks. Those who succeed at balancing some of these factors are more likely to capture financial returns while participating in the reshaping of global innovation.
1. CSET China is Fast Outpacing U.S. STEM PhD Growth, August 2021, fDi Intelligence (an FT publication) China’s universities outpace US peers amid tech competition, April 30, 2025
2. Source: CSET, IPEDS, OECD, MHRD in Government of India, ASP Analysis
3. Include all doctorate recipients: US citizens, permanent residents, and temporary-visa holders
4. Domestic counts include only US citizens and permanent residents
5. Includes China, Japan, Korea, and India; Australia and Singapore not shown here due to data inaccessibility
6. China/US projections from CSET; Japan, Korea, India held at 2022 levels due to data limitations
7. The Economic Times Applied Materials says Bengaluru semiconductor R&D centre to rake in $2 billion, June 20, 2025; AstraZeneca to invest $2.5 billion in new global strategic R&D centre, biotech agreements and manufacturing in Beijing, March 21, 2025
8. Nature Index 2025 Research Leaders
9. Source: Nature, ASP Analysis
10. Worldometer
11. The Economic Times Swiggy Instamart delivers 101% YoY growth in Q4 GOV, May 9, 2025
12. The Time of India Zepto CEO Aadit Palicha: We started as No. 7, now we’re No. 2; the next challenge is value, October 21, 2025
13. The Korea Herald 6 in 10 South Koreans use Toss app, August 6, 2025
14. CoinTelegraph Toss to debut finance superapp in Australia amid stablecoin push, September 9, 2025
15. Freshworks Customer Stories
16. Business Wire Darwinbox Secures US$40 Million From Teachers’ Venture Growth, August 14, 2025
17. DemandSage Canva Statistics 2025 – Market Share & Users Data, September 6, 2025
18. United Nations Industrial Development Organization Factsheet: Asia and Oceania
19. International Federation of Robotics, Global Robot Demand in Factories Doubles Over 10 Years, September 25, 2025
20. Hoover Institution Marc Andreessen: It’s Morning Again In America, January 14, 2025
21. All3DP Why Bambu Lab’s Sub‑$3K Printers Are Crushing Industrial FDMs, July 17, 2025; YouTube Major Hardware channel: How Bambu Lab Rose from Nowhere to Dominate 3D Printing
22. Ecopro Ecopro 4Q.2024 Earnings Release, February 11, 2025
23. NVIDIA Shifting Into High Gear: Lunit, Maker of FDA-Cleared AI for Cancer Analysis, Goes Public in Seoul, July 21, 2022
24. BioSpace BMS Inks Potential $8.4B Deal for SystImmune’s ADC for Lung, Breast Cancer, December 12, 2023
25. Reuters Explainer: What is DeepSeek and why is it disrupting the AI sector?, January 28, 2025
26. TechTarget FuriosaAI to fuel LG Exaone LLM: Is it a challenge to Nvidia?, July 22, 2025
27. Canva to Acquire Generative AI Platform Leonardo.AI to Bring Leading Visual AI to Every Organization, Press Release, July 29, 2024
28. AppFigures Manus AI Joins the AI App Race, But Can It Really Compete?, April 4, 2025
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