Industrial Research Unit · Straits Institute for Applied AI
Applied AI in Asia-Pacific
202 entries on the record across Asia-Pacific — 140 deployments, 31 pieces of evidence of adoption, 28 regulations, 3 pieces of evidence of impact. Each one is traced to a named source and dated. Maintained continuously by the Industrial Research Unit; the record was last updated 14 Sep 2026.
Santo Tomas puts Gemini for Education before 46,000 students
University of Santo Tomas — Gemini for Education now backs teaching, research and academic support for over 46,000 students across 22 academic units at the University of Santo Tomas, part of the Philippine institution's push on generative AI in higher education. More than 2,000 faculty gained training to use the tools within their own subjects, with 45 e-learning specialists and over 300 Google Certified Educators providing support, an example of AI in university teaching and learning at scale. Uses span nursing students rehearsing emergencies, architecture students visualising designs, and staff drafting rubrics, lesson plans and visual guides.
CEVA runs driverless pallet movers inside its Singapore hub
CEVA Logistics — CEVA Logistics is trialling driverless pallet movers at Blue Hub: two Zelostech Z10 autonomous electric vehicles on existing multi-level ramps, shifting stock between floors. CEVA expects at least 4,600 kilograms a year in cut emissions. Zelostech met CEVA via the 2025 CMA CGM Startup Awards; this warehouse automation trial decides whether the vehicles reach other CEVA sites.
DeploymentManufacturing, Energy & ResourcesSouth Korea13 Sep 2026
LG Display staff build 450 AI projects, automating 190 tasks
LG Display — AX SQUAD, LG Display's scheme for turning ordinary staff into AI builders, has already produced roughly 450 applications tackling problems workers spot in their own jobs. Around 190 of those live inside manufacturing alone, covering defect classification plus an optical simulation tool still being built and a human resources survey system, showing how far employee-built AI applications have spread beyond IT departments. Reach will grow further from the second half of 2026, when the South Korean firm folds in procurement, supply chain, customer support, finance, management, sales and marketing, extending workplace AI automation well past its original manufacturing and development base.
DeploymentManufacturing, Energy & ResourcesChina11 Sep 2026
China releases AI systems for mineral prospecting and geological mapping
Ministry of Natural Resources — The Ministry of Natural Resources released two AI mineral exploration and mapping systems, AI-OreSeeking and AI-GeoMapping, at the 28th China Mining Conference and Exhibition in Tianjin. AI-OreSeeking automates the prospecting workflow end to end and has been trialled in more than 100 projects across over ten provincial-level regions; test data from it indicate that mineral prediction and evaluation once taking half a year can now be finished in one week. AI-GeoMapping runs from preliminary research to map compilation, identifies geological bodies with accuracy above 90 per cent and lifts processing efficiency by more than 50 per cent against traditional methods, and has been tested across nearly 100 map sheets at 1:50,000 in Qinghai, Xizang, Xinjiang and Fujian among other regions; the AI geological mapping system is also being promoted and applied in countries such as Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Laos.
DeploymentGovernment & Public SectorSouth Korea11 Sep 2026
Korea's procurement agency runs seven AI tools its staff built
Public Procurement Service of Korea — Seven homegrown systems deliver AI in government procurement across South Korea's Public Procurement Service: procurement-law guidance, press release and remarks drafting, document automation, National Assembly task tracking, and workflow automation. A 26-person internal team built these AI-driven public sector automation tools since February 2026 via 'vibe coding', letting non-programmers specify requirements conversationally. Commissioner Baek Seung-bo unveiled the outcomes.
Hanjin's AI cameras cut safety violations 60% across 20 terminals
Hanjin — Major safety breaches have fallen roughly 60% at Hanjin Logistics sites running AI Safety Guardian, an AI camera system for warehouse safety now active across about 20 logistics terminals. CCTV feeds are scanned for staff crossing conveyor belts, vehicles flouting site rules, cars blocking pedestrian walkways and unworn hard hats; violations trigger flashing lights, voice warnings and a text alert to safety managers, delivering surveillance-based hazard alerts in real time. Ten locations near greater Seoul launched first, in late July, before expansion into Chungcheong, Gangwon and other outlying regions.
Azerbaijan's food safety agency to run AI risk analysis in AQTİS
Azerbaijan Food Safety Agency — The Azerbaijan Food Safety Agency will apply AI food safety risk analysis inside the Automated Food Safety Information System, or AQTİS, tightening enforcement, rule-making and the warnings that reach traders and shoppers, under a State Programme for 2027-2032 signed by President Ilham Aliyev. Kit selection comes first, jointly with other public bodies, before a model that flags hazard detection and brewing trouble is built and turned on. The Ministry of Digital Development and Transport and the Ministry of Economy share delivery.
Brisbane will time 37 intersections with AI from early 2027
Brisbane City Council — Brisbane City Council said it will hand traffic signal timing at 37 intersections to AI — 22 along Logan Road and 15 along Kelvin Grove Road — in a six-month trial beginning early in 2027. The AI traffic signal system is to read traffic volumes and queue lengths at each intersection and work out the best light sequence from them, learning over time, suggesting interventions to operators and adapting to weather and major events. The council's smart traffic signals plan follows a separately announced trial at one intersection in Petrie, north of the city.
DeploymentGovernment & Public SectorSingapore10 Sep 2026
Singapore will open an AI grant recommender to every business
Ministry of Trade and Industry, Singapore / Enterprise Singapore — BizSG launches 30 September 2026, as Singapore's Ministry of Trade and Industry and Enterprise Singapore fold schemes into one BusinessSG roof. Its AI grant recommender reads a firm's goals to point it toward matching funds, an early case of AI-based business grant matching already used by roughly 700 firms in beta since October 2025. Low Yen Ling unveiled the plan at the SME Centre Conference.
Evidence of adoptionBusiness OperationsThailand10 Sep 2026
Thailand funds 55 AI and automation upgrades for local firms
Competitiveness Enhancement Fund for Target Industries, Thailand — Thailand's Competitiveness Enhancement Fund for Target Industries cleared 55 projects for AI in manufacturing, automation and digital technology, including 48 business transformation schemes worth 3.54 billion baht in investment against 1.663 billion baht of state backing. Seven workforce projects will train 10,180 workers. Ekniti Nitithanprasert chaired the subcommittee, linking industrial upgrades to digital transformation.
RegulationGovernment & Public SectorMalaysia10 Sep 2026
Malaysia completes draft AI Governance Bill for cabinet review
Digital Ministry of Malaysia — Malaysia's Digital Ministry has finalised the draft of the country's Artificial Intelligence (AI) Governance Bill, advancing Malaysia AI regulation toward Cabinet submission ahead of an expected Parliament tabling by the first quarter of 2027. The legislation proposes a Central AI Authority tasked with overseeing compliance and enforcement, forming one strand of a wider framework that blends technical standards, rules and statutes. The Bill represents the legal component of that broader structure, built to combine binding law with softer standards-based governance.
Azerbaijan's agriculture ministry tracks crop stress with AI
Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Azerbaijan — Azerbaijan's Ministry of Agriculture runs AI crop monitoring nationally, says Surkhay Novruzov, who heads its AI projects. Wheat stress readings began reaching the ministry in April and cotton has since joined, with every crop the target; a companion model judges whether water reaches tilled land, right roughly 82% of the time. A separate alert engine recognises 16 pests and diseases, pushing three-day outlooks to growers over Telegram at 07:00 daily, alongside evapotranspiration and plant-water figures.
DeploymentHealthcare & Life SciencesAzerbaijan8 Sep 2026
TABIB runs AI radiology pilots in Azerbaijan's health service
TABIB — TABIB has AI radiology pilots running now in Azerbaijan, alongside tools aimed at easing doctors' workflows. The state health body ranks machine reading of medical images, earlier disease detection, clinical decision support and patient-data handling among the more promising uses of medical imaging AI. Candidate systems are still being weighed, and the public will hear which clear the bars of clinical accuracy, data security, personal-data protection and specialist supervision.
IJM opens an RM18 million AI control centre for three highways
IJM Corporation — IJM opened an RM18 million Smart Highway Traffic Control Centre at the Besraya Loke Yew toll plaza lay-by, watching its Besraya, New Pantai Expressway and Kajang-Seremban concessions through 144 CCTVs, 87 video incident detection systems, 35 automatic number plate recognition scanners and 22 variable message signs. The AI highway monitoring flags congestion, pedestrians on the carriageway, early flood signs, liquid spillage, potholes, dumped rubbish, wrong-way and reversing vehicles, illegal lane changes, hard-shoulder stops and illegal advertising banners and posters, and counts vehicles by class. Works Minister Datuk Seri Alexander Nanta Linggi officiated, and the centre's smart highway data feeds the Malaysian Highway Authority's national traffic management centre.
DeploymentGovernment & Public SectorPakistan8 Sep 2026
Pakistan's Election Commission will set up an AI wing by December
Election Commission of Pakistan — Pakistan's Election Commission will launch an artificial intelligence wing for internal technical support, part of a broader AI in election administration drive, alongside a fully digital E-Office system due by December 2026. Sikandar Sultan Raja has set 15 October 2026 as the deadline for all wings to complete E-Office training — one step in the commission's electoral body automation. A new interactive public site was also approved.
Life insurers' association hands consumer complaints to AI in Korea
Korea Life Insurance Association — The Korea Life Insurance Association has introduced AI complaint handling alongside AI review of advertising and internal regulations. Speech-to-text transcribes consumer–counsellor calls live, classifies each complaint type and gives counsellors supporting material mid-call. Three applications went live this month, and the association aims for 17 projects, including translation, contract review and legal review, during 2027.
Maya puts AI behind its HR desk in the Philippines
Maya — Fintech Maya has put AI in HR operations alongside employee self-service, so staff produce their own certificates of employment and similar documents while managers handle promotions and transfers themselves. AI checks the company's BIR Form 2316 filings for inconsistencies and supports recruitment through market analysis and candidate sourcing. People group head Charee Lanza says technology clears away tasks employees should manage without waiting for HR.
Evidence of adoptionGovernment & Public SectorPakistan7 Sep 2026
Pakistan's higher education regulator trains 400 faculty in AI
Higher Education Commission Pakistan — Pakistan's National Academy of Higher Education, part of the Higher Education Commission, has put around 400 public-university lecturers and assistant professors through two AI training cohorts, 332 and about 64. The AI Literacy for Educators programme spanned generative AI, large language models and machine learning plus discipline uses in research, data analytics, banking, business and healthcare. Managing director Noor Amna Malik says AI is fast reshaping how knowledge is taught, researched, created, applied and assessed.
RegulationGovernment & Public SectorChina7 Sep 2026
China's top court bars AI face and voice clones without consent
Supreme People's Court — The Supreme People's Court issued judicial guidelines for AI-related disputes, holding that recognisable digital replicas of a person — cloned faces and cloned voices included — may not be made or distributed without that person's consent. The guidance also reaches algorithmic price discrimination and AI-generated false information, and leaves service providers liable where they fail to act promptly after notice that their systems produced infringing content. Someone whose face has been altered and used to spread false and defamatory sexual claims now has a route to court; the court's vice-president, Tao Kaiyuan, cast this China AI regulation as seeking to balance development and security, with room left to clarify questions on which consensus is still thin.
DeploymentGovernment & Public SectorChina6 Sep 2026
China's public security ministry launches a national anti-fraud AI app
Ministry of Public Security — China's Ministry of Public Security has launched national anti-fraud AI, an AI anti-fraud app helping the public spot telecom and online scams, built independently by the Shanghai Public Security Bureau under its criminal investigation bureau. Users describe a suspicious situation and the app rates the risk, names the probable fraud tactic, gives prevention advice and points to similar cases, using AI agent technologies, multimodal models and large language models.
KT — KT now runs AI stadium operations daily at Suwon KT Wiz Park, from facial-recognition entry and synthetic-voice announcements to motion-recognition fan cameras and live translation for foreign spectators. KT says entry, previously 50 to 60 seconds a person with bag checks, is about 30 seconds faster, more than halving delays. Foreign spectators' attendance share rose 57% in the first half against a year earlier after translation launched.
Evidence of adoptionBusiness OperationsThailand6 Sep 2026
Only one in eight Thai firms deploys AI, World Bank says
World Bank — The World Bank puts AI adoption in Thailand at about 12% of Thai businesses, launching its Building Thailand's Future Today report at the Bangkok Business Summit. Vice-president for East Asia and Pacific Carlos Felipe Jaramillo noted the one-in-eight rate despite an established electronics manufacturing base and fresh data-centre investment. The report ties the 2037 high-income target to raising it, particularly for small and medium-sized firms.
Evidence of adoptionBusiness OperationsCyprus6 Sep 2026
9.3% of Cypriot businesses used AI in 2025, up from 2.6% in 2021
Statistical Service of Cyprus — AI adoption in Cyprus hit 9.3 per cent of firms in 2025, from 2.6 per cent in 2021, the Statistical Service found. Size drives the gap: 7.7 per cent among small firms with 10 to 49 staff, 15.3 among mid-sized ones, 35.1 at employers of 250-plus. Business use of AI was measured in selected sectors among firms of 10-plus staff.
DeploymentHealthcare & Life SciencesChina6 Sep 2026
AI ultrasound robot guides a congenital heart closure at 301 Hospital
Chinese PLA General Hospital (301 Hospital) — The Senior Department of Cardiology at the Sixth Medical Center of Chinese PLA General Hospital, better known as 301 Hospital, completed a transcatheter closure for congenital heart disease on a 48-year-old man with an AI-powered ultrasound robot at the probe. The robot carried out image acquisition, lesion localisation and real-time navigation on its own through the procedure, and the team leaned on it to choose the occluder and place it accurately. The hospital calls this a first for AI in interventional cardiology, resting that on a search it attributes to an authoritative institution.
DeploymentGovernment & Public SectorNepal6 Sep 2026
Nepal finance ministry engineer builds AI flood-response portal
Ministry of Finance, Nepal — Niraj Bhusal built an overnight AI disaster response portal for Nepal's Ministry of Finance after the Rasuwa-Bhote Koshi floods, merging satellite APIs, news reports and press releases with data from the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology, Nepal Police, the Nepali Army and the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority to track deaths and missing persons for relief coordination. An AI flood-response platform launched in Nepali, then English.
Singapore gives geography teachers an AI tool to mark essays
Ministry of Education, Singapore — Singapore's Ministry of Education has opened Markly, its AI essay marking tool, to secondary and junior-college geography teachers. Its feedback on essays and extended responses is grouped by content and language use, and pilots in some secondary schools cover history, social studies and English language. Teachers review, edit or reject each marking suggestion before students see it and own all feedback; the ministry will judge the pilot before any wider rollout.
DeploymentGovernment & Public SectorPakistan5 Sep 2026
Punjab opens an AI threat-assessment centre for district alerts
Government of Punjab — Punjab chief minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif opened the Provincial Intelligence Fusion and Threat Assessment Centre in Lahore and e-launched AI Hub Punjab, which she calls Pakistan's first provincial AI hub. The centre combines intelligence from multiple agencies and alerts district coordination committees digitally, catching problems before becoming major incidents.
DeploymentGovernment & Public SectorPakistan5 Sep 2026
NADRA moves three million pensioners onto AI face verification
National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) — More than three million Pakistani retirees now confirm pension eligibility through AI face verification pensioners technology instead of fingerprint scans, under a newly activated National Pensioners Verification System run by the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA). Coverage spans federal, provincial, military and autonomous-institution pension schemes, targeting older and disabled claimants whose worn prints routinely defeated fingerprint readers, with Pakistan's Prime Minister launching the system on 20 August 2026. Each successful scan triggers an automatic digital Proof-of-Life Certificate, logged straight into the Pension Controller Register System without manual paperwork. This marks a shift toward facial biometrics for pension verification across Pakistan's public retirement system.
RegulationGovernment & Public SectorKyrgyzstan5 Sep 2026
Kyrgyzstan's Digital Code AI rules come into force
Government of Kyrgyzstan — Kyrgyzstan AI regulation under Chapter 23 of the Digital Code (articles 191-197) now covers every AI system deployed nationally. Operators must publish a self-run risk assessment, disclose AI-generated interactions and deepfakes to users, and, for high-risk systems, issue a public conformity declaration. Cabinet Resolution No. 770 (December 2025) approved the methodology behind these AI governance requirements.
Evidence of adoptionGovernment & Public SectorMalaysia4 Sep 2026
Malaysia opens free AI tool access to 100,000 young people
Government of Malaysia — Malaysia's AI Untuk Rakyat programme gives 100,000 young people three months of free AI access to premium generative tools once they finish six self-paced modules. Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim announced it in the 2026 National Day Premier Address on 30 August; the tools include Google's Gemini, YTL's ILMUChat, Alibaba Cloud's MuleRun and WonderClip, under the AI Nation 2030 aspiration.
Sugar Cane Growers Fund launches Smart Chatbot for farmers
Sugar Cane Growers Fund (SCGF) — Fiji's Sugar Cane Growers Fund (SCGF) unveiled an AI chatbot for farmers, the Smart Chatbot, together with a new Digital Management System, moving the sugar sector in Lautoka away from paper-based work. Officials expect the digital farmer support tools to widen access to financing and information, particularly for women and other vulnerable groups. The Asian Development Bank backed the launch.
CJ Logistics puts humanoid robots on a live packing line
CJ Logistics — CJ Logistics has deployed a pair of dual-arm humanoid robots for live packing at the Olive Young logistics centre in Yangji, Yongin, marking its debut for humanoid robots in logistics. The dual-arm machines slot cushioning into boxes as orders are packed, and the company plans to extend them to inspection, sorting and picking while feeding site data back into training their control models.
Evidence of adoptionBusiness OperationsThailand3 Sep 2026
53.7% of Thai organisations already use AI, national survey finds
NECTEC — AI adoption in Thailand has hit 53.7%, a NECTEC poll of 574 Thai bodies shows, though maturity across five dimensions - governance, technology, people, data infrastructure, strategy - averages only 'Aware'. Thailand's national electronics laboratory, releasing AI Readiness 2026, urged faster progress on governance and technology for effective artificial intelligence deployment. A dashboard follows 29 September 2026.
DeploymentManufacturing, Energy & ResourcesChina2 Sep 2026
Offline AI monitors remote coalbed methane drilling sites in Shanxi
Shandong Coalfield Geological Bureau — The Third Exploration Team of the Shandong Coalfield Geologic Bureau and partners deployed edge AI safety monitoring at four remote coalbed methane drilling projects in the Qinshui Basin, in Shanxi. It analyses video and behaviour data on site instead of the cloud, with real-time voice alerts where connectivity is weak. The team cites emergency response cut from hours to minutes, 80% better hazard-inspection efficiency and about 25 drilling hours saved on one project; none is independently evaluated.
Korea makes advertisers prove AI performance claims before they run
Korea Fair Trade Commission — The Korea Fair Trade Commission's amended notice on substantiating labelling and advertising claims took effect on 3 September 2026, requiring prior substantiation for AI advertising claims and other new-technology claims about products. The extension for filing substantiation material shrinks from 30 days to 15, granted only on narrower grounds such as receivership, a merger, natural disaster or seized records. Firms failing to file can be ordered to pull the advertisement.
DeploymentHealthcare & Life SciencesAustralia2 Sep 2026
Queensland health service rolls out ambient AI scribe to clinicians
Metro South Health — Metro South Health began deploying Heidi's ambient AI scribe in June 2026, a rollout running through the following year. The scribe hears consultations and writes clinicians' clinical documentation for them, after a 2025 trial in which 92 per cent of participating clinicians spent less time on administration.
DeploymentHealthcare & Life SciencesSouth Korea1 Sep 2026
Korea's health insurance reviewer starts using AI to read knee scans
Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service — Korea's Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service (HIRA) has started AI claims review for knee osteoarthritis, applying AI-generated medical image readings. This is HIRA's first AI use within the review of claims, going beyond clinical decision support, and human reviewers keep responsibility for each final decision.
United Overseas Bank — United Overseas Bank has put more than 300 AI and analytics use cases into production under an AI assurance framework that tests, validates and continuously monitors models across their lifecycle. It also runs 30-plus domain-specific chatbots and has given Microsoft Copilot to over 30,000 employees. Alvin Eng, UOB's head of enterprise AI, says scaling AI safely hinges on operating discipline, governance and controls more than on having the strongest individual models.
Agrobank scores Uzbek borrowers with AI and big data
Agrobank — Agrobank now uses AI and data analytics in lending, internal controls and credit risk assessment. Internal auditor Shahob Eddin Masharipov says AI credit scoring on big data, drawn from tax reporting, telecom data and transaction activity, rates retail and small-business borrowers. Automated data checks cut microloan decisions to a few minutes with no credit officer involved, the bank says.
Seroond opens Armenia's first AI-native public school in Vahagni
Armenia Education Initiative — Seroond Authored School began teaching on 1 September 2026 at Vahagni, an AI-native public school the Armenia Education Initiative bills as the country's first, built with the Hovnanian family. Up to 20 children form the opening year group, and nobody pays fees. Machine tutoring pinpoints each pupil's level, tailors drill difficulty live and holds a child back until mastery is real; planning, differentiation and first-pass marking shift to the software, leaving staff for mentoring. AI ethics and AI literacy sit on the timetable.
Evidence of adoptionGovernment & Public SectorTaiwan1 Sep 2026
Taiwan targets 500,000 AI professionals by 2040
Government of Taiwan — Taiwan's AI Talent Ark Project targets training at least 500,000 AI professionals by 2040, backed by more than NT$40 billion (US$1.26 billion) for ten major artificial intelligence projects next year. An AI professional training programme fixed by President William Lai's administration anchors this workforce push.
DeploymentFinance & InsuranceSouth Korea31 Aug 2026
Woori Bank rebuilds its chatbot around AI agents with KT
Woori Bank — Woori Bank has hired KT to rebuild its chatbot and advisory bot as AI agents in banking, linked to its 'AI Banker' financial consultation service through KT's Agent Connector so customer context follows across channels. KT has started development, aiming at sharper intent recognition and AI in outbound calls and branch consultations.
DeploymentHealthcare & Life SciencesKazakhstan31 Aug 2026
Shymkent hospital adds AI stroke reading to its CT workflow
City Clinical Hospital No. 1, Shymkent — City Clinical Hospital No. 1 in Shymkent added CEREBRA, AI stroke detection that reads brain CT scans for acute cerebrovascular events, in July 2026, continuing a phased city rollout that began at City Hospital No. 2. Its doctors treat it as a supplementary tool and still decide the stroke type themselves; over 4,000 studies went through CEREBRA across Shymkent in the first half of 2026.
DeploymentGovernment & Public SectorJapan28 Aug 2026
Soka City runs Japan’s first on-premise municipal gen-AI
Soka City (Saitama) — Soka City in Saitama has deployed FIXER's Sovereign GaiXer, on-premise generative AI for drafting internal rules, preparing meeting minutes and building plans from confidential documents. The city says it is Japan's first municipality to adopt it, keeping sensitive data on site, away from public cloud services.
DeploymentGovernment & Public SectorSouth Korea28 Aug 2026
South Korea picks SKT, KT and Kakao to build citizen AI
Ministry of Science and ICT — South Korea's Ministry of Science and ICT has picked SK Telecom, KT and Kakao from six applicants to lead consortia for citizen AI services: a general-purpose chatbot and AI agents for complex public administrative procedures. Agreements follow in September, nationwide launch targets end-2026 after beta tests, and the ministry will supply the three with 512 Nvidia B200 GPUs this year.
IndiaFirst Life embeds AI agents across underwriting and claims
IndiaFirst Life — IndiaFirst Life has chosen Salesforce Agentforce to place AI agents in insurance work across claims processing, customer service and new-business underwriting. The agents review KYC and medical documents, sort and answer service cases and check claims paperwork.
Hong Kong regulators select 36 AI cases for supervised finance trials
Hong Kong Monetary Authority — The Hong Kong Monetary Authority, the Securities and Futures Commission, the Insurance Authority and the Mandatory Provident Fund Schemes Authority, with Hong Kong Cyberport, have picked 36 use cases from nearly 100 proposals for the first GenA.I. Sandbox++ cohort. 30 financial institutions and 27 technology partners take part, including Ant Bank (Hong Kong), WeChat Pay Hong Kong and Hang Seng Bank, focusing on agentic AI in finance for customer interactions, insurance claims, payments and onboarding, and on AI giving dynamic oversight of other AI applications' actions.
DeploymentTransport & LogisticsAustralia27 Aug 2026
Moreton Bay will run Australia's first self-directing AI traffic signals
City of Moreton Bay — The City of Moreton Bay will run Australia's first AI traffic lights trial at the junction of Paper Avenue and Moreton Parade in Petrie, using SWARCO software that controls signal movements in real time on active demand instead of stepping through fixed phases. Cameras and 3D LiDAR sensors are to tell passenger vehicles, heavy transport, cyclists and pedestrians apart, with the system learning local patterns and recalculating sequences on the spot. Testing was set to start in September 2026 and the AI signal control trial runs to 2029; no source confirms the switch-on day.
DeploymentGovernment & Public SectorHong Kong27 Aug 2026
Hong Kong DPO announces four AI projects to upgrade 1823 services
Digital Policy Office — Hong Kong's Digital Policy Office (DPO) is building an AI government hotline, launching four AI Efficacy Enhancement Projects for 1823 by end of 2026. LLMs and speech recognition power a Call Assistant drafting case summaries, an Email Extraction tool cutting data entry by 30%, priority sorting of department replies, and a district-level Dashboard. AI Agents get piloted across departments in Q4, widening automation into public-sector case handling.
DeploymentTransport & LogisticsSingapore26 Aug 2026
Eastern Pacific Shipping expands Orca AI collision-avoidance to more ships
Eastern Pacific Shipping — Eastern Pacific Shipping is extending AI collision avoidance from Orca AI to dozens more ships after a five-vessel pilot of over 130,000 nautical miles. The companies report 48% fewer close encounters per 1,000 nautical miles and 10% wider average passing distances, figures with no independent evaluation. Its computer-vision SeaPod bridge unit picks out and classifies surrounding objects and vessels, even craft without AIS.
Lotte Department Store deploys 'Brand AI' to analyse 4,000 brands
Lotte Department Store — Lotte Department Store's in-house 'Brand AI' analyses more than 4,000 brands for AI merchandising strategy and emerging-brand scouting, the company says. Launched in late July 2026, it processes the data buyers need into visuals, with a natural-language chatbot due in the second half of 2026.
Japan adopts a code asking AI firms to disclose training data
Government of Japan — Japan's government has adopted principles on AI training data disclosure, pressing generative AI operators to share basic facts with users, rights holders and the public. Operators should publish an overview of their automated online data-collection tools, tell rights holders on request whether their works were used, and file their implementation with the Cabinet Office, updating it yearly. The non-binding principles carry no penalties and cover foreign as well as Japanese firms offering AI services in the country.
ClassNK launches an AI assistant for ship-survey questions
ClassNK — ClassNK has launched 'Survey Compass', a natural-language AI ship survey assistant answering shipowners' and managers' classification-survey questions via its customer portal. For accuracy in safety-critical work it relies on retrieval-based answers drawn from, and linking back to, source documents instead of generating unsourced text.
DeploymentGovernment & Public SectorChina25 Aug 2026
Chinese local governments roll out grassroots AI service tools
Local governments (Jiangsu, Beijing, Shanghai) — Local governments across China have deployed grassroots AI tools: in Suqian, Jiangsu, community-group AI assistants answer social security and school enrolment questions and route feedback. In Beijing's Miyun district an official used AI-assisted coding to build a flood-control monitoring app, and a Shanghai subdistrict launched a community-service agent with voice Q&A and public-service maps. No adoption figures were given.
DeploymentHealthcare & Life SciencesKyrgyzstan24 Aug 2026
Bishkek hospital gets AI-powered rehabilitation device from China
Clinical Emergency Hospital, Bishkek — China has donated a Digital Rehabilitation Therapist (DRT) system now operating at the Clinical Emergency Hospital in Bishkek, part of a wider push for AI rehabilitation therapy in Kyrgyzstan. The device maps 35 key body points via 3D vision and motion recognition, building personalised recovery plans and tracking patients from hospital to home. Guidance draws on over 100,000 clinical cases from Peking University Third Hospital.
DeploymentGovernment & Public SectorJapan22 Aug 2026
Japan's Digital Agency launches a generative-AI tool for 180,000 officials
Digital Agency (Government of Japan) — Japan's Digital Agency launched Genai, in-house generative AI for civil servants, to about 180,000 officials for translation, writing, meeting transcription, public-comment classification and draft replies to parliamentary questions. Fact-checking and final policy calls remain with staff; broader rollout is aimed at fiscal 2027.
Vanuatu forestry officers use machine learning to map invasive plants
Vanuatu Department of Forestry — The Pacific Community (SPC) and Vanuatu's Department of Forestry built a machine learning model for invasive plant mapping, reaching around 97 per cent validated accuracy for species like big lif rop, Cordia alliodora and African tulip. Officers fed it over 3,000 field points via Digital Earth Pacific, using predictive modelling for invasive species to guide site selection and treatment trials from August 2026.
DeploymentGovernment & Public SectorArmenia20 Aug 2026
Armenia will create an AI Police for round-the-clock digital services
Government of Armenia — Armenia's 2026-2031 government programme commits the force to a 'Digital Police', with an AI-based 'AI Police' unit operating online to keep citizens safe, run a cyber laboratory, score risks, profile people and offer services 24/7. AI policing extends to criminological analysis, with fresh tooling to read offence patterns, where they cluster and what threats follow, plus new methods for projecting crime trends, spotting danger sooner, sharpening prevention and grounding decisions in evidence. Further steps target hostile foreign information manipulation, falsehoods and fabricated material, including deepfakes and synthetic AI content.
DeploymentGovernment & Public SectorChina20 Aug 2026
Shanghai puts 100 AI tourist terminals across the city
Shanghai Municipality — Shanghai switched on 100 AI-powered tourist service terminals across the city, each fronted by an AI agent named Hu Xiaoyou that handles navigation, real-time translation, attraction recommendations, ticket booking and made-to-order itineraries. The AI tourist service terminals draw on more than 84,000 entries covering cultural activities, attractions and sports events, carry 14,000 booking and shopping links, work in ten languages — Chinese, English, Japanese, Korean, French, German, Spanish, Thai, Russian and Arabic — and take payment in more than 120 currencies. Machines stand in major hotels, tourism information centres, event venues, business districts and scenic spots, and volunteers will also be stationed with the AI visitor assistant to help visitors with additional needs.
DeploymentGovernment & Public SectorHong Kong20 Aug 2026
Hong Kong will approve nine in ten licence renewals by AI
Transport Department — The Transport Department said its Easy Licence Application Approval project will go live by the end of 2026 and automatically recognise, cross-check and verify the documents behind online vehicle licence renewals, pushing automatic approvals past 90 per cent and cutting processing from up to ten working days to one. The same AI vehicle licensing work is to cover the Northbound Travel for Hong Kong Vehicles and Southbound Travel for Guangdong Vehicles schemes, where the department is aiming at over 50 per cent of cross-boundary driving permit applications approved automatically and manual processing times about 20 per cent shorter. Automated licence approval is the largest of a set of AI projects the department set out that day.
DBS scales AI agents to 1,500 relationship and credit managers
DBS Bank — DBS Bank is scaling agentic AI in corporate banking to about 1,500 relationship and credit-risk managers globally after a 150-person pilot, with specialised agents covering more than 70 tasks and drafting review-ready credit memos. Credit memos and related work can take up to 40% of these bankers' time, which DBS aims to cut by at least 30%, says group head of institutional banking Han Kwee Juan.
RegulationGovernment & Public SectorCyprus19 Aug 2026
Cyprus puts its first AI law out for public consultation
Republic of Cyprus — Cyprus AI regulation reaches draft stage: the Artificial Intelligence Law of 2026, open for comment until 16 September 2026, carries the European Union's AI Act into domestic law. An Artificial Intelligence Regulatory Directorate would sit inside the Office of the Commissioner for Communications, with named competent authorities, oversight of AI systems and administrative fines for breaches. The national AI rules allow a sandbox for responsible innovation.
DeploymentTransport & LogisticsSingapore18 Aug 2026
Singapore Airlines runs more than 160 AI applications in production
Singapore Airlines — Singapore Airlines has more than 160 airline AI applications in production, among them a Flight Recommender fielding nearly 10,000 queries a day by the end of FY2025/26. 'JARVIS', its generative-AI staff assistant, serves about 5,079 of 5,600 ground staff, per the annual report and senior vice-president of IT George Wang.
DeploymentEducation & TrainingKazakhstan18 Aug 2026
Kazakhstan will test AI in ten small schools from September
Ministry of Education of Kazakhstan — Kazakhstan's education ministry, under Minister Zhuldyz Suleimenova, said its AI in schools pilot would begin on 1 September in ten small schools across the Pavlodar and Kyzylorda regions, with AI solutions tested in fourth-grade classes covering mathematics, digital literacy, the native language and AI itself. Fifty more schools are scheduled to join in November and another 300 in January 2027, on the way to 500 small rural schools through 2029. Published a fortnight before the start date, the source does not confirm that AI-assisted learning began on the announced day.
DeploymentGovernment & Public SectorHong Kong17 Aug 2026
Hong Kong rolls out 30 AI projects across 13 government departments
Digital Policy Office — Hong Kong's Digital Policy Office has run 30 AI 'Efficacy Enhancement Projects' across 13 government departments since mid-2026, spanning complaint handling, environmental protection and hygiene, leisure and sports facilities, and transport and food-business licences. It credits AI in government services with up to 90% shorter waiting or processing times in some cases and some internal workflows cut from days to hours by the AI projects; no independent evaluation exists.
Evidence of impactGovernment & Public SectorHong Kong17 Aug 2026
AI halves Hong Kong's environmental impact assessment timeline
Environmental Protection Department — Hong Kong's Environmental Protection Department has used AI environmental impact assessment to cut the process from 36 to 48 months down to 15 to 24 months. The government says the saving spans environmental data collection and completing the assessment itself.
NTU Singapore gives all undergraduates a Google AI suite
NTU Singapore — NTU Singapore has given all undergraduates a Google AI suite (Vertex AI, Google AI Studio, Gemini Enterprise) plus its own NTU AI Learning Assistant (NALA). President Ho Teck Hua aims to embed AI in higher education across 40% of courses in 52 undergraduate degree programmes by 2030, from about 5% now, with students building and deploying AI agents on real problems. NTU calls itself Singapore's first university adopting AI at this scale.
DeploymentGovernment & Public SectorIndia15 Aug 2026
Indian Railways' AI lifts waitlist-prediction accuracy from 53% to 94%
Ministry of Railways / CRIS — India's Ministry of Railways, via its technology arm CRIS, has begun rolling out AI railway reservations to replace the 40-year-old Passenger Reservation System, including forecasts of whether waitlisted tickets will confirm. Indian Railways says the waitlist prediction, introduced earlier in 2026, lifted accuracy from 53% to 94%, unverified independently; about 88% of tickets are already booked digitally.
DeploymentGovernment & Public SectorIndia15 Aug 2026
Andhra Pradesh presents an AI model to detect GST evasion
Andhra Pradesh Commercial Taxes Dept — Andhra Pradesh's Commercial Taxes Department has put forward an AI/ML-driven GST model, AI tax evasion detection that also speeds refunds. It is pitched as a way to strengthen the state's GST administration.
DeploymentHealthcare & Life SciencesNew Zealand15 Aug 2026
Health New Zealand rolls out AI scribe Heidi to 1,000 ED clinicians
Te Whatu Ora (Health NZ) — Health New Zealand (Te Whatu Ora) is rolling out Heidi, an AI medical scribe turning consultations into clinical notes, to about 1,000 emergency-department clinicians nationwide after trials including Hawke's Bay Hospital. Hawke's Bay trial clinicians reported saving about 11 minutes per consultation on average.
DeploymentHealthcare & Life SciencesThailand14 Aug 2026
Thai AI chest X-ray reading reaches 610 public hospitals
National Health Security Office — Thailand's National Health Security Office board made AI chest X-ray reading a health benefit in April 2026, bringing it into real use across 610 public health network hospitals. SiAiR was built at the Faculty of Medicine Siriraj Hospital with Thai firm Perceptra and Hewlett Packard Enterprise. It relieves provincial hospitals short of specialist radiologists so remote patients get results as accurate as the capital's.
DeploymentManufacturing, Energy & ResourcesChina13 Aug 2026
CHN Energy runs 56 self-driving trucks at a Chinese coal mine
CHN Energy — CHN Energy runs 56 autonomous mining trucks among about 500 manned vehicles in shared traffic at the company's open-pit coal mine in China's north-west, coordinated by CiDi's MetaMine system. CiDi says its self-driving haulage system MetaMine had reached nearly 40 mines worldwide by mid-2026.
DeploymentFinance & InsuranceKyrgyzstan12 Aug 2026
FINCA Bank launches Kyrgyz-language voice AI assistant
FINCA Bank — FINCA Bank has deployed Kyrgyzstan's first Kyrgyz-language voice AI assistant for its contact centre. Built in-house with proprietary recognition and synthesis models, it handles inbound and outbound calls plus live chat, letting people talk naturally rather than pick through menus. A banking voice bot transfer to a live agent stays available on request.
DeploymentHealthcare & Life SciencesMacao12 Aug 2026
MGM Cotai launches TCM AI health station for workers
MGM China — MGM Cotai has installed a flagship TCM AI health station giving staff on-site AI-assisted Traditional Chinese Medicine screening. Devices read biometric signals from the tongue, face and pulse to flag over 500 possible conditions. The Macau Federation of Trade Unions, the Macao Society for Music Promotes Health Research and Kiang Wu Hospital jointly run the scheme for workers in Macao.
NEC creates a department staffed entirely by AI agents
NEC — NEC has set up an AI agent department with no human staff: 'worker' agents run automation tasks under AI 'manager' agents, which answer to human supervisors. The company aims to lift productivity by separating human and AI work more clearly; the department's size and output were not disclosed.
DeploymentEducation & TrainingSingapore11 Aug 2026
NUS gives all students and staff access to ChatGPT Edu
National University of Singapore — The National University of Singapore is giving all students, faculty and staff ChatGPT Edu from 31 August 2026 under an OpenAI collaboration. It also launched AI Sense Maker, a conversational AI research platform built on 150,000-plus digitised NUS Libraries materials for topic summaries, semantic search and knowledge-graph creation. Professor Aaron Thean says the tools amplify, rather than replace, human intellect.
DeploymentGovernment & Public SectorAustralia11 Aug 2026
WA Police scan 130,000 faces in live recognition trial
Western Australia Police — Western Australia Police have scanned over 130,000 people in Perth and Fremantle since a live facial recognition trial began in June 2026, using NEC's Neoface m40 software from a marked van at major events and crowded places. Real-time checks compare faces against a watchlist of missing people, registered child sex offenders and people with outstanding arrest warrants, and matches alert nearby officers.
DeploymentFinance & InsuranceAzerbaijan11 Aug 2026
Bir puts an AI assistant inside Azerbaijan's m10 wallet
Bir — Bir has dropped a chatbot named Ey-ay into the m10 digital wallet, the first AI payments assistant fielded in Azerbaijan and a product of the Caucasus region's earliest joined-up e-commerce, banking and payments ecosystem. Everyday transfers and the rest of the menu now run as conversational payments through plain chat, riding a swift national retreat from cash. The group counts over 5 million customers, tied in with Trendyol Azerbaijan and BakıKart.
KOICA brings AI-powered livestock monitoring to Kyrgyzstan
Kyrgyz Research Institute of Animal Husbandry and Pastures — The Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) has installed 60 AI-enabled wearable collars on animals at the Kyrgyz Research Institute of Animal Husbandry and Pastures, marking a step into AI livestock monitoring for Kyrgyzstan. Bodit Inc. designed the underlying platform, Farmer's Hands, combining sensors and machine learning to catch early illness and behavioural shifts in herds. The intent is precision agriculture via continuous, automated animal welfare tracking.
DeploymentGovernment & Public SectorMalaysia10 Aug 2026
Malaysia adds agentic AI to its MyGOV public-services app
Ministry of Digital — Malaysia's Ministry of Digital added agentic AI for public services to the MyGOV Malaysia app, letting citizens describe needs in everyday language and get step-by-step help, such as looking up and then settling a police summons. The app had over 2.9 million users by July 2026 across 52 services from 19 agencies; the AI arrives in phases with attention to privacy and human control.
DeploymentGovernment & Public SectorThailand6 Aug 2026
Thailand pilots an agentic chatbot linking five government agencies
OPDC, NSTDA and DGA — Thailand's Office of the Public Sector Development Commission, with the National Science and Technology Development Agency and the Digital Government Development Agency, piloted an agentic AI chatbot for government on Pathumma, a Thai-developed large language model. It links the Rights and Liberties Protection Department, the Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Provincial Administration, the Revenue Department and the Department of Lands, so one citizen query spanning several bodies gets a single sourced answer.
DeploymentHealthcare & Life SciencesGeorgia6 Aug 2026
MediMind deploys AI-native hospital system across 25 Georgian hospitals
MediMind — MediMind now runs an AI-native hospital information system across 25 hospitals in the Republic of Georgia, part of a growing wave of AI in hospital management built on the FHIR R4 data standard with Medplum. Workflows span admission to discharge, with roughly 1.1 million patient records, 3.1 million visits and 3.7 million clinical observations already logged. Algorithms flag preliminary findings and decision-support alerts, but this machine-assisted clinical documentation stays labelled as AI-generated, never folded into a clinician's final conclusions.
DeploymentHealthcare & Life SciencesSingapore4 Aug 2026
Singapore's NUH adopts Ainex AI endoscopy across all its units
National University Hospital — Singapore's National University Hospital has put Ainex's ENAD real-time AI endoscopy system in all its endoscopy units to find and characterise gastrointestinal lesions in upper and lower GI procedures. The rollout follows HSA approval; Ainex says a 998-patient multicentre randomised trial found ENAD-assisted colonoscopy lifted the adenoma detection rate from 36.1% to 52.3%.
DeploymentGovernment & Public SectorUzbekistan4 Aug 2026
Uzbekistan's tax committee launches AI platform for taxpayers and inspectors
Tax Committee of Uzbekistan — The Tax Committee of Uzbekistan has launched AI SOLIQ, a single AI tax platform running on its proprietary tax database. Entrepreneurs, accountants and company directors can chat to check their organisation's tax rating, available reliefs and filing duties, while tax officials apply it to decision support, routine automation and data analysis. It runs on the committee's Soliq LLM with machine-learning, computer vision and speech generation components.
RegulationLegal & Professional ServicesGuam2 Aug 2026
Guam Supreme Court sanctions second lawyer for unverified AI use in court filing
Supreme Court of Guam — Guam's Supreme Court fined attorney Rachel Taimanao-Ayuyu $500 for AI use in court filing that left a brief riddled with errors. Chief Justice Katherine Maraman and Associate Justice Robert Torres found the document unmoored from existing law, faulting Taimanao-Ayuyu for skipping a thorough check of the machine-drafted text. She admitted leaning on generative AI without confirming its accuracy, and now follows a written policy on generative AI use in legal filings alongside continuing legal education on ethical AI practice.
DeploymentGovernment & Public SectorJapan30 Jul 2026
Shizuoka City opens a RAG answer service to all its staff
Shizuoka City — Shizuoka City has opened a generative AI enquiry system to all staff on Allganize's Alli LLM App Market, answering officers' questions from internal manuals and working documents. Each answer shows the passage it relies on so officers can verify the basis before acting, and the city hopes to shift time saved on internal queries to resident services and policy work.
DeploymentGovernment & Public SectorTajikistan30 Jul 2026
Tajikistan makes facial recognition permanent for 877,000 pensioners
Agency for Social Insurance and Pensions of Tajikistan — Tajikistan's Agency for Social Insurance and Pensions has made facial recognition pensioners checks mandatory for all recipients, after a nationwide re-registration logged nearly 877,000 beneficiaries into a refreshed electronic database. The drive exposed fraud, including payments still drawn on behalf of deceased recipients, and forms part of a wider shift toward biometric identification pension systems. The agency is now building remote online verification so citizens abroad can complete facial scans without returning home.
RegulationGovernment & Public SectorMalaysia28 Jul 2026
Malaysia replaces its AI office with a permanent AI corporation
Ministry of Digital, Malaysia — Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has created AI Malaysia Berhad under the Ministry of Digital, making the National AI Office set up in December 2024 permanent with an implementation mandate. A Malaysia AI Safety Institute also launched to support national AI governance on standards and compliance, run AI safety evaluations and broker talent and technology partnerships.
Evidence of adoptionEducation & TrainingCambodia28 Jul 2026
143 Cambodian journalists train on AI for the newsroom
Cambodia Academy of Digital Technology — 143 Club of Cambodian Journalists members, pulled from 82 outlets, sat an AI training for journalists course the Cambodia Academy of Digital Technology ran jointly with the club, titled Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Digital Journalism. Organisers pitched the newsroom AI skills session as a productivity boost for the national digital-news trade, per the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications.
DeploymentGovernment & Public SectorPakistan26 Jul 2026
Pakistan's tax authority builds an AI-based 'faceless' audit system
Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) — Pakistan's Federal Board of Revenue has started building an AI-based 'faceless' tax system to spot anomalies and run AI tax audits without taxpayers and officials meeting. The faceless system is framed as part of reforming the revenue authority.
Western Sydney University gives Microsoft Copilot to all staff
Western Sydney University — Western Sydney University has made Microsoft 365 Copilot available to all staff, casuals included, and Higher Degree Research candidates from 16 July 2026, bringing generative AI in higher education to presentations, meeting summaries and document drafting. After a 100-user pilot, vice-chancellor George Williams tied the move to student success, and the university claims to be first in New South Wales and second in Australia to give all staff enterprise-grade Copilot.
Bank of Maldives expands Aaya AI assistant to handle banking service requests
Bank of Maldives — Bank of Maldives customers can now file banking service requests directly through Aaya, an example of an AI virtual assistant in banking absorbing tasks once handled by a separate messaging feature. The AI-powered digital assistant, built into the mobile app and Internet Banking platform, answers in real time in Dhivehi and English.
Evidence of adoptionGovernment & Public SectorMaldives22 Jul 2026
Maldives launches Digital for All campaign to build national AI literacy
Government of Maldives — Digital for All, the Maldivian Government's AI literacy programme, targets 225,000 people by 2028 under the Maldives 2.0 agenda. The Ministry of Homeland Security and Ministry of Education jointly run the three-year scheme, offering free Dhivehi and English instruction via facilitators, island councils and online tools as part of wider digital skills training. Graduates earn nationally recognised digital competency badges.
Papua New Guinea plans new laws to criminalise AI deepfakes and voice cloning
Government of Papua New Guinea — Papua New Guinea's parliament will debate amendments to the Cybercrime Code Act in November making AI deepfakes, synthetic voice impersonation and other malicious AI uses criminal offences. The bill also covers AI-generated child exploitation material, sexually explicit imagery, fraudulent cloned voices, digital identity theft and online scams. Acting ICT Minister Peter Tsiamalili said platforms and AI service providers would face liability for unlawful content.
Evidence of adoptionBusiness OperationsGeorgia20 Jul 2026
84% of Georgian companies adopting AI, BAG survey finds
Business Association of Georgia — BAG's survey of 600-plus Georgian firms puts AI adoption in Georgian business at 84%, spanning firms researching, piloting or running the technology. 13% report full integration, 24% are piloting, and 47% are still planning. Marketing and content generation led use cases at 20%, with finance and customer support each at 15%; fieldwork ran 9-25 June 2026, reflecting artificial intelligence use among Georgian companies.
DeploymentLegal & Professional ServicesHong Kong13 Jul 2026
JSM law firm deploys Microsoft Copilot AI agents for legal work
Johnson Stokes & Master — Johnson Stokes & Master runs internal AI agents on Microsoft Copilot under a governance-first structure, applying AI in legal services at the Hong Kong firm. Its Employment Legal Advice Copilot Agent handles high-volume employment advisory work, sorting matter context, flagging key issues, drafting first-pass output. Lawyers approve everything before clients see it, keeping Copilot-based legal document drafting under human sign-off.
RegulationLegal & Professional ServicesGuam12 Jul 2026
Guam Supreme Court fines attorney $500 for AI hallucinations in legal brief
Supreme Court of Guam — A $500 sanction hit attorney Michael Phillips over AI hallucinations in legal brief work before the Supreme Court of Guam. Chief Justice Katherine Maraman found he skipped the required check under the Judiciary of Guam's AI policy, which permits AI use but mandates verifying unverified AI-generated content in court filings first. The case involved the Guam Legislature's dispute over the governor's power to establish hospitals.
Evidence of adoptionHealthcare & Life SciencesAfghanistan9 Jul 2026
Only 1.6% of Kabul medical staff have good knowledge of AI
Only 1.6% of 256 healthcare staff surveyed across Kabul City hospitals and clinics showed good AI knowledge in healthcare, against 44.7% poor and 53.9% insufficient, with attitudes running ahead of understanding at 47.3% positive, 37.5% somewhat agreeing and 15.2% negative. The picture for AI in Afghan healthcare is limited knowledge but favourable attitudes: 82.0% had never attended an AI conference and 57.8% learned what they knew from social media. Fieldwork for the study, published in Annals of Medicine and Surgery, ran January to February 2025.
DeploymentGovernment & Public SectorCyprus7 Jul 2026
Cyprus traffic police take delivery of first AI cameras for Nicosia
Cyprus Police (Traffic Police) — Cyprus has taken delivery of the first AI traffic cameras, which the traffic police say will go up on Griva Digeni Avenue in Nicosia in place of two units now sitting idle. The force says the equipment will flag unbelted drivers, helmetless riders, phone use at the wheel and other distractions, with a supplier still to finish preparatory work. These AI enforcement cameras will run as a trial first, judged on what the results show.
Evidence of adoptionGovernment & Public SectorMacao4 Jul 2026
Macao labour bureau adds AI courses for older residents
Labour Affairs Bureau of Macao — Macao's Labour Affairs Bureau has added AI courses for older residents to its Digital Skills Upgrading and Certification Programme, aiming to lift job prospects for this group. Over 40 sessions ran the year before, drawing 800-plus attendees. This AI skills programme for older workers extends the territory's digital-literacy push.
RegulationLegal & Professional ServicesNepal3 Jul 2026
Nepal judiciary permits AI use in court but bars judgment writing
Supreme Court of Nepal — Nepal's Supreme Court has adopted the Judiciary Information and Communication Technology Policy 2026, permitting AI in courts for legal research, document handling and administrative support. Judgment drafting and writ petitions requiring judicial discretion stay off-limits. Systems must first clear checks for reliability, transparency and bias, reflecting a cautious stance on courtroom AI adoption.
DeploymentGovernment & Public SectorUzbekistan1 Jul 2026
Customs robot starts work in Tashkent airport's international terminal
State Customs Committee of Uzbekistan — An AI customs robot called AiRo is now working in Tashkent airport's international terminal, running software developed with Uzbekistan's State Customs Committee. Passengers can ask about bringing phones, medicines, jewellery or currency in or out, prohibited goods and how the red and green channels work. The committee wants the interactive robot to inform passengers fast, ease officers' work and prevent violations.
Brunei opens Nakhoda, a tourism marketplace with an AI trip planner
Tourism Development Department — The Tourism Development Department and Dynamik Technologies have switched on Nakhoda, a booking hub whose AI trip planner drafts a tailored route around a holidaymaker's likes and wallet. Operators use the same website to post services, build packages and collect money without cash. Nakhoda arrives before Visit Brunei Year 2027, handing tourists AI itinerary planning early.
DeploymentManufacturing, Energy & ResourcesTurkmenistan27 Jun 2026
AI deployed at Turkmenistan's main oil refineries
Turkmenbashi Complex of Oil Refineries (TCOR) — Turkmenbashi Complex of Oil Refineries has finished modernising, adding automated production management, live SCADA monitoring, ERP platforms and AI in oilfield operations through Smart Fields and Smart Wells, which interpret geological data to lift well performance. Seydi Oil Refinery has added digital monitoring for predictive maintenance. Turkmengeologia State Corporation reports both operational, with AI-driven well optimisation cutting costs and improving resource management.
DeploymentMedia, Telecom & EntertainmentArmenia25 Jun 2026
Armenia's 485 Center releases an 80-minute AI-animated epic film
485 Center for Generative Technologies — Little Mher, an 80-minute animated feature drawn from the Armenian epic Daredevils of Sassoun, reached Yerevan screens on 31 May 2026 and went on general release across the country. The 485 Center for Generative Technologies confined AI film animation to drawing frames and moving them: script, vocals, score and art styling stayed with a crew of actors, musicians, screenwriters, illustrators, cinematographers and machine-learning experts, according to director-producer Hovhannes Margaryan. Matching machine-made pictures to Armenian dialogue proved hardest, since such models mostly learn from English. Its makers bill it a regional first.
AI listens for gibbons across Cambodia's Cardamom Mountains
Conservation International — An AI wildlife monitoring effort from the US-headquartered nonprofit Conservation International now picks up pileated-gibbon calls through listening devices at 10 spots in Cambodia's Cardamom Mountains, a south-western rainforest topping a million hectares. No camera reliably spotted the treetop-dwelling species, so researchers spent three months schooling a machine-learning species detection tool in the sound, tagging roughly half the nearly 800 calls in one six-week stretch. A parallel count of almost 150 units runs again this year.
DeploymentGovernment & Public SectorPakistan24 Jun 2026
Pakistan's accountability bureau sets up AI investigation system
National Accountability Bureau — Pakistan's National Accountability Bureau has set up an AI investigation system to support white-collar crime investigations. National Centre of Artificial Intelligence chairman Dr Yasar Ayaz says the platform is built to assist investigators, and it should make investigations more effective once running; the bureau has not reported it in live use.
China classes credit approval AI as high risk for banks
National Financial Regulatory Administration — China's National Financial Regulatory Administration issued guiding opinions on 18 June 2026 on AI regulation in banking and insurance, with four principles including that users of an AI system are responsible for it. Institutions must grade AI uses by risk and route high-risk ones through approval; anything touching risk management, underwriting and claims, credit approval, asset valuation, fund transactions or generative AI directly shaping whether a financial contract is agreed counts as high-risk AI. Those need risk-committee sign-off, human oversight at critical points and reporting to the regulator.
Armenia's education ministry will give 50,000 free ChatGPT Edu subscriptions
Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports — Armenia's Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports says it will hand roughly 50,000 free ChatGPT Edu seats to the country's educational, engineering and research communities when the school year opens, under an arrangement with OpenAI and Firebird. Universities will open the platform to lecturers and undergraduates, while AI in schools reaches every teacher and senior pupil in the state system. Staff are expected to draft assignments, tests and topic plans with the software, freeing hours for inventive work, with briefing and groundwork due by September. Firebird covers the bill through 2026-2027, and ministers will weigh how classroom AI performs before deciding whether the treasury takes over.
DeploymentGovernment & Public SectorPhilippines22 Jun 2026
Philippines to give 50,000 public servants Google's Gemini Enterprise
Department of Information and Communications Technology — The Department of Information and Communications Technology says generative AI for public servants starts with over 50,000 staff getting Google Cloud's Gemini Enterprise app under a multi-year partnership, then more than 200,000 government workers within 18 months. It will also build AI agents speaking local languages to help citizens with disaster aid guidelines, health centre appointments and administrative procedures.
DeploymentGovernment & Public SectorCambodia17 Jun 2026
Cambodia switches on 487 AI cameras across Phnom Penh
Ministry of Interior — 487 AI-equipped CCTV cameras now watch Phnom Penh, an AI policing push the Ministry of Interior calls its Lancang-Mekong Regional Smart Policing Development project, unveiled at a ceremony Deputy Prime Minister Sar Sokha turned up for. Footage streams into one command hub for quicker emergencies and non-stop watchfulness, powered by facial recognition cameras and instant number-plate capture. Secretary-General You Xiaowen of the Lancang-Mekong Integrated Law Enforcement and Security Cooperation Centre built it, vowing coaching for Cambodian officers and a wider grid.
DeploymentTransport & LogisticsTajikistan17 Jun 2026
Tajikistan's transport ministry begins testing AI call centre for carriers
Ministry of Transport of Tajikistan — Tajikistan's Ministry of Transport is piloting an AI call centre for carriers, run by its Center for Digitalization of the Transport Sector and reachable on 8808. It aims to cut the time needed to secure permits, passes, vouchers and cargo waybills. An AI-powered call centre for freight operators like this also comes with a Telegram channel, Centre for Information Support of Users of Transport Systems, and a chatbot, MintransBot, for user queries.
Evidence of adoptionEducation & TrainingPapua New Guinea15 Jun 2026
Survey finds 42% of UPNG students use AI daily, 72% at least weekly
University of Papua New Guinea — A School of Business and Public Policy poll at University of Papua New Guinea, sampling 77 students, put daily AI use by university students at 42%, plus 30% logging in weekly — over seven in ten engaging at least once a week. ChatGPT led with 85% adoption, ahead of Microsoft Copilot (44%) and Google Gemini (23%). The unfinished research also found 74% wanting clearer campus rules, reflecting this student AI adoption trend.
Evidence of adoptionGovernment & Public SectorCambodia11 Jun 2026
993 Cambodian civil servants finish an AI efficiency course
Ministry of Post and Telecommunications — 993 people — ministry leaders and rank-and-file staff together — got through an AI training for civil servants course the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications titled Using Artificial Intelligence to Enhance Work Efficiency on the Journey Toward Digital Transformation, wrapped at a Phnom Penh event under Minister Chea Vandeth. Generative AI and large language models, he told the room, have stopped being distant scientific ideas and now reshape public-sector AI skilling and daily work alike.
RegulationGovernment & Public SectorPhilippines9 Jun 2026
Philippines sets AI rules for every government agency
Department of Information and Communications Technology — The Department of Information and Communications Technology and the Civil Service Commission have issued Joint Memorandum Circular No. 003, Series of 2026, principles-based public-sector AI rules for how Philippine agencies build, deploy and use AI. Agencies must match AI work to privacy, security, accountability, transparency and fairness and create oversight machinery, including an internal IT, legal and operational committee; it takes effect on publication.
TBC Bank gives 600 staff AI-powered data analytics tool
TBC Bank — TBC Bank, Georgia's largest bank, gives 600 employees direct access to company data through Genie, an AI-powered data analytics tool built on Databricks, returning answers in seconds instead of via disconnected on-premises SQL servers. Work once taking a month now moves far faster, reports shrank from 14 weeks to two days, and the analyst team fell by 50%. Most headquarters staff are expected to use this AI in banking tool daily.
DeploymentHealthcare & Life SciencesBhutan8 Jun 2026
Bhutan's health ministry endorses AI ECG rollout to 25 facilities
Ministry of Health of Bhutan — Bhutan's Ministry of Health will place Cardiolife's AI ECG interpretation software in 25 health facilities - national, regional, district - after Health Minister Lyonpo Tandin Wangchuk backed the plan. Software and kit arrive free; clinicians read ECGs instantly. Cardiolife rates its CE-marked MDR Class IIb product at up to 100% accuracy on key cardiac conditions, a vendor figure with no independent evaluation published. Validation comes through a joint operational research study of the AI-assisted cardiac diagnostics.
DeploymentGovernment & Public SectorMacao5 Jun 2026
Macao food safety platform uses AI for risk alert
Municipal Affairs Bureau (IAM) of Macao — Macao's Municipal Affairs Bureau (IAM) applies AI food safety risk assessment via a new Food Safety Risk Monitoring and Assessment Network Prediction and Early Alert Platform. Built since 2023 with Chinese mainland research institutes, it tracks 109,907 pre-packaged food products through AI-assisted food safety monitoring. Since 2026, six alerts have gone out: 148 SMS texts, 374 emails.
Bank ABB launches voice AI assistants AI-nur and AI-khan
Bank ABB — Bank ABB threw open AI-nur and AI-khan to the whole client base once trials wrapped, billing the duo as among the earliest voice-driven AI banking assistants in Azerbaijan and the wider region. Conversational banking has drawn 230k people and 2.5 million exchanges. The lender keeps 180 generative and predictive models in production, worth above 35 million AZN in positive impact on the bank's own count.
Evidence of adoptionTechnology & SoftwareHong Kong3 Jun 2026
94% of Hong Kong organisations use AI tools, survey finds
HKIRC — A poll of 800 organisations by Hong Kong Internet Registration Corporation found 94% had adopted AI tools at work, reflecting widespread AI adoption in Hong Kong businesses. Yet 63% had no formal policy covering workplace AI tools and 68% skipped staff training on the technology. Unauthorised AI tools were in use by staff at nearly half the firms surveyed, without company approval.
DeploymentGovernment & Public SectorTurkmenistan1 Jun 2026
Turkmenistan customs launches AI assistant on trade portal
State Customs Service of Turkmenistan — AI in customs and trade compliance is now live on Turkmenistan's Single Window for Export-Import Operations portal, where the State Customs Service added an assistant handling several administrative tasks at once. It works out HS commodity codes, warns which permits are needed, and gives instant duty-rate estimates, all in Turkmen, Russian or English. Built with UNCTAD backing, this AI-powered trade portal aims to speed up cross-border processing.
DeploymentHealthcare & Life SciencesSouth Korea29 May 2026
Korea says AI will handle hospital referrals in three regions
Ministry of Health and Welfare — Korea's Ministry of Health and Welfare will introduce AI patient referral and return in hospitals during the latter half of the year, beginning with pilots in Seoul and Gyeonggi, Gangwon and South Jeolla. Linking AI directly to each hospital's picture archiving and electronic medical record systems will automate sending patients onward and back where care happens. The broader Healthcare AI Transformation Sprint programme begins in June.
RegulationGovernment & Public SectorNew Zealand29 May 2026
New Zealand passes law widening automated welfare benefit decisions
New Zealand Parliament — New Zealand's Social Security (Modernisation) Amendment Bill has passed its third reading in Parliament, widening automated decision-making in welfare. Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says automated welfare decisions will cover straightforward cases needing no discretion; the Bill went through under urgency on Budget day.
DeploymentHealthcare & Life SciencesCambodia29 May 2026
Two Cambodian hospitals open AI-assisted eye screening centres
Shanghai Eye Disease Prevention and Treatment Center — Kong Pisei Hospital and Techo Sen Koh Thom Hospital in Cambodia are the first sites outside China to get an AI eye screening system, Vision Health Intelligent Management Centres from the Shanghai Eye Disease Prevention and Treatment Center. Big data analytics and the Internet of Things join the artificial intelligence behind this digital vision health management approach, spotting eye disorders sooner and keeping patients on tiered care, while Shanghai teams coach local staff on the kit. Patients topped 100 in month one and passed 500 by May.
DeploymentHealthcare & Life SciencesNorth Korea27 May 2026
Koryo Medical General Hospital deploys AI Korean medicine treatment system
Koryo Medical General Hospital — Koryo Medical General Hospital, with Pyongyang Computer Technology University, built the Koryo Treatment Support System, an AI Korean medicine treatment tool that diagnoses internal medicine conditions by Korean medical methods and drafts herbal remedy and acupuncture prescriptions. It won a National Science and Technology Achievement Introduction Certificate in 2025. Newly built hospitals, including Kangdong County Hospital, now use it, spreading computer-aided traditional medicine diagnosis nationwide.
DeploymentGovernment & Public SectorKazakhstan26 May 2026
Kazakhstan extends its AI judicial assistant to every court
Supreme Court of Kazakhstan — The Supreme Court of Kazakhstan is finishing the nationwide rollout of its Digital Judge's Assistant, an AI judicial assistant piloted for about eighteen months in Astana and the Zhambyl, Karaganda and Mangystau regions. It searches about 15 million machine-readable units of judicial material for comparable cases, analyses practice, structures claims, lays out parties' positions in Kazakh and Russian and forecasts likely civil-dispute outcomes. Judges keep the decision, with court chairs stressing the tools assist rather than replace them.
DeploymentHealthcare & Life SciencesMyanmar26 May 2026
Yangon eye hospital uses AI for field vision screenings
Ophthalmology Specialist Hospital (Yangon) — Ophthalmology Specialist Hospital (Yangon) ran AI vision screening during field eye check-ups in Mayangone Township, part of a Ministry of Health drive across Yangon Region to curb rainy-season illnesses. Myanmar's Union Minister of Health attended the campaign event, where the hospital director and ophthalmologists used AI-assisted eye examinations for on-site diagnostic testing. The initiative forms one strand of a wider seasonal disease-prevention effort covering all Yangon townships.
DeploymentGovernment & Public SectorBangladesh24 May 2026
Dhaka police link traffic cameras to AI violation detection
Dhaka Metropolitan Police — Dhaka police linked city traffic cameras to AI traffic enforcement software in April 2026 for automatic violation detection, from illegal parking to lane and signal breaches. Officers check each case before a fine, owners get a text message, and at least 300 vehicles have been prosecuted, with serious offenders fined and others warned. Manual enforcement will gradually end, police said.
DeploymentHealthcare & Life SciencesVietnam13 May 2026
Bach Mai puts AI into free lung cancer screening
Bach Mai Hospital — Hanoi's Bach Mai Hospital began free AI lung cancer screening on 10 May 2026, with AI helping read the images. The hospital calls it a 'divine eye' that detects small lung nodules and scores their risk on the international Lung-RADS scale. On day one it flagged two of 75 attendees with suspected malignant lung lesions.
DeploymentGovernment & Public SectorCyprus12 May 2026
Cyprus fire service runs four AI smoke detectors covering 80% of open land
Cyprus Fire Service — Cyprus Fire Service runs four AI wildfire detection units reaching roughly 80 per cent of unpopulated ground in the government-controlled zone. Brigade chief Nikos Logginos ranks the units central to the 2026 summer plan, saying each spots a flame or plume no bigger than a square metre. Another 13 are earmarked for industrial estates on an €800,000 budget, while taking AI smoke detection into open country and woodland awaits finance ministry approval.
DeploymentGovernment & Public SectorIndia11 May 2026
India's Supreme Court launches AI chatbot for court services
Supreme Court of India — The Supreme Court of India has launched Su-Sahayak, an AI court chatbot, alongside a 'One Case, One Data' integrated case management platform. Built by the National Informatics Centre with the Supreme Court Registry, the digital assistant offers court guidance, procedural help and access to judgments, orders, cause lists and case status.
DeploymentLegal & Professional ServicesAzerbaijan11 May 2026
Yes Architects puts AI into two Azerbaijani building projects
Yes Architects — Yes Architects has AI architectural design live on two Azerbaijani building schemes, co-founder Yeşeren Ersan of the Turkish practice told the Invision Design Talks 2 forum. Roughly 20% of one scheme's drawings and 50% of the other's came out of machine-assisted design. Ersan puts today's saving near 10%, and sees 80-90% within five years.
Evidence of adoptionTechnology & SoftwareAfghanistan4 May 2026
88% of young Afghans are familiar with AI, survey finds
1,154 respondents across 32 provinces went into a national survey of AI use in Afghanistan, finding 88% of young Afghans familiar with artificial intelligence and 66.6% of them regular users. Media outlet Salam Afghanistan and Salam Watandar Radio's eight-month fieldwork, split 50.6% men and 49.4% women, found 84.1% had sought AI advice at least once and 82% now lean less on friends and relatives, with 58.1% uneasy about machines making decisions.
Evidence of impactAgriculture & FoodBritish Indian Ocean Territory1 May 2026
Deep neural network predicts Chagos seabird dives with 93.65% accuracy
Zoological Society of London — Zoological Society of London ecologists put AI seabird tracking at 93.65% accuracy for spotting red-footed booby dives from saltwater immersion records alone. Wet-dry logs came from lightweight leg tags; a parallel set of bulkier tri-axial accelerometers supplied the yardstick, and deep learning scored barely worse on the lighter tags. Machine learning dive detection could map feeding grounds all year from cheap sensors. Fieldwork ran at Barton Point, Diego Garcia, Chagos Archipelago, on a small pilot sample.
RegulationGovernment & Public SectorBrunei1 May 2026
Brunei's AI ethics guide gets a second edition covering generative AI
Authority for Infocommunications Technology Industry of Brunei Darussalam — Brunei Darussalam's Authority for Infocommunications Technology Industry has overhauled the Guide on Artificial Intelligence Governance and Ethics into a second edition. Generative AI hazards now enter Brunei AI governance, showcased through Bruneian companies already running the principles-based approach. AITI has separately released a Guide on Responsible Use of Generative AI — Brunei Darussalam AI ethics guidance on wording requests, and doing so ethically.
RegulationGovernment & Public SectorPakistan29 Apr 2026
Pakistan's judiciary issues national guidelines for AI in courts
National Judicial (Policy Making) Committee — Pakistan's National Judicial (Policy Making) Committee has issued the National Guidelines for the Use of Artificial Intelligence in Judicial Institutions, approved at its 57th meeting. They let AI in the courts help with legal research, document processing, case management and other functions, assisting rather than replacing judicial decision-making and human judgment.
Azerbaijan puts a Copilot agent inside its Digital School platform
Ministry of Science and Education of the Republic of Azerbaijan — Azerbaijan's Ministry of Science and Education has wired a bespoke Copilot Agent, spun up in Microsoft Copilot Studio, into the Digital School platform, so AI lesson planning sits in the app teachers open daily. The helper roughs out plans and classroom handouts, boils down background reading, frames slide decks and turns out first-cut assessments and rubrics. Some 900,000 accounts sit there: 44,552 teachers, 543,255 pupils, 360,709 parents.
AYA SOMPO launches Myanmar's first insurance AI chatbot
AYA SOMPO Insurance — iVA, an Insurance Virtual Assistant from AYA SOMPO Insurance, is Myanmar's first AI chatbot insurance tool built into a mobile app, the firm says. Housed in the My AYASOMPO app, it answers product and policy questions in Myanmar and English with 24/7 real-time replies, no human needed. This AI-powered insurance assistant is meant to help partners and agents meet customer needs faster.
Woolworths gives agentic AI assistant to 200,000 staff
Woolworths Group — Woolworths has made its Olive tool an agentic AI assistant for all roughly 200,000 group staff, live a week before an executive described it at a conference. Combining search and chat, it adds requested items to carts, suggests recipes from meal photos and offers cheaper or organic swaps, while in-house 'agentic judges' vet answers for accuracy and compliance first.
DeploymentGovernment & Public SectorCook Islands28 Apr 2026
Cook Islands Parliament launches two AI agents for staff and public
Parliament of the Cook Islands — The Parliament of the Cook Islands switched on two AI agents in parliament on 24 April 2026: INA, a public-facing chatbot on the parliament website, and Tumutoa, an inward-looking staff guide to procedure plus institutional knowledge. Clerk of parliament Tangata Vainerere billed the institution “officially AI-enabled” yet insisted work remains “human-led, not AI-led”. Pacific Group AI built this parliamentary AI, which founder Tayla Jayne Beddoes calls the Cook Island government’s first. Roughly five AI tools reached staff weeks earlier; the United Nations Development Programme paid via Pacific Parliamentary Effectiveness Initiative Phase 3, a five-year Government of New Zealand scheme.
Telenor Pakistan launches Urdu AI voice bot for farmers
Telenor Pakistan — Telenor Pakistan launched Kissan Dost Bashir via its Khushaal Watan agriculture platform, billing it as Pakistan's first conversational AI farm voice bot. Answering in Urdu around the clock via the 7272 helpline and 7272.pk portal, it offers live mandi rates, weather-based crop advice and livestock guidance to farmers facing literacy and connectivity barriers.
DeploymentGovernment & Public SectorSouth Korea23 Apr 2026
Korea's tax service opens a generative-AI chatbot to filers
National Tax Service of Korea — Korea's National Tax Service has offered taxpayers a generative AI tax chatbot since January 2026, first for VAT returns and year-end tax settlement, widening it from 1 May to comprehensive income tax filing and incentive claims. It sits beside an AI telephone consultation line and AI search in the Hometax portal, public-facing first. The NTS plans to extend AI from taxpayer services to tax-base management and audits across all tax administration.
RegulationGovernment & Public SectorAzerbaijan21 Apr 2026
Azerbaijan criminalises non-consensual AI images and voice clones
Republic of Azerbaijan — Azerbaijan has rewritten its Criminal Code, Criminal Procedure Code and its media and information statutes to reach artificial intelligence. Deepfakes now anchor Azerbaijan AI regulation: new article 148-2 makes it an offence to build or circulate unreal photo, video or audio drawn from someone's face or voice without permission, while article 242-1 does the same for pornographic or sexually explicit output. Machine-made matter shown publicly must bear a label that is easy to spot under the new AI law.
DeploymentGovernment & Public SectorMongolia20 Apr 2026
Mongolia pilots an AI assistant inside its national planning platform
Ministry of Economy and Development of Mongolia — Mongolia's Ministry of Economy and Development has built AI Туслах, an AI planning assistant, into the government's digital planning platform guiding officials live on data-driven KPIs. With the Partnership for Action on Green Economy, the ministry aims it at planners in ministries and agencies who set measurable indicators and pull together national development plans, especially newcomers and staff in high-turnover posts. It remains a pilot.
RegulationGovernment & Public SectorMaldives20 Apr 2026
Maldives announces AI regulation bill as part of digital reform package
Government of Maldives — Maldives will submit a Maldives AI regulation bill to Parliament, President Dr Mohamed Muizzu confirmed, packaged alongside a Digital Transformation Bill, Digital Identity Bill and Cyber Security Bill covering artificial intelligence oversight. The four measures anchor the Maldives 2.0 digital transformation agenda, which targets full state-system digitisation by 2027. This push forms one strand of a wider digital-governance overhaul, not a standalone law.
Evidence of adoptionFinance & InsuranceChina17 Apr 2026
More than half of Chinese banks have adopted large models
Shaqiu Think Tank — Shaqiu Think Tank's tracking report finds 53.5% of Chinese banks, more than half, now using large models in banking, with the sector shifting from tool-level uses to system-level rebuilding of processes. The report does not give its survey base.
DeploymentGovernment & Public SectorGeorgia17 Apr 2026
Georgia Revenue Service uses AI for automated VAT refunds
Georgia Revenue Service — Georgia's Revenue Service uses AI VAT refund automation to return over GEL 1 billion to the economy yearly. A risk-scoring system checks payment history, supplier invoices and sector benchmarks against each monthly filing; if nothing flags, funds reach the firm's account within five to seven working days. This tax refund automation skips manual review for low-risk cases, though flagged filings face further scrutiny.
CIMB Niaga deploys AI agents for its relationship managers
CIMB Niaga — CIMB Niaga has deployed AI agents for relationship managers, starting with a Relationship Manager AI Agent built with Google Cloud and Artefact as a strategic thought partner for bankers. A Contact Center AI Agent now also partners service teams live during customer calls; the bank's AI Center of Excellence developed both.
DeploymentGovernment & Public SectorJapan9 Apr 2026
Tokyo gives 60,000 city staff a generative-AI platform
Tokyo Metropolitan Government — The Tokyo Metropolitan Government has fully launched A1, a generative AI platform for government staff, to about 60,000 metropolitan officers after a trial from September 2025. Built by GovTech Tokyo with the Digital Services Bureau, it lets officers build and share no-code AI apps, from contract-specification drafting to AI adoption checkpoints and assembly answers drawn from transcripts.
DeploymentGovernment & Public SectorFiji9 Apr 2026
FRCS launches AI chatbot named Masi on new taxpayer website
Fiji Revenue and Customs Service (FRCS) — Fiji Revenue and Customs Service now runs an AI chatbot for tax enquiries, named Masi, on its new taxpayer website. Corporate Services Director Shavindra Nath said the conversational AI system handles both basic and complex questions 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Automating routine responses frees staff to focus on harder cases, and the tool doubles as an automated taxpayer support tool improving overall service.
DeploymentGovernment & Public SectorKyrgyzstan7 Apr 2026
Kyrgyz Parliament launches AI-powered E-Kenesh app for MPs
Zhogorku Kenesh (Parliament of Kyrgyzstan) — Kyrgyzstan's Parliament has piloted E-Kenesh, a tablet-based platform replacing paper documents for MPs. Speaker Marlen Mamataliev introduced the tool, whose AI bill summarisation condenses lengthy draft laws and helps legislators frame questions under debate. Materials appear three days early, with staff filing documents through AI-generated legislative summaries online.
DeploymentGovernment & Public SectorLaos7 Apr 2026
Laos launches LaoAI assistant for civil servants on G-Chat v2
Ministry of Technology and Communications — LaoAI, a new government AI assistant for civil servants, launched alongside G-Chat v2 in Laos on 6 April 2026. Built by the Ministry of Technology and Communications, the tool drafts and summarises documents, retrieves regulatory information and translates text across all ministries, supporting AI for public administration nationwide. Deputy Prime Minister Saleumxay Kommasith attended, and the minister pressed every state body to adopt it for daily work.
DeploymentGovernment & Public SectorMacao2 Apr 2026
Macao government deploys AI platform across 28 departments
Public Administration and Civil Service Bureau (SAFP) of Macao — Macao's Public Administration and Civil Service Bureau (SAFP) has introduced an AI platform for government departments, running large-scale reasoning, multimodal and language models from within the government cloud computing centre for exclusive internal office use. By the count, 28 departments and around 5,000 registered users have signed on, with the system handling tasks from document drafting and image recognition to content production, voice transcription and data analysis. The bureau has also added an AI office platform for public administration on its service hotline, helping staff handle public enquiries.
PNG deploys AI-driven portable X-ray units for TB screening in remote areas
Government of Papua New Guinea (National Department of Health) with World Vision — Papua New Guinea now runs AI tuberculosis screening through four battery-powered X-ray units deployed by the government with World Vision under the Systematic Screening Initiative. Health workers carry backpack-sized devices built on CAD4TB software into areas without hospital infrastructure, where each scan takes 10 seconds to produce a score flagging presumptive cases, including in people showing no symptoms. One unit operates as a mobile setup; three are fixed at Gerehu General Hospital, Six-Mile Clinic and Lawes Road in Konedobu, giving the country's AI-assisted TB detection reach beyond urban centres.
Evidence of adoptionGovernment & Public SectorBhutan1 Apr 2026
Bhutan starts three-year AI literacy drive in remote schools
Teachers of Bhutan Volunteers / Ministry of Education and Skills Development — The DigiGyel Project began in Thimphu, a three-year push to carry AI literacy into Bhutan's high schools, with more than 150 remote schools first in line. More than 50,000 students and 300 teachers are to be taught AI skills, and more than 800 laptops go out nationwide, 260 reaching the education ministry at the start. The Switzerland-based NGO Dariu Foundation pays for the artificial intelligence training, run by Teachers of Bhutan Volunteers.
RegulationGovernment & Public SectorPhilippines21 Mar 2026
Philippine Supreme Court sets AI rules for the judiciary
Supreme Court of the Philippines — The Supreme Court of the Philippines set out a Governance Framework on the Use of Human-Centered Augmented Intelligence in the Judiciary in a resolution dated 18 February 2026. It lets AI in the judiciary help with court documents, from copy-editing, optical character recognition and summarising to legal research, translation and voice-to-text transcription, but bans any tool that could harm stakeholders, breach rights or weaken the rule of law. AI output can never be the sole basis for adjudication, and human decision-makers keep full responsibility for legal reasoning and judgments.
Evidence of adoptionBusiness OperationsTaiwan18 Mar 2026
Almost half of surveyed Taiwanese firms have scaled AI use
Artificial Intelligence Foundation — The Artificial Intelligence Foundation's 2026 survey of 228 companies in more than ten sectors lifted its AI adoption in Taiwan score to 43.62 from 36.77 a year earlier. Firms at the Ready AI or Scaling AI stages made up 47.8 per cent, and those still classed Unknowing AI fell to 26.8 per cent. ICT leads while mining, fishing, forestry, farming, construction and engineering trail well behind.
DeploymentGovernment & Public SectorNew Caledonia14 Mar 2026
New Caledonia launches centralised job platform with AI matching
Government of New Caledonia — AI job matching arrived in New Caledonia through emploi.nc, a government portal pairing employers with jobseekers. The Government of New Caledonia built the site to generate structured CVs and deploy a matching engine that scans openings for the nearest fit to each candidate's profile, using occupational codes from France Travail.
DeploymentGovernment & Public SectorTajikistan10 Mar 2026
Tajikistan Tax Committee deploys AI across citizen services and internal processes
Tax Committee of Tajikistan — Tajikistan's Tax Committee runs AI in corporate tax administration, matching fresh registrations against state records and confirming entrepreneur identities and paperwork through the Andozi Man mobile app. AI property tax algorithms combine several government data sources to assess property tax, while a separate electronic tool handles public tax queries.
DeploymentHealthcare & Life SciencesSri Lanka9 Mar 2026
Sri Lanka's National Hospital brings AI-equipped MRI into service
National Hospital of Sri Lanka — The National Hospital of Sri Lanka has added an AI MRI machine to patient care, the first in a government hospital nationwide, the Health Ministry says. Worth more than Rs. 450 million, the AI-equipped scanner serves the Emergency Treatment Unit and Neurosurgery Unit and was introduced under the patronage of Health Minister Nalinda Jayatissa.
Tokio Marine puts AI across its whole contact centre workflow
Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance — Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance put AI contact centre tools across its customer and agency lines on a PKSHA Technology and CTC platform. PKSHA VoiceAgent captures callers' identity and purpose from natural speech before routing, Speech Insight provides live transcription and suggested answers for operators, and Knowledge Stream drafts knowledge-base entries afterwards. It expects up to about 30 per cent shorter handling on customer calls and about 10 per cent on agency calls, freeing operators for specialist work.
DeploymentMedia, Telecom & EntertainmentKyrgyzstan2 Mar 2026
Kyrgyz Parliament introduces AI news anchors Myrza and Aiyym
Jogorku Kenesh (Parliament of Kyrgyzstan) — Kyrgyzstan's Jogorku Kenesh has unveiled AI news anchors, Myrza and Aiyym, reporting on legislative business. These virtual news presenters turn out written summaries and clips explaining debates, keeping citizens informed of deputies' activities. Speaker Marlen Mamataliev tied the launch to the legislature's digitalisation push.
RegulationGovernment & Public SectorTaiwan25 Feb 2026
Taiwan's AI Basic Act enters into force in January
Government of Taiwan — President Lai Ching-te promulgated Taiwan's AI Basic Act, in force since 14 January 2026 after the Legislative Yuan passed it on 23 December 2025. The principle-based Taiwan AI regulation names the National Science and Technology Council as central competent authority and has agencies help their sectors write AI safety guidelines and codes of practice. It also tells government to use AI to protect workers' rights and tackle skills mismatches.
Vietnam's first AI law comes into force with three risk tiers
National Assembly of Vietnam — Vietnam's first standalone AI law took effect on 1 March 2026, enacted on 10 December 2025, grading AI systems high, medium or low risk by effect on safety and human rights, field of application, user scope and scale of effect. Providers must tag AI-generated audio, image and video in machine-readable form, and deployers must flag it where it might blur whether events or people are real. Baker McKenzie says most existing providers and deployers have until 1 March 2027, and the Ministry of Science and Technology will issue implementing guidance.
RegulationGovernment & Public SectorArmenia19 Feb 2026
Armenia signs the Council of Europe's AI framework convention
Government of Armenia — Armenia AI regulation gained a treaty anchor on 27 January 2026, when Yerevan endorsed the Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence, Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law, the first global legal text shielding freedoms from the technology. Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan signed in Strasbourg, taking signatories to seventeen. Ratifying binds domestic AI rules to protect rights and democratic norms without stifling innovation, via law or executive action.
SMBC opens a generative-AI voice operator on its Olive line
Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation — Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation started SMBC AI Operator, a generative AI call centre line with technology from the Japan Research Institute and IBM Japan, on 25 February 2026. 24/7 it takes free-speech calls on the Olive personal finance product's application steps, campaigns, annual fees and service content, answering from bank reference data and passing callers to a human operator for identity checks during call-centre hours. The voice operator adapts phrasing and tone to each caller's way of speaking.
India launches AI advisory platform Bharat-VISTAAR for farmers
Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare — Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has launched Bharat-VISTAAR in Rajasthan, bringing real-time, personalised AI farm advisory to farmers. The multilingual platform had been announced in the Union Budget 2026-27.
Evidence of adoptionEducation & TrainingCyprus16 Feb 2026
76.5% of young Cypriots used generative AI in 2025, above the EU average
Eurostat — Generative AI use in Cyprus runs at 76.5 per cent among 16 to 24-year-olds for 2025, Eurostat figures show, comfortably ahead of the European Union benchmark. Across the EU the reading for that age band was 63.8 per cent over the same year. AI uptake among young people peaked in Greece at 83.5 per cent, then Estonia on 82.8, the Czech Republic 78.5.
RegulationGovernment & Public SectorFrench Polynesia11 Feb 2026
French Polynesia publishes AI charter for government agents
Government of French Polynesia — French Polynesia now has a charter for AI use by government employees, covering research, note-taking, drafting and translation. Vice-President Minarii Galenon signed the rules, barring staff from entering sensitive data into unapproved tools. Binding decisions stay with people, not AI in the public sector, unless a human supervises.
DeploymentHealthcare & Life SciencesFiji8 Feb 2026
Ministry of Health rolls out AI-powered X-ray machines nationwide
Fiji Ministry of Health and Medical Services — Fiji's Ministry of Health and Medical Services is fitting public hospitals with AI-powered X-ray machines, swapping out analogue equipment over 15 years old. The digital upgrade uses AI in medical imaging to help clinicians catch abnormalities and reach diagnoses faster. Colonial War Memorial Hospital in Suva, Nausori Health Centre and Taveuni are already equipped, with 21 sites planned nationwide.
Evidence of adoptionEducation & TrainingCook Islands6 Feb 2026
Kia Orana AI programme trains over 130 people in Rarotonga
Over 130 people in Rarotonga have now sat the Kia Orana AI Programme, workplace AI training run by a young Cook Islander and spanning government, financial services, hospitality and retail. The Infrastructure Cook Islands head office finished this AI upskilling in January 2026.
ANZ puts Salesforce AI agents in front of business bankers
ANZ — ANZ has put Salesforce's Agentforce 360, AI agents for business bankers, into its bankers' new customer relationship management tool, claiming to be the first Asia-Pacific bank to deploy it at scale. The nationally rolled-out, Agentforce-backed CRM replaces a legacy platform and merges data from 20 separate systems into one dashboard, cutting time bankers spend switching systems, ANZ says.
DeploymentHealthcare & Life SciencesIndonesia3 Feb 2026
Indonesia's health insurer launches four AI services at once
BPJS Kesehatan — BPJS Kesehatan, which runs Indonesia's national health insurance scheme, has launched four AI services, including SmartClaim JKN, AI claims verification that speeds its verifiers' work. SISCA JKN, a digital avatar, gives Mobile JKN app users information and first responses, while Smart Analytics and Smart Insight turn agency data into material for operational and managerial decisions. IT director Edwin Aristiawan presented the launch.
Evidence of adoptionGovernment & Public SectorGuam2 Feb 2026
Guam Department of Labor begins AI training for all staff
Guam Department of Labor — Almost every employee at Guam's Department of Labor has begun AI training for government staff, a partnership arrangement with the University of Guam. Built by UOG's Global Learning and Engagement unit alongside Pacific AI Media & Communications, the coursework launched with a module titled 'AI Literacy and Foundations', walking participants through fundamental ideas, available tools and rules for responsibly applying an artificial intelligence literacy programme inside government work. Two additional sessions remain, intended to guide workers toward folding AI into routine tasks.
Evidence of adoptionGovernment & Public SectorBrunei28 Jan 2026
Brunei starts a national AI programme aimed at 550 MSMEs
Brunei Economic Development Board — Brunei Economic Development Board has begun AI adoption for MSMEs through the AI for MSME Advancement in ASEAN programme: 550 firms by May 2027, in 11 cohorts. Small-business artificial intelligence training shows owners to write promotional posts automatically, answer buyers faster through AI-powered chatbots, and hold stock, sales and daily records together.
RegulationGovernment & Public SectorSouth Korea27 Jan 2026
South Korea's AI Basic Act takes effect with high-impact duties
Government of the Republic of Korea — South Korea's AI Basic Act, formally the Act on the Development of Artificial Intelligence and Establishment of Trust, came into force on 22 January 2026. Generative AI operators must label AI-made content, and high-impact AI operators must summarise training data and meaningfully explain results, including the main criteria and principles behind them. Foreign AI firms with no Korean office must appoint a local agent past set revenue or daily-user thresholds, and administrative fines wait out a one-year grace period.
DeploymentHealthcare & Life SciencesBrunei27 Jan 2026
Brunei will tier the whole nation's cardiovascular risk with AI
Ministry of Health Brunei Darussalam — Brunei Darussalam's Ministry of Health, the Novartis Foundation and EVYD Technology used Davos to pledge AI cardiovascular risk tiering for a whole country. Leaning on the state's own medical records, this population-wide heart disease prevention drive promises earlier detection of the most endangered residents and a fitting remedy. No country has taken CARDIO4Cities national before, and Brunei will cover four hazards at once — hypertension, diabetes, obesity, hyperlipidemia.
DeploymentFinance & InsuranceSouth Korea25 Jan 2026
Bank of Korea puts its own AI system on the internal network
Bank of Korea — The Bank of Korea runs BOKI, an in-house AI system, on its internal business network, where staff dig through the bank's document archive, even reading tables and graphs from reports. Data never leaves the building, a design built with Naver Cloud after a late-2023 tie-up, reportedly making it the world's first central bank to build and run internal AI this way.
RegulationTechnology & SoftwareSingapore22 Jan 2026
Singapore issues a governance framework for AI agents
Infocomm Media Development Authority — Singapore launched the Model AI Governance Framework for Agentic AI at the World Economic Forum in Davos, covering AI agents that reason and act autonomously for users. The Infocomm Media Development Authority sets out technical and non-technical measures for agentic AI governance across four dimensions: bounding risks up front, meaningful human accountability through checkpoints, technical controls over the agent's lifecycle and end-user education. Minister for digital development and information Josephine Teo announced it.
DeploymentTransport & LogisticsMalaysia22 Jan 2026
Pos Malaysia launches first autonomous logistics vehicle
Pos Malaysia Berhad — Zelos, Malaysia's first autonomous logistics vehicle, now runs for Pos Malaysia with Autonomous Logistic Solutions Sdn Bhd. The uncrewed, electric unit suits repetitive, high-volume point-to-point freight. A six-month pilot follows across the postal operator's network, using 5G from Digital National Berhad to validate the driverless vehicle.
DeploymentEducation & TrainingNorth Korea22 Jan 2026
Jeonjin Advanced Middle School opens AI education room with robots
Jeonjin Advanced Middle School — Jeonjin Advanced Middle School, Pyongyang's first integrated K-12 institution, has built a dedicated AI education room in Nangrang District with educational robots and up-to-date teaching gear. The facility delivers staged AI in K-12 education: kindergarteners engage with robot play, elementary pupils tackle simple algorithms, intermediates move into programming, and advanced learners design and operate robots themselves. This graduated model of AI-based robotics teaching reflects a push to embed artificial intelligence instruction at every school stage.
DeploymentHealthcare & Life SciencesMalaysia19 Jan 2026
Selangor to install 150 AI fall-detection devices for elderly residents
Selangor state government — Selangor's state government will pilot 150 AI fall detection devices in elderly care centres and private homes from June 2026, through state foundation Yayasan Warisan Anak Selangor with South Korean tech firm UNIUNI. Infrared sensors track movement, and if someone falls the system detects it fast and alerts care-centre operators or others responsible for immediate help, says foundation chief executive Gan Pei Nei. Devices go in only with residents' consent.
Evidence of adoptionGovernment & Public SectorMalaysia17 Jan 2026
Malaysia funds a RM110 million AI upskilling roadshow
TalentCorp — TalentCorp and EY Consulting launched Jelajah AI MyMahir in Sungai Buloh, a RM110 million applied AI upskilling programme opened by Human Resources Minister Ramanan Ramakrishnan. Across 60 constituencies, hands-on AI learning reaches small business owners, entrepreneurs, women, workers and students; TalentCorp expects about 22,000 Malaysians, 12,000 via the roadshow and 10,000 via its other programmes.
Evidence of adoptionGovernment & Public SectorPhilippines16 Jan 2026
The Philippines opens its first government-led AI academy, in Cebu
PEZA / TESDA — The Philippine Economic Zone Authority has opened the country's first government-led AI training academy in Mandaue City, Cebu, with TESDA and private providers Advanced Institute of Technology and StackTrek. Workers at PEZA-registered firms, over 424 of them in Cebu, study applied AI for business, automation and generative AI tools for free.
DeploymentManufacturing, Energy & ResourcesAzerbaijan15 Jan 2026
SOCAR Carbamide enters WEF Lighthouse network on 42 AI use cases
SOCAR Carbamide — SOCAR Carbamide at Sumqayit, Azerbaijan, has joined the World Economic Forum's Global Lighthouse Network among 22 freshly named factories, recognised for industrial AI in fertiliser production. Squeezed from 2022 by broken regional food routes, shaky natural gas feedstock and already flat out, the works layered 42 digitally enabled use cases over an in-house AI-machine learning engine, adding closed-loop autonomous process control, generative AI and shopfloor robots. Throughput climbed 21% and gas efficiency 24%.
Evidence of adoptionGovernment & Public SectorPhilippines9 Jan 2026
Marcos launches AI training for 1.5 million in basic education
Department of Education, Philippines — President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and Education Secretary Sonny Angara launched Project AGAP.AI, the Department of Education's AI training in schools on responsible AI use for teachers and students, at Quezon City Science High School. DepEd targets up to 1.5 million participants (1.05 million learners, 300,000 teachers and 150,000 parents) through AI Ready ASEAN Philippines training during 2026.
DeploymentGovernment & Public SectorTajikistan9 Jan 2026
Tajikistan launches AI-GOV initiative with Perplexity Comet for government
Ministry of Industry and New Technologies of Tajikistan — Tajikistan's Ministry of Industry and New Technologies has launched AI-GOV, deploying the Perplexity Comet browser across government offices as a step toward AI in public sector administration. Epsilon3.ai built the system architecture as technology partner, and the tool already runs inside the Ministry, where it handles licensing approvals for small and medium businesses, covering regulatory checks and knowledge management, an early government use of an AI browser.
DeploymentGovernment & Public SectorCambodia2 Jan 2026
Cambodia launches a free AI Khmer-English translator for the public
Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications — A free AI translation app, TranslateKH 2.0, went live from Cambodia's Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, letting anyone switch text between Khmer and English via the Play Store, the App Store or a fresh site, www.translate.kh. Powered by deep learning and a large language model, the second-generation machine translation service reads whole passages for meaning instead of parsing sentence by sentence, which the ministry credits with sharper results than its predecessor.
Commonwealth Bank's AI fraud agent cut losses by more than 20%
Commonwealth Bank of Australia's agentic AI fraud detection, built in-house in about three months, helped cut fraud losses more than 20% in the first half of its 2026 financial year year-on-year, the bank says. Watching over 80 million signals a day, the fraud agent helped create or update three-quarters of card-fraud rules, with human approval. James Roberts, general manager of fraud and scams, reported this in April 2026; no independent evaluation is published.
India adds its first AI-tool qualifications to national framework
NCVET placed India's first AI skills qualifications on the National Skills Qualifications Framework in July 2026, recognising NIIT Foundation Awarding Body (Dual). The AI-tool pair are Fundamentals of Digital Productivity with AI Tools, NSQF Level 3, and Fundamentals of Data Management with AI Tools, NSQF Level 4.
Singapore merges its skills and workforce agencies into one board
Singapore combined SkillsFuture Singapore and Workforce Singapore into one statutory board, the Skills and Workforce Development Agency (SWDA), operating from 1 July 2026. The Ministry of Manpower and Ministry of Education oversee it jointly.
Singapore pairs subsidised AI courses with free premium tool access
Singapore's Ministry of Manpower says Singaporeans taking selected government-funded SkillsFuture AI courses will get six months' free access to premium AI tools from the second half of 2026. Pairing subsidised training with subsidised tools is meant to get learners applying skills through regular use and experimentation; qualifying courses and tools will be named later, according to its March 2026 press release.
Evidence of adoptionGovernment & Public SectorSouth Korea2026
South Korea invests ₩1.4 trillion in AI talent development
South Korea is spending ₩1.4 trillion (about US$960 million) on AI talent development in 2026: ₩900 billion for elementary and middle schools and ₩500 billion for high schools. AI-focused schools will expand from 730 to 2,000 by 2028, and vocational high-school departments offering AI courses from 20% to 50% by 2030.
India's IndiaAI Mission backs AI skilling with a $1.25 billion outlay
India's Cabinet approved the IndiaAI Mission in March 2024: ₹10,371.92 crore (about US$1.25 billion) over five years, with AI skilling among seven pillars. IndiaAI FutureSkills widens AI courses from undergraduate to PhD level and opens Data and AI Labs in Tier 2 and 3 cities.
Evidence of adoptionEducation & TrainingSingapore2026
Singapore's AI programme will train 100,000 workers by 2029
Singapore's National AI Impact Programme targets AI skills training for 100,000 workers by 2029 and support for 10,000 enterprises over three years, including sector-specific courses for HR, legal, accounting, manufacturing and other non-tech professions. Budget 2026 set aside over S$400 million for an Enterprise Workforce Transformation Package, and Singaporeans on selected SkillsFuture AI courses get six months of free premium AI tools.
SOMPO gives an AI agent to 30,000 Japanese group staff
SOMPO Holdings — SOMPO Holdings began rolling out an in-house AI agent for employees, about 30,000 across domestic group companies, from January 2026, including all staff at SOMPO Holdings and core operating company Sompo Japan. With Google Cloud's Gemini Enterprise as the main tool, the group is testing what the agent actually changes about work. The goal is a foundation for reworking practices and processes rather than tinkering with them.
DBS runs over 2,000 AI models delivering S$1 billion in value
DBS Bank says its AI value in banking reached about S$1 billion in 2025 from more than 2,000 AI models across 430-plus use cases, up from over S$750 million across 370-plus in 2024. The figure, from the annual report's chairman and CEO letter, is DBS's internal estimate of costs saved and revenue gained, unaudited, and harder to isolate as AI embeds in daily workflows.
Insilico's Rentosertib becomes first fully AI-designed drug in Phase III
Insilico Medicine's Rentosertib, the first AI-designed drug (target and molecule from generative AI) to report a Phase 2a trial, in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (Nature Medicine, June 2025), entered Phase III in July 2026. The randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled pivotal trial enrols 320 patients over 52 weeks (NCT07687459), a registrational first for a fully AI-originated drug.
Evidence of impactEducation & TrainingSingapore2025
AI teaching assistant did not lift outcomes in Singapore VET study
A co-designed generative AI teaching assistant at a Singapore vocational institution improved teaching processes but produced no significant gain in student assessment outcomes, an evaluation found. High-ability students used it to verify work strategically, while low-ability students often used it to skip cognitive effort, potentially widening gaps.
Evidence of adoptionEducation & TrainingSingapore2024
Singapore's AI and digital-skills training nearly tripled to 96,000
Singapore's SkillsFuture AI skills training nearly tripled. Participants in AI, cybersecurity and digital marketing courses rose from 34,000 in 2023 to 96,000 in 2024.
India launches a multilingual AI skilling chatbot on WhatsApp
India's Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) launched the Skill India Assistant on 21 July 2025, a multilingual AI skilling chatbot on WhatsApp built on Meta's open-source Llama model. MSDE calls it the first large-scale open-source AI deployment in a national public skilling mission. By February 2026 its Skill India Digital Hub, run with the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), counted 1.5 crore (about 15 million) candidates, 7,000 training providers and 68,000 employer and industry partners.
Only 41% of India's PMKVY-certified trainees were placed in jobs
India's supreme audit institution found skilling scheme placements for just 2.318 million, or 41%, of the 5.614 million candidates certified under Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana's short-term training. The ministry itself blamed the weak job placement on roles picked without skill-gap analysis or market-demand assessment.
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