Retail News CRM

Tag: Artificial intelligence

  • Coles Drops Palantir AI Software Across 840 Australian Supermarkets

    Coles will terminate its software partnership with US technology firm Palantir. The platform will leave more than 840 Australian supermarkets when the three-year contract expires.

    The system processed more than 10 billion rows of operational data. That load covered employee shifts, bakery production schedules and store-level inventory allocations.

    Operational Data and Customer Backlash

    Signed in February 2024, the agreement deployed Palantir’s Foundry operating system and artificial intelligence tools for workforce planning and supply-chain logistics. The supermarket chain confirmed the platform will exit its stores beyond 2027. Public pushback over Palantir’s government surveillance and defence contracts drove the decision.

    Advocacy group GetUp mounted a billboard campaign near hundreds of stores in July, mimicking Coles branding to challenge its privacy practices. Coles rejected claims that shopper data was exposed to external access.

    “The software is deployed within Coles’ own environment and is operated and isolated under Coles controls,” a Coles spokesperson said.

    Supplier Scrutiny and Reputational Risk

    Retailers across the Asia-Pacific region face swift commercial fallout when back-end software vendors carry political or military profiles. Enterprise procurement once rested on technical capability and cost alone. That calculation has changed. Boards must now weigh vendor reputation alongside data isolation protocols.

    Ripping out an enterprise planning platform creates operational friction and heavy switching costs. Replacing tools that coordinate thousands of store rosters and perishable stock orders takes months of procurement, technical integration and staff retraining.

    The Shift in Retail Procurement

    Work began as a standard productivity initiative while grocery chains accelerated automation to curb operating costs. Palantir’s historical ties to intelligence agencies, US immigration enforcement and foreign defence contracts turned routine back-office optimization into an active brand problem.

    A replacement tender and full system migration across the 840 supermarkets must now wrap up before the contract concludes at the end of 2027.

  • Tripo AI Raises 3 Billion Yuan in Series B and B+ Rounds

    Tripo AI Raises 3 Billion Yuan in Series B and B+ Rounds

    Tripo AI has raised 3 billion yuan across combined Series B and Series B+ funding rounds this financial year to scale its generative 3D foundation models and commercial toolsets.

    This capital injection gives the company one of the largest war chests among Chinese artificial intelligence startups focused on automated spatial asset creation.

    Scaling 3D Asset Generation

    Users can convert text descriptions and two-dimensional images into production-ready 3D meshes within seconds. That speed cuts digital modeling time from days to minutes. It also directly lowers production expenses for game developers, virtual retail designers, and industrial visualization teams.

    Capital from the combined rounds will fund compute infrastructure and dataset acquisition. The money will also back larger engineering teams focused on multi-view reconstruction algorithms.

    Commercial Pressure on Digital Studios

    For consumer brands and e-commerce merchants building virtual storefronts, rapid 3D generation removes a persistent cost bottleneck. Traditional digital catalog creation requires manual sculpting and texture mapping for every stock keeping unit. Automated mesh generation shifts that workflow toward batch processing, forcing regional digital agencies and outsourced modeling studios to adjust their pricing structures.

    Adoption speed and export limits present the main risks. Consumer software platforms adopt synthetic assets quickly. Enterprise retail and manufacturing clients, however, demand strict geometric precision and clean topology that generative models still struggle to deliver without manual touch-ups.

    Prior Traction and Next Milestones

    Earlier funding rounds allowed Tripo AI to roll out browser-based generation tools and integrate application programming interfaces with major graphics engines. The platform processed millions of user queries over previous product cycles, building an initial base among independent creators and digital design shops.

    Looking ahead, management will focus on rolling out enterprise tier subscriptions and expanding direct integrations with global rendering pipelines before the end of the financial year.

  • Shinsegae Chairman Joins US-Led AI Supply Chain Push

    Shinsegae Chairman Joins US-Led AI Supply Chain Push

    Shinsegae Group Chairman Chung Yong-jin met senior United States officials in Washington on Thursday, expanding the Korean retail group’s role in a US-led artificial intelligence supply chain initiative.

    The Korean retail giant partnered with US startup Reflection AI in March, and the two companies are currently working to establish a joint venture and select a site for a large-scale AI data center in Korea.

    Washington Backing for Korean Infrastructure

    Chung attended the launch of Foundry School at the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace after an invitation from US Vice President JD Vance and the US Department of State. Run jointly by the State Department and Stanford University, the program trains technical talent and entrepreneurs for strategic industrial sectors.

    US Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Jacob Helberg called the Shinsegae alliance with Reflection AI a template for allied economic security under Washington’s Pax Silica framework. The initiative aligns supply chains across semiconductors, artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing and power generation among allied nations.

    Attendees included US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and House Republican Majority Leader Steve Scalise. Corporate leaders present included Meta President Dina Powell McCormick, Micron Technology CEO Sanjay Mehrotra and Applied Materials CEO Gary Dickerson.

    “Successfully leading an advanced-industry supply chain alliance centered on the US is the task of our time,” Chung said during discussions in Washington.

    From Department Stores to Server Racks

    Shinsegae is pivoting from traditional store networks into digital infrastructure. Department store operators across Asia face margin pressure in physical formats. That pressure is driving conglomerates to seek revenue from digital services, logistics networks and cloud infrastructure.

    Securing backing from Washington gives Shinsegae diplomatic standing and potential hardware access that purely domestic competitors lack. Execution carries risk. Developing and powering high-density data centers requires heavy capital expenditure and massive grid capacity in an already constrained Korean energy market.

    Next Steps for Joint Venture

    Talks in Washington build on an initial agreement signed in March, when Shinsegae and Reflection AI agreed to pursue a dedicated data center project in South Korea. That deal was the first project designated under the State Department framework promoting allied AI expansion.

    Both companies are now finalizing terms for the joint venture entity. They are reviewing prospective sites across South Korea ahead of formal construction filings.

  • Virtue Mirage Launches 17-Tool Fashion Personalisation Platform

    Virtue Mirage Launches 17-Tool Fashion Personalisation Platform

    Australian entrepreneur Lukas Cervenan launched Virtue Mirage in September 2026, introducing a hyper-personalisation platform designed to reshape the online fashion shopping experience.

    The system offers 17 tools that create a digital twin of a shopper using photos or exact measurements, extending personalisation across entire online stores rather than limiting it to individual products.

    By replacing traditional model imagery across every product gallery, the platform allows shoppers to see garments on their real body sizes across participating stores running on services such as Shopify and BigCommerce.

    How the Network Functions

    Shoppers manage their profiles through a central dashboard that stores saved outfits, real-time stock availability, and tailored size advisories for specific garments. A semantic search engine pairs items across a merchant’s inventory directly onto the user’s avatar, rather than displaying isolated product grids. New inventory drops can be pre-rendered for registered customer profiles before users land on the store page.

    To our knowledge, we are the only platform in the world that is transforming entire websites. So a size-16 shopper is never looking at a professional size-6 model; she sees her real size, on her real body, in every image across a brand’s entire store.

    The Return Problem Across Regional Fashion

    Retail margins across Asia-Pacific e-commerce continue to erode under the weight of reverse logistics. Fit failures drive the bulk of fashion returns, worsened by bracket-buying habits where shoppers purchase several sizes of a single item with the intention of returning most of them. Eliminating the disconnect between model proportions and real customer bodies attacks reverse logistics costs at the point of discovery.

    Standalone virtual fitting widgets rarely alter overall conversion because they sit isolated on individual product detail pages. By transforming whole catalogues into personalised galleries, operators attempt to lift checkout completion while defending independent web stores against dominant regional marketplaces like Shein and Zalora. The primary technical hurdle remains rendering fidelity, as artificial intelligence tools frequently struggle with drape and textile weight across edge sizes.

    Decade of Commercial Imaging Preceded Launch

    The platform builds directly on Cervenan’s commercial imaging business, Virtue Creative Studios, which produced e-commerce and campaign photo shoots for more than 500 apparel brands over the past ten years. That production background informed the platform’s visual architecture, which formats store catalogs to allow external AI shopping agents and semantic web scrapers to parse inventory data directly.

    Participating merchants on Shopify and BigCommerce are now integrating the software into their live storefronts ahead of peak year-end trading cycles.

  • GetUp Targets Hundreds of Coles Stores over Palantir AI Deal

    GetUp Targets Hundreds of Coles Stores over Palantir AI Deal

    Community advocacy group GetUp targeted hundreds of Coles stores across Australia with spoof digital billboards, challenging the supermarket operator over its enterprise partnership with US analytics vendor Palantir. The advertisements ran outside store entrances in July, mimicking the retailer’s signature red and white branding with the slogan: “Here at Coles, we’re always watching you.”

    The pushback followed Coles deploying software from the controversial US technology company to sharpen artificial intelligence and operational efficiency across its supermarket network. While the digital billboards were taken down quickly, the campaign triggered public debate over how large grocery chains handle customer data and explain tracking tools to shoppers.

    Public Scrutiny Over Store Analytics

    Supermarket operators across the Asia-Pacific region have accelerated investments in predictive analytics, automated inventory forecasting, and computer vision systems. Enterprise partnerships with overseas defence and intelligence contractors carry brand risks that standard retail IT upgrades do not. Consumer groups increasingly scrutinise the boundary between back-end supply chain optimisation and customer-facing surveillance.

    For grocery chains operating in concentrated retail markets, transparency around data architecture has become an operational necessity rather than an investor relations footnote. When retailers fail to define where data processing stops, third-party advocacy groups easily fill the information vacuum with negative messaging right at the store entrance.

    Retail AI Strategy Under Pressure

    The dispute reflects broader friction across Australian retail as grocers test advanced algorithmic tools to cut shrink and streamline operations. Coles had framed its AI rollout as an efficiency play, intended to modernise store workflows and stock management across its national footprint. Linking store-level operations to specialised analytics vendors has instead tested customer goodwill at a time of heightened consumer sensitivity around commercial data collection.

    Grocers managing similar automation rollouts across regional markets now face tighter questions regarding data sovereignty, third-party software governance, and in-store customer communications. Retailers will need to clarify operational boundaries as advocacy campaigns continue tracking corporate technology procurements.

  • Bidgely Shows Energy AI for 50 Million Homes at Enlit Asia 2026

    Bidgely Shows Energy AI for 50 Million Homes at Enlit Asia 2026

    Bidgely will present its energy artificial intelligence solutions alongside regional energy leaders at Enlit Asia 2026, scheduled for 22 to 24 September in BSD City, Jakarta.

    Headquartered in Los Altos, California, the company serves over 50 million homes globally and holds more than 19 foundational patents powering its UtilityAI platform.

    Bidgely and its vice president for EMEA and APAC, Nipun Jain, will demonstrate how smart meter data analytics can be deployed directly or across cloud ecosystems such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, Snowflake, and Databricks.

    Targeting Southeast Asian Power Loss

    Power distributors across Southeast Asia face heavy revenue leakage from non-technical losses, primarily unmetered taps, meter tampering, and unrecorded commercial consumption. Traditional auditing relies on manual inspections across sprawling municipal feeder lines. It is a slow, expensive field process that leaves billions in lost revenue on distribution balances. Algorithmic anomaly detection cuts those inspections down to verified problem sites. That gives state-backed utilities in Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines a faster return on their smart meter outlays.

    Commercial property owners and industrial operators across the region will feel this operational shift directly. As utilities adopt granular meter-level intelligence, billing discrepancies become faster to audit and harder to contest. For enterprise consumers, appliance-level breakdown data clarifies peak-demand surcharges. Regional distributors also gain direct data to use when negotiating tariff structures and demand-response targets.

    Cloud Platforms and Grid Strains

    Growth across ASEAN follows Bidgely’s addition of regional executive teams in July 2026 and technical roadshows across North America and Europe earlier in the year. Rapid deployment of advanced metering systems across key ASEAN markets has generated vast troves of interval data. Local power authorities rarely process this information beyond standard monthly invoicing.

    At Enlit Asia, we are showing how energy leaders are extracting value from this AMI data with AI/ML based big-data analytics, which turn interval data into concrete outcomes that remove bill shock, eliminate non-technical losses and build a resilient grid for the future.

    Technical Sessions in Jakarta

    Nipun Jain, vice president for EMEA and APAC at Bidgely, leads the regional delegation. Technical sessions scheduled for 22 and 23 September focus on feeder-level forecasting, battery asset visibility, and active grid layer management for distribution networks facing new consumer demand spikes.

  • NIQ and Similarweb Partner to Launch AI Commerce Measurement in Q4 2026

    NIQ and Similarweb Partner to Launch AI Commerce Measurement in Q4 2026

    NIQ and Similarweb are collaborating on an Agentic Commerce Measurement solution to help brands, retailers and technology platforms track purchases made through artificial intelligence, with an initial version scheduled for Q4 2026.

    The collaboration combines NIQ’s product intelligence, consumer behavior data and retail sales measurement with Similarweb’s digital signals across generative AI platforms. Together, the two New York Stock Exchange-listed companies will connect AI discovery to measured sales outcomes.

    Five tracking pillars

    The planned solution will initially focus on 5 areas across the buying journey: consumer intent, agentic shelf visibility, product content readiness, AI-driven traffic and AI-driven conversion into verified omnichannel purchases.

    Initial monitoring will cover major generative tools including ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Mode, Perplexity and Claude. These analytics feed directly into NIQ’s Commerce Intelligence ecosystem, which links brand product catalogs with enterprise retail operations.

    AI is becoming a new commerce channel, and NIQ intends to make it measurable. Our clients want to know where AI is already influencing their business, how quickly that influence is growing and what they should do about it.

    The shift to agentic checkouts

    Protocols such as Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol and OpenAI’s Agentic Commerce Protocol prompted the project. Both frameworks allow autonomous software agents to research, evaluate and purchase merchandise inside a single chat window without redirecting the shopper to a traditional storefront.

    For consumer brands and multi-brand merchants, automated shopping removes the classic digital shelf where banner placements and search bidding drove conversion. Brands drop out of the basket entirely if an AI agent filters options down to two choices based on structured technical metadata they lack.

    Catalog hygiene and algorithmic bias pose immediate hurdles for suppliers. A brand cannot buy sponsored placement inside an autonomous agent if the underlying Large Language Model cannot parse the product description or confirm inventory in real time.

    Platform coverage and next stages

    Integration relies on NIQ’s existing enterprise analytics tools, Optiq and ConnectAI, which feed commercial data directly into corporate workflow software. Similarweb previously built out dedicated digital footprint tools to capture referral traffic from generative artificial intelligence search portals.

    NIQ and Similarweb plan to reveal initial product categories and regional test markets ahead of the fourth-quarter rollout in 2026.

  • Foreign Tech Investors Pay up to US$15,000 for Access to Chinese Factory Floors

    Foreign Tech Investors Pay up to US$15,000 for Access to Chinese Factory Floors

    Foreign investors and tech executives are paying up to US$15,000 each to tour Chinese manufacturing plants. The visits cover robotics, electric vehicle and artificial intelligence facilities across five industrial hubs.

    Western and regional boardrooms face pressure to see if Chinese automation has pulled ahead of global rivals. These paid delegations offer a direct look at mainland hardware supply chains.

    Programmes span Beijing, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Hangzhou and Hefei. Shanghai-based data research firm Baiguan charges up to US$15,000 for a five-day itinerary. Around half its participants come from Southeast Asia. Tech tour agency Glopen reported a 50 per cent jump in enquiries during 2026, mostly from European and Singaporean clients. It now operates more than 100 single-day corporate visits every month. Tech Buzz China founder Rui Ma has organised 11 delegations since 2019, including an April tour through three cities focusing on robotics.

    The Business Behind Factory Tourism

    State backing has turned industrial site visits into commercial business across the mainland. Beijing has designated more than 140 demonstration sites for industrial tourism. The sector generated US$17.8 billion last year and is projected to reach 300 billion yuan (US$44.6 billion) by 2029.

    Public rates for individual factory visits usually run around US$60, but premium access commands steep markups. Xiaomi’s electric vehicle assembly plant in Beijing has recorded more than 250,000 visitors since March 2024. Entry slots from Xiaomi’s official lottery system have been scalped on secondary platforms for up to 2,000 yuan (US$300), despite company rules barring transfers.

    Institutional investors have quietly joined the circuit. US firms Dimension, Capital Group and Thrive Capital have all sent representatives to inspect mainland production setups. European corporate delegations have also toured sites to study state-backed technology coordination.

    Hardware Dependence and Supply Realities

    Consumer hardware and robotics brands see that physical supply chains remain tethered to southern China. Geopolitical posturing has not changed that reality. Western developers still depend on mainland ecosystems for sensors, battery cells, structural frames and precision actuators. Replicating those supplier clusters outside the Pearl River Delta remains slow and capital intensive.

    Visitors risk mistaking demonstration speed for total commercial dominance. Non-Chinese technology firms still hold most global market share, high-margin software profits and core intellectual property. In sectors like autonomous robotaxis, Chinese domestic deployment continues to move cautiously. Regulators remain concerned about urban transport employment.

    Shenzhen Emerges as the Focal Point

    Years of infrastructure spending transformed Shenzhen from a contract assembly zone into an integrated hardware design centre. The current tour rush builds on that base. Foreign visitor arrivals in Shenzhen jumped 70 per cent last year and rose another 30 per cent in the first quarter. Total entries topped 5 million through August.

    Founders use 10-day visa-free entry policies to test prototypes directly with component suppliers. Local operators have opened communal hacker houses for visiting robotics and AI engineers. Informal network groups coordinate factory access across Shenzhen and Silicon Valley.

    Next up is the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in November, which Shenzhen will host. Municipal officials plan to show automated assembly plants and urban drone networks to pitch the city’s hardware infrastructure to visiting regional trade delegations.

  • Taiwan Targets Silicon Photonics to Cut AI Chip Power Use by 50 Percent

    Taiwan Targets Silicon Photonics to Cut AI Chip Power Use by 50 Percent

    Taiwan is mobilising its chipmaking sector to commercialise silicon photonics and copackaged optics, with the Ministry of Economic Affairs backing efforts to overcome artificial intelligence computing bottlenecks.

    The island holds over 90 percent of global manufacturing capacity for chips at 7 nanometers or below, while more than 30 firms including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co and MediaTek Inc formed an industry alliance in 2024.

    Silicon photonics replaces conventional copper wiring between chips with optical signals. Because optical transmission generates negligible heat, the technology cuts device power consumption by 30 to 50 percent, according to the Ministry of Economic Affairs. That saving eases cooling limits in high-density AI data centres. It also clears the 1.6-terabit-per-second bandwidth ceiling that hampers electronic links.

    Optics Replace Copper Interconnects

    Heavy capital is pouring across the hardware supply chain. Nvidia invested US$4 billion into silicon photonics development in March. The chipmaker needs architectures that sustain real-time AI workloads and high-definition streaming without overheating server racks.

    Taiwanese authorities have folded the technology into their New 10 Major AI Infrastructure Projects. Funding flows through the government’s A+ Enterprise Innovation research programme. The scheme subsidises domestic research teams and equipment developers building local manufacturing tooling.

    Alliance Mobilises Heavyweights

    Execution on the ground rests on the Silicon Photonics Industry Alliance, a consortium established in 2024 with industry group SEMI. The group brings together more than 30 technology suppliers. Members include Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, ASE Technology Holding, MediaTek and Hon Hai Precision Industry.

    Asian hardware vendors and server assemblers face shifting procurement cycles. Traditional printed circuit board layouts will yield to integrated optical packaging. As a result, component suppliers must retool production lines for optical transceivers and precision glass substrates.

    Manufacturing risks centre on packaging yields and costs. Integrating laser sources and optical waveguides directly alongside silicon dies requires packaging tolerances tighter than standard wire bonding. These yield hurdles could delay volume delivery.

    Race for Next-Generation Packaging

    Foundry and packaging operators have spent years researching optics to counter the slowdown of traditional transistor scaling. Physical node shrinking now delivers diminishing returns. Advanced packaging formats like copackaged optics have become the primary path to computing efficiency.

    Prototype lines are now running across alliance members to finalise copackaged optics standards before volume production begins for 2026 data centre hardware cycles.

  • 87% Of Australians Have AI Privacy Concerns, Report Finds

    87% Of Australians Have AI Privacy Concerns, Report Finds

    Eighty-seven per cent of Australians have concerns about privacy for artificial intelligence, according to Australian Retail Council research discussed at an industry roundtable in September 2026.

    The findings, highlighted by Diebold Nixdorf, show that only 5 per cent of Australians say they trust AI companies, presenting a live commercial risk for retailers integrating automation into everyday operations.

    Senior retail leaders at the gathering noted that while the technology for age verification, customer service, and loss prevention is ready, customer trust remains the primary barrier to adoption across Australian stores.

    Designing privacy into the checkout lane

    Automated age verification and theft detection represent the front line of store deployment. In international grocery markets, automated systems now approve most age-restricted purchases at self-checkout within seconds by processing visual data locally without retaining personal files.

    Hardware suppliers argue that keeping customer records off retail servers prevents chains from becoming targets for regulatory scrutiny. Similarly, loss prevention algorithms in newer self-checkouts prompt shoppers to scan missed items before store staff intervene, reducing confrontation at the register.

    Operating standards across store networks

    Supermarket operators across the Asia-Pacific region have accelerated camera-assisted checkout rollouts over the past three years to curb inventory shrink. Australian grocers that run uncoordinated systems across point-of-sale, payments, and security cameras risk alienating shoppers if privacy safeguards vary between store departments.

    For regional retail executives, deploying store AI without clear boundaries creates legal and operational liabilities. While Asian retailers in markets such as Singapore and Japan have integrated automated kiosks with high public compliance, Australian consumers push back when surveillance feels unchecked.

    Industry proposals for shared rules

    The push toward automation follows earlier disputes between major Australian supermarket chains and privacy regulators over facial recognition testing in retail aisles. Industry participants at the roundtable raised support for a retail-specific AI code of practice to set standard data retention limits across the sector.

    Diebold Nixdorf published the findings alongside its research report on self-service systems in Australia. Retailers now weigh whether to adopt voluntary operating rules or wait for formal regulatory guidelines on customer data capture at the till.

  • World Bank Urges Thailand to Lift 12% AI Adoption Rate for 2037 Goal

    World Bank Urges Thailand to Lift 12% AI Adoption Rate for 2037 Goal

    Thailand must lift its corporate artificial intelligence adoption beyond the current 12 per cent rate to hit high-income status by 2037, according to the World Bank.

    Only about one in eight Thai businesses currently deploys AI tools, despite recent data centre investments and an established electronics manufacturing base. Speaking at the Bangkok Business Summit, World Bank vice-president for East Asia and Pacific Carlos Felipe Jaramillo warned that commercial adoption remains too concentrated among large corporations in the capital.

    Closing the SME technology gap

    Small, medium and micro-enterprises outside Bangkok account for the bulk of employment but lag in digital capabilities. The multilateral lender presented its “Building Thailand’s Future Today” report at the summit, hosted by the Joint Standing Committee on Commerce, Industry and Banking, setting out reforms for enterprise competitiveness.

    Thailand spends roughly 1 per cent of gross domestic product on research and development. Across the East Asia-Pacific region, that average sits at 2.5 per cent. World Bank senior economist Katherine Stapleton said closing that divide requires redirecting state R&D incentives toward smaller firms rather than limiting innovation programmes to top-tier conglomerates.

    RetailNews Asia notes that enterprise technology providers across Southeast Asia face a similar bottleneck: high digital consumer penetration alongside sluggish software uptake inside merchant supply chains. While Bangkok ranks among the region’s most connected consumer markets, commercial software integration across provincial retail and logistics networks remains sparse.

    Raising growth targets

    Meeting the government’s 2037 high-income target will require annual real GDP growth to jump to 5.4 per cent per person. Thai economic expansion has averaged 2.2 per cent per person since the pandemic.

    Exports generate roughly 70 per cent of Thailand’s gross domestic product, yet foreign direct investment continues to generate weak spillover gains for local suppliers. The World Bank argues that upgrading domestic software capabilities and fostering regional commercial hubs will determine whether the economy escapes middle-income stagnation.

    The Joint Standing Committee and state planning agencies are now reviewing corporate tax breaks and startup development programmes ahead of the next fiscal policy cycle.

  • Japan AI Data Center Capacity to Quadruple by 2033 with $60 Billion Push

    Japan AI Data Center Capacity to Quadruple by 2033 with $60 Billion Push

    Japan will more than quadruple its artificial intelligence data center capacity over the next eight years through planned investments totaling $60 billion. The buildout aims to place the country directly behind the United States and China in compute scale while securing domestic data processing independence.

    Telecommunications giant NTT is driving a major share of that expansion, targeting 2 gigawatts of operational data center capacity by fiscal 2033. Trading houses and commercial operators are also stepping into the sector, including Itochu, which is preparing 10 facilities across Japan to capture surging commercial enterprise demand.

    Power Targets and Commercial Scale

    Data center developers across Tokyo and regional prefectures are racing to secure land and high-voltage grid connections required for high-density processing racks. Artificial intelligence workloads require substantially more electricity than legacy cloud hosting, forcing operators to structure long-term power purchase agreements before breaking ground.

    Japanese enterprises have accelerated their adoption of generative computing tools in supply chain planning, automated retail operations and customer service systems. Domestic infrastructure provides local businesses with lower latency and ensures sensitive corporate records stay within national borders under local privacy frameworks.

    Regional Competition and Sovereign Tech

    Across the wider Asia-Pacific region, rapid infrastructure development has sparked competing bids for power and municipal resources in key hubs such as Singapore, Malaysia and South Korea. Japan offers investors established grid stability and transparent property regulations, countering higher real estate and construction overheads.

    The investment pipeline gives enterprise software vendors and consumer brands access to dedicated domestic processing capacity that avoids overseas routing bottlenecks. What remains to be watched is how rapidly regional utility providers can deliver grid upgrades to NTT and competing operators as initial project phases break ground toward the 2033 capacity deadline.

  • Intellisia Raises ₩3.4 Billion to Replace Consumer Panels with AI

    Intellisia Raises ₩3.4 Billion to Replace Consumer Panels with AI

    Intellisia has raised ₩3.4 billion ($2.5 million) in pre-Series A funding to scale its synthetic consumer research and retail simulation platform across Asia and North America. The round closed above its initial ₩3 billion target.

    Kakao Ventures led the investment, joined by Murex Partners, Capstone Partners, and founder Baek Seung-guk, who committed personal capital to the round. The Seoul-based company builds virtual consumer profiles trained on real-world purchasing data to answer product surveys, evaluate packaging, and simulate retail store behavior.

    Enterprise Traction and Accuracy Metrics

    Traditional consumer research takes weeks or months to recruit panels and return responses. Intellisia runs identical query sets through its platform, TheSurvey.ai, within hours. The company reports an average reproduction rate above 90 percent when testing its synthetic models against actual human survey results.

    That accuracy has converted pilots into commercial contracts across South Korea’s consumer sector. Intellisia has logged more than 200 project engagements, working with packaged food manufacturers CJ CheilJedang, Pulmuone, and Lotte Wellfood, as well as telecoms group LG Uplus, furniture maker Fursys Group, and convenience store operator BGF Retail. More than 60 percent of enterprise proof-of-concept trials converted into paid annual contracts.

    Baek previously co-founded content recommendation engine Dable, which scaled across seven Asian markets before selling to travel platform Yanolja in 2021. He founded Intellisia to apply similar predictive data modeling to consumer behavior testing.

    From Survey Panels to Store Twins

    Packaged goods manufacturers and retail chains across East Asia face compressed product lifecycles and rising sample recruitment costs. Using synthetic consumer cohorts allows brand managers to test dozens of packaging variations or pricing structures before committing physical inventory to supermarket shelves.

    Intellisia is now pushing beyond questionnaires into physical store simulation. The company is preparing trials for ParaStore, an AI digital twin platform where virtual shoppers interact with store layouts, shelf placements, and merchandising plans. BGF Retail, which operates South Korea’s CU convenience store chain, will test the system for store operations and category management.

    A commercial subscription-based software platform goes live in the fourth quarter of this year, followed by market launches in Japan and the United States next year.

  • Retail Asia Summit 2026 Sets Singapore Agenda for Responsible AI and Unified Data

    Retail Asia Summit 2026 Sets Singapore Agenda for Responsible AI and Unified Data

    Singapore will host the Retail Asia Summit on September 29, 2026, gathering brand executives and technology leaders to address artificial intelligence governance and omnichannel store operations.

    The day-long gathering at the Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel will focus on deploying automation, unifying customer data, and meeting data privacy standards across Southeast Asian retail networks.

    Speakers and Operational Themes

    Speakers include Cindy Ngiam, director of retail at Enterprise Singapore, and Zhu Hui, partner in Bain & Company’s retail and advanced analytics practice. Ngiam heads public-sector capability building for Singaporean retailers expanding domestically and overseas, following earlier roles developing startup ecosystems and tourism marketing. Zhu advises Southeast Asian grocery, fashion, and quick-service restaurant chains on operating models and generative AI implementation.

    Discussions during the event will examine how retail operators deploy Internet of Things applications in physical stores, integrate online-to-offline customer data, and maintain cybersecurity protocols.

    Regional Tech Adoption in Retail

    Store networks across Southeast Asia face stricter data compliance requirements while attempting to automate frontline staffing and inventory planning. Regional operators in grocery and fashion increasingly test predictive logistics and machine-learning tools to manage rising labour costs in core cities like Singapore.

    The summit runs from 8:30 AM to 5:00 PM SGT at the hotel’s Waterfront Ballroom on September 29.

  • Japan Startup Muse Deploys Retail Robots to New York Grocery Stores

    Japan Startup Muse Deploys Retail Robots to New York Grocery Stores

    Japanese robotics startup Muse rolled out its automated retail helper robots in a New York grocery store to capture US supermarket demand for labor-saving physical artificial intelligence.

    The deployment puts automated shelf-stocking hardware directly into commercial grocery aisles alongside store clerks. Rising operational expenses and stubborn retail worker shortages across North America have accelerated the commercial rollout of Asian service robotics beyond domestic test markets.

    Automating shelf replenishment

    Muse built its physical AI machines to assist staff with the physical strain of routine grocery restocking. The robots navigate sales floors to handle merchandise replenishment tasks, reducing the repetitive lifting required of store associates during standard operating shifts.

    Store operators in the United States face persistent labor turnover in entry-level inventory roles. Deploying autonomous replenishment units allows grocers to maintain shelf availability without increasing headcount during peak restocking hours.

    Exporting Asian physical AI

    Japanese robotics developers are increasingly targeting overseas retail markets where wage pressures create faster paths to commercial adoption than domestic pilot schemes. While Japanese supermarkets have tested automated replenishment in limited urban formats, the scale of floor space in American grocery chains offers substantially larger hardware deployment volumes per client.

    Muse plans to use the New York supermarket deployment as an operational reference site to secure multi-unit rollouts across broader US retail chains.