A veteran venture capitalist from Granite Asia says Asia may gain a strategic advantage over the United States in the next phase of artificial intelligence development due to its strong manufacturing base and integrated supply chains. According to Jixun Foo, AI is shifting beyond language models into “embodied AI,” including robotics, industrial automation, and real-world systems. This transition favors Asia, where countries like China, Japan, South Korea, and Southeast Asian economies already have deep expertise in hardware production and engineering. Foo argues that Asia’s tightly connected industrial ecosystem enables faster prototyping and large-scale deployment of AI-powered hardware, giving the region an edge in turning AI research into practical applications. He also noted that investors are increasingly focusing on application-layer AI companies that deliver real-world value rather than purely model-based firms. Granite Asia, which manages around $10 billion in assets, has backed major tech companies such as Baidu and Xpeng. Foo believes future AI value will increasingly come from hardware, infrastructure, and physical-world systems rather than software interfaces alone, as AI evolves from assisting humans to directly executing tasks.
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