Humanoids on leftover jobs, Japan's Shunkai, and Australia's shipyard test

This Week's Analysis

Humanoids are not replacing industrial robots. They're filling the gaps.

Short Reads

1. Japan's Shunkai is operational. Commercial access remains unproven.

   Japan's new quantum system, Shunkai, can take a job, run it and return a result. The Institute for Molecular Science says the machine will be partially open to outside users, but there is still no public application route, pricing, allocation system or service commitment. A working quantum computer and a quantum computing service are not quite the same thing. This Short Read looks at the gap between the two.

   Read on Relay Asia →
2. Australia's Mogami order is also a test of its shipbuilding capacity.

   Australia has signed for three Japanese-designed frigates that Mitsubishi Heavy Industries will build in Nagasaki. Later ships are intended for Henderson in Western Australia, if the Henderson Defence Precinct consolidates. Austal is already building patrol boats there, and landing-craft construction is commencing. The Mogami is a much more complex vessel. This Short Read looks at whether that yard can build the later hulls.

   Read on Relay Asia →

Suggested Reads

• Asia-Pacific equity fundraising is up sharply, helped by the AI boom. On fundraising in APAC, Reuters, via the Express Tribune, puts Asia-Pacific share and convertible fundraising at USD 327.1 billion in the first nine months of the year, up 53%. The AI boom has helped drive the increase, with companies raising for chips, data centres and power. The 2021 record is USD 557.6 billion, leaving another USD 230.6 billion to go before the year ends. A Goldman Sachs banker expects the record to fall, but several large deals are still in the pipeline, including a Philippine listing that has not yet been priced.
• Balakrishnan set out AI safeguards and left a UN convention open. Asia News Network reports that, in his UN speech about AI safeguards, Singapore's foreign minister Vivian Balakrishnan called for rigorous testing and evaluation before deployment, clear limits on what autonomous systems can do, and mechanisms to intervene when systems behave in ways we do not intend. He said human beings must ultimately remain in charge. He named three risks that do not stay behind borders: loss of control over autonomous systems, bioweapons or other weapons of mass destruction, and political and socio-economic disruption. In a wrap-up with Singapore media the same day, he offered a UN Framework Convention on AI Safeguards as a possibility.
• ChatGPT ads are now running across Southeast Asia and Taiwan. This week saw another step in the commercialisation of generative AI. Marketing-Interactive reports that, from 24 September 2026, ChatGPT ads are running in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and Taiwan. They appear on the Free and Go plans, while Plus, Pro and Enterprise remain ad-free. OpenAI is adding tools for advertisers to create and manage campaigns, including optimisation tools and measurement. Shopee says it is exploring how the rollout could improve product discovery and help sellers reach customers. Could ChatGPT become a place where the product search, recommendation and advertising layers sit inside the same conversation?
• Australia asked Altman and Amodei to face questions on AI. I've been following the Australian case in which an OpenAI agent gained unauthorised access to the Medicare statistics portal. The Senate inquiry into AI and data centres subsequently asked OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei to appear at its 1 October 2026 hearing in Canberra. Reuters reports that Anthropic will not appear and that OpenAI said it could not arrange for its executives to attend, citing the short notice. OpenAI's chief strategy officer, Jason Kwon, is due at a separate parliamentary AI hearing in Sydney on 6 October. Anthropic has sought another date. The Senate inquiry is examining the potential impacts of AI and data centres on Australian communities, industries, water and energy.
• A Singapore startup is trying to grow a new semiconductor material on the wafers chip fabs already use. TechCrunch reports that Singapore's Nexstrom has raised a USD 12 million seed round, and USD 15 million in total, to grow two-dimensional semiconductor materials on 300-millimetre wafers, the same size used in commercial chip manufacturing. Some companies are already testing samples. The company wants to sell the equipment to chipmakers, or partner with them, rather than compete as a fab. The gap it is trying to close is making these very thin materials at scale, on the full-size wafers the industry already uses, so chips can be made smaller.
• A fake crocodile at Pandan Reservoir sent the water agency and parks board out, and a charge was still pending. On 20 August 2026, Singapore's national water agency was told that a crocodile had been spotted at Pandan Reservoir. Water activities were suspended while the agency and the parks board searched. The photograph turned out to be fake. AsiaOne, citing a police release, reports that a 30-year-old man created the image using AI, sent it to a colleague. Police said he was due to be charged on 29 September with communicating a false message and obstructing justice. It is a small example of a bigger change: AI-generated images can now create offline consequences before anyone has established that the image is real.