Most conversations about AI in Australia and the West start from a mix of opportunity and caution. In parts of Asia, it has already moved past that. That’s the view from Cameron Robertson, a portfolio manager at Platinum Asset Management, where he leads the firm’s Asia strategy, on the latest episode of Nap Stack.

A different starting point

“In the West, you see people view AI through the lens of a bit of fear as well as opportunity,” Robertson says. “In Asia, I guess they’ve just seen the benefits of adopting technology so much more in recent lifetime. People know that it helps and know that it’s important, and those markets are pretty competitive.”

That competitive pressure, combined with a track record of technology paying off, has made adoption faster and more aggressive across the region.

The infrastructure behind the adoption

The bigger difference, in Robertson’s view, sits behind the scenes. A number of Asian companies are building the infrastructure AI depends on: data centres, cooling, optical networking.

“Here we’ve got discussions around do we want a data centre in our backyard,” he says. “Over there it’s much more about how are we going to solve the issues around cooling, around optical networking, all these kinds of things.” Manufacturing scale is also pulling AI into industrial use cases faster than the West, where adoption has leaned more heavily on service industries.

That build-out has flowed into property. Robertson points to land in Australia being bought up for its power permitting rather than its location, and a parcel in Mumbai that went up sixfold in value once it secured power access, “not what you expected from an apartment developer.”

Separating genuine value from hype

For an investor, the harder question is knowing which companies are riding a genuine, durable advantage and which are just benefiting from short-term scarcity.

“You’ve got this issue of, as we’re building out AI, there’s an opportunity to make money from the acute shortages that come from the build-out,” Robertson says. “But that might not be the same as the long-term beneficiaries from it.” Specialty fibreglass makers riding a supply crunch are one example. Whether that translates into lasting value is a separate question from whether a business has built something genuinely distinctive on top of the technology, rather than an early-mover advantage the rest of the market will eventually close.

What this means for Australian leaders

Robertson’s advice for business leaders comes back to experimentation. Many Australian organisations default to caution on security and data protection, which he calls important but not sufficient on its own.

“I think long term your business faces the biggest risks by not working out how this technology can help your business and how you’ve got to adapt it,” he says. “AI is almost like handing someone a blank sheet of paper. You’re never quite sure exactly what it can do for you. The best thing is just get it in as many people’s hands as you can, and then see where the opportunities are emerging.”

Not sure how to give your teams room to experiment safely

The Omnia Collective works with financial services and enterprise clients across Australia to build the guardrails that let teams experiment with AI safely, so innovation doesn’t have to wait on a perfect risk framework. See our AI governance services or get in touch.