☕️ Good morning, friends,

We constantly see heads turn whenever a Xiaomi SU7 zips past us on the streets of Shanghai. And we are not the only ones.

More on that in today’s Top Bit.

Also in this edition:

•  KKR targets data centers: Asia’s largest data-center deal

•  Vanke sinks deeper into the property crisis

•  Austrian AI agent hype in China

Enjoy the read! 📰

👉🏻 P.S. Follow us on LinkedIn for even more insights, news, and knowledge from Asia.

Hong Kong’s IPO boom: 96 companies filed listing applications in January — three times more than in January 2025. Twelve firms have already raised $4.2 billion, up 447%. Strong market sentiment and a packed pipeline are fueling Hong Kong’s return to the top tier of global IPO hubs.

TOP BIT

Ford & Xiaomi: Secret Liaison or "Fake News"?

Rumors are swirling on Wall Street and in Detroit: According to the Financial Times, Ford is said to have held secret talks with Chinese tech giant Xiaomi regarding an EV joint venture in the US.

While both companies vehemently deny it, the evidence of mutual attraction—most notably Jim Farley's love for the Xiaomi SU7—is hard to ignore.

Details

• The report: Citing insiders, the FT reports that Ford is exploring a partnership with Xiaomi to leverage Chinese EV expertise on US soil.

• The denial: Ford called the story "completely false." Xiaomi followed suit, stating it neither sells products in the US nor has current plans to do so.

Farley's "Epiphany"

Ford CEO Jim Farley admitted back in 2024 that he had a Xiaomi SU7 flown to Chicago and drove it for six months. His verdict: "I don't want to give it up." This enthusiasm fuels speculation that Ford is desperately seeking Chinese software know-how.

Flashback: The end of the billion-dollar marriage with LG Energy

In December, Ford wrote off $19.5 billion and canceled several EV models. At the same time, LG Energy Solution terminated a $6.5 billion battery supply contract with Ford—citing shifting demand and the policies of the Trump administration.

Takeaway

Ford is in a bind: The company is fascinated by China’s EV lead, but politically, it cannot afford to lean too far East.

The Chairman of the House Select Committee on China, John Moolenaar, already sent Farley a written warning last week against making deals with BYD or CATL.

📊 All details & data: Yahoo Finance, CNEVpost, The Korean Economic Daily

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NUMBER OF THE DAY

That’s how much GDP each square kilometer generates in Shenzhen’s Nanshan tech district — China’s most productive patch of land.

🏢 The trillion-yuan club: Covering just 185 sq km and home to Tencent, DJI and Huawei, Nanshan crossed the CNY 1 trillion GDP mark for the first time in 2025, becoming China’s third district to do so after Pudong (Shanghai) and Haidian (Beijing).

Context: Nanshan invests 7.9% of its GDP in R&D, nearly 3x the national average. On just one-tenth of Shenzhen’s land area, it packs in 218 listed companies and 28 unicorns, plus 860 invention patents per 10,000 people and 25,000 international patents.

MARKET BIT

KKR targets Singapore’s data centers: $10bn bet on AI infrastructure

A KKR-led consortium is nearing the acquisition of ST Telemedia Global Data Centres (STT GDC). The valuation is above US$10 billion, putting it among Asia’s largest data-centre deals.

🤝 Structure: KKR is buying together with Singtel from Temasek Holdings. GIC and Mubadala are considering joining as co-investors. The consortium is reportedly paying more than S$13 billion for the global data-centre operator.

The details

Strategic lever: STT GDC operates 100+ data centres with 2+ gigawatts of IT capacity across 20+ markets — from Singapore to India and Japan, and into Europe via its VIRTUS brand in the UK, Germany, and Italy.

Timing: KKR owns around 14%, Singtel more than 4% — now the move is toward taking out Temasek’s stake. Talks last November centered on acquiring >80%. Today’s valuation underscores how sharply AI-ready infrastructurehas been repriced.

Private capital takes over AI infrastructure: Sovereigns and strategic owners are monetising mature assets; private equity can scale globally via roll-ups, refinancing, and faster capacity expansion.

And China?

China plans to put AI data centres into orbit over the next five years. The goal is a solar-powered “Space Cloud” with gigawatt-scale computing capacity.

China’s state aerospace contractor China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) has outlined plans to build “space digital-intelligence infrastructure” that bundles compute, storage, and data transmission directly in orbit.

Timeline:

• First orbital AI infrastructure: within 5 years

• Industrial-scale gigawatt “Space Cloud”: by 2030

👉 Full story: Channel News Asia, BusinessTimes SG, Asia Financial

WORD OF THE WEEK

🇯🇵 Shokuiku 食育

In Japan, shokuiku literally means “food education,” but it’s much more than knowing what’s on your plate.

• It’s a national philosophy that treats eating as a life skill: Understanding where food comes from, how it’s prepared, and how it affects your body and mind. Children learn it at school, adults live it daily.

Shokuiku explains why Japanese meals feel so intentional: seasonal ingredients, balanced portions, and an almost quiet respect for food itself. Meals are seen more as moments of care than just fuel.

HIGHLIGHTS 

🏚️ Vanke sinks deeper into China’s property crisis: State-backed developer China Vanke expects a net loss of 82 billion yuan ($11.8 billion) for 2025. The company narrowly avoided a payment default after major shareholder Shenzhen Metro provided a 2.36 billion yuan loan. But another wave of debt maturities looms between April and July, while falling home prices continue to squeeze profitability.

🍏 Chip bottleneck slows Apple: Apple posted strong quarterly results and is guiding for up to 16% revenue growth in the March quarter. According to CEO Tim Cook, the main constraint is not memory, but limited access to cutting-edge manufacturing for Apple’s A- and M-series SoCs on TSMC’s 3-nanometer node. Apple is trying to secure more capacity, while rising memory prices are expected to put additional pressure on margins in the March quarter.

🤖 Austrian AI agent gains traction in China: Moltbot, the open-source AI assistant developed by Austrian engineer Peter Steinberger, is being tested at scale in China. Cloud providers such as Alibaba, Tencent, and ByteDance offer dedicated packages starting at $10 per year to run Moltbot on local LLMs like DeepSeek. The agent autonomously controls devices and is already in active use by the Asiabits team as well. :)

☀️ Nissan tests a solar-powered car of the future: Nissan has unveiled an Ariya concept with solar panels fully integrated into the vehicle’s body, exploring how much everyday driving can be powered directly by sunlight. A total of 480 solar cells across the roof, hood, and rear window deliver up to 700 watts and, in sunny regions, could generate around 4 kWh per day. According to Nissan, that translates into up to 23 kilometers of additional driving range per day.

FORTUNE COOKIE

Happy Monday — may everything fall perfectly into place! 👏🏻

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