☕️ Good morning, friends,

if you thought Europe’s dependence on China stopped at rare earths, hold on to your toothbrush.

The president of the EU Chamber of Commerce in China put it bluntly: “I’m not even sure Europe could still make toothpaste without China.”

At least that would guarantee plenty of work for European dentists. 🦷

P.S. Our Partner of the Week, Cathy Tax, can help with anything you would otherwise grind your teeth over. 🤝

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Highlights: Instead of post-Fed-cut euphoria, profit-taking and valuations are back in the driver’s seat. What matters now is whether further rate cuts follow in 2026. Japan is benefiting from industrial and export stocks, China remains selectively under pressure, and tech continues to swing.

TOP BIT

🤖 AI instead of aides: Japan’s care crisis fuels a robotics boom

Japan is facing a care crisis unlike anything any other industrialized country has experienced.
The population is aging rapidly, skilled workers are in short supply, and thousands of people with dementia go missing every year, often found only much later.
Dementia costs could reach around 14 trillion yen (90 billion USD) by 2030.

Details

🧩 GPS as a lifesaver: More than 18,000 people with dementia go missing in Japan each year. Hundreds are later found dead. Municipalities hand out GPS tags that trigger an alarm as soon as someone leaves a safe zone.

🧠 AI diagnostics in everyday life: A new Fujitsu system analyzes posture and gait in at-risk groups. Small changes that are easy to miss can signal early-stage dementia. Doctors receive a visual movement profile that allows earlier intervention.

🦾 Robots that support care: Universities are testing care robots that turn people, provide support or assist with dressing. The goal is to relieve caregivers of the most physically demanding tasks.

Mini robots against loneliness: Devices like Poketomo remind users to take medication, chat with them and offer simple daily tips. They are designed to support isolated seniors in everyday life.

Japan is not alone – Asia’s aging challenge

• China is struggling with a shrinking population, falling birth rates and rising healthcare costs. The one-child policy still shapes demographics: fewer young people must support more elderly.

• South Korea has the lowest birth rate in the world and is aging even faster than Japan.

👉🏻 The Philippines, by contrast, has the highest birth rate among major Asian countries. The country remains young, growing and is viewed as a potential future stabilizer for the region’s labor market.

📊 All Details & Data: Bloomberg (Video), BBC, Forbes, SCMP (Video)

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH CATHY TAX

You know what is even scarier than taxes? Taxes in China.

That is why we let Cathy handle all our money business. 👇🏻

Here is why we love working with her:

She takes care of everything that keeps us awake at midnight: accounting, tax filing, bookkeeping, HR, payroll, visas and the mountain of paperwork that comes with doing business in China.

👀 And the best part: Cathy explains complex rules in perfect English and suddenly they make sense.

📅 Book a free consult with Cathy now! 

NUMBER OF THE DAY

This much waste a woman in Ho Chi Minh City allegedly had buried illegally on her a land over several months.

🚛 Backyard landfill: The woman is accused of turning an undeveloped plot in An Khanh, eastern HCM, into a private dumping site. Drivers unloaded everything from garden waste to Styrofoam and household trash for about USD 8 to 16 per trip.

🌱 Tiny payout, massive mess: In total, she is said to have pocketed just around VND 120 million illegally (about USD 4,900). In return, roughly 1,800 square meters of her 2,000-square-meter plot ended up buried under waste.

Watch: “Landfill startup” gone wrong. Tiny profits, an XXL trash problem, trouble with authorities and a not-so-voluntary stay in detention. The perfect example of: garbage in, garbage out.

MARKET BIT

🔋 Battery pivot instead of EV boom: Ford and SK On end their billion-dollar JV

💥 $11B JV break up: Ford and South Korea’s SK On are dismantling their BlueOval SK battery joint venture. Ford takes over two plants in Kentucky, while SK On gains full control of the Tennessee site. Closing is targeted for Q1 2026.

🏭 Gigafactory hits the brakes: The sites were designed for up to 1.2 million EVs per year with 120 GWh of annual capacity. Kentucky Plant 1 is operating, but Kentucky Plant 2 and Tennessee were delayed due to weaker EV demand.

🔁 Ford rebuilds instead of expands: Ford is dialing back EV risk, postponing projects and leaning more on combustion engines and cheaper EVs. LFP batteries move to center stage. SK On still mainly supplies costly NCM cells and is only gradually scaling LFP.

🔌 Tennessee goes multi-use: SK On plans to run the Tennessee plant not just for Ford, but also for other customers and energy storage systems. The goal is higher utilization, more flexibility and profit focus rather than pure EV volume.

💸 Shift toward profitability: SK On says the split cuts debt and fixed costs and stabilizes finances. The backdrop is a slowdown in EV battery demand and rising losses, increasing pressure on cash flow and efficiency.

Background

From South Korea and China to India and Southeast Asia, Big Tech and governments are pouring tens of billions of dollars into data centers, fiber networks, and AI infrastructure.

Microsoft alone has now committed a total of $20.5 billion to AI and cloud investments in India. In October, Google announced it would invest $15 billion over the next five years to build its own AI hub in the country. At the same time, New Delhi is pushing its “AI-first” strategy with subsidies for chips, data centers, and local AI models.

👉🏻 Full Story: JoongAng Daily, Reuters, Bloomberg, Nikkei

STARTUP OF THE WEEK

🇸🇬 ChemLex

ChemLex combines two things many people are afraid of: AI and chemistry.

What exactly do they do?

The pharmaceutical industry has a timing problem. Discovering new molecules often takes years because chemists have to test step by step in the lab.

• ChemLex flips this model: an autonomous robotics lab tests around the clock → the AI learns in real time → the entire process accelerates dramatically.

To keep building exactly that, ChemLex has now raised 45 million USD for:

• more engineers and chemists

• building a second fully automated lab based on the Shanghai site

• scaling up the AI platform for pharma and materials science

Watch:
The market for AI-based drug discovery is exploding: from 3.6 billion USD in 2024 to 50 billion USD in 2034.

HIGHLIGHTS

🚄 Turbo for tropical concrete: Ho Chi Minh City approves Vingroup’s multibillion-dollar project, clearing the way for a roughly 54-kilometer high-speed line that is set to connect the city center with the coastal district of Can Gio in just 20 minutes. The project costs just under 4 billion US dollars, trains are expected to reach speeds of up to 350 km/h, and the line is primarily designed to open up a massive real-estate development by Vingroup. Construction could begin at the end of 2025, with the first phase scheduled for completion in 2028.

🚗 BYD says ¡Hola!: The Chinese carmaker is turning Spain into its launchpad and using the country as a new logistics hub for the European market. In the first 10 months, around 28,400 BYD vehicles entered the EU via Spanish ports, significantly more than through traditional gateways such as Rotterdam or Zeebrugge. Lower costs, proximity to Italy and Portugal, and weak brand loyalty are playing into BYD’s hands. Sales rose sharply, driven by low prices, hybrid models, and fleet purchases.

💴 Yen in free fall, inflation on the horizon: Japan’s currency fell this week to a record low against the offshore yuan and is also trading near its weakest level since 1992 against the Chinese onshore yuan. The weakness now extends far beyond the US dollar and euro and is hitting key trading partners such as China and Australia. Since China is Japan’s largest import supplier, concerns about imported inflation are growing. The Bank of Japan continues to push ahead with monetary-policy normalization only very cautiously.

COUNTRY READS

🇰🇷 Louis Vuitton opens its largest store worldwide in Seoul and continues to bet on Korea as a strategic growth market. More here.

🇬🇧 China is planning a massive new embassy in the heart of London, but critics warn it could become a hub for espionage and surveillance. More here.

🇹🇭 Thailand reports the first civilian fatalities in the newly escalated border conflict with Cambodia. More here.

BITS TO DO

✅ Manage your global business super fast and super easily with our partner Airwallex.**
✅ Dive into this mini drama about the rich heiress and her bodyguard.
✅ Eat an Iron Plate Burger in Korea.
✅ Watch live how drones deliver coffee in Shenzhen. Crazy!
✅ Do the things that really matter while Cathy takes care of your paperwork.**

_{* A message from our partner.
** Airwallex meets the highest international security standards, including PCI DSS, SOC1, and SOC2 compliances. More info here.}

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We love bringing you the best news and insights from Asia every day. That also means we work anywhere, anytime, for example, right now at Shenzhen Airport.

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Have a great weekend!

MORE ASIABITS

• All the latest AI trends from Asia — every Wednesday, exclusively with us.

• Champagne & Chopsticks — your Sunday guide to Asia’s best insider spots.

CAREER BITS

🌏 Roche: Technology Intern , Shanghai
🌏 Red Bull: General Marketing Graduate , Tokyo
🌏 Milano Finanza: Business Analyst , Singapore
🌏 CV. Riset Prima Asia: Junior Research Analyst , Surabaya
🌏 Mercor: Equity Research & IB Analyst , Hongkong
🌏 HSBC: Analyst (Risk and Compliance), Guangzhou
🌏 PT Bank Danamon: Danamon Bankers Trainee (DBT) Program , Jakarta
🌏 Stratégies: Junior Marketing Associate , Singapore
🌏 McKinsey & Company: Knowledge Analyst (Metals & Mining) , Singapore
🌏 Dassault Systèmes: SaaS Sales Expert (2025 China Graduate Program) , Beijing