The co-located events run at the Shangri-La Singapore under the theme “Building Networks for AI Demand”, with a pre-event day of summits on 1 December followed by the main programme of panels, keynotes and roundtables on 2 and 3 December. Carriers, hyperscalers, data centre operators, investors and regulators will share the programme, which spans the ITW and Datacloud stages alongside a finance and investment summit and a dedicated energy track. Across the sessions, a few questions recur.
Where will AI traffic land next? Who will fund the infrastructure behind it? And can Asia’s grids keep pace?
Power availability was named the number-one constraint on large-scale builds at ITW Asia 2025. These are the eight sessions most likely to answer them. Developing Singapore’s AI ecosystem and the infrastructure behind it 2 December, 09:30-10:30, Datacloud Stage, Tower Ballroom The joint ITW and Datacloud opening keynote brings government and industry onto one stage.
Terence Chia, assistant chief executive at IMDA, joins Manoj Prasanna Kumar, CTO of Singtel Digital InfraCo, in a panel chaired by Virat Patel, MD of Pioneer Consulting Asia-Pacific. The session covers how Singapore is scaling applied AI through centres of excellence and testbeds, and what that demands of the infrastructure underneath. Prasanna Kumar returns after a fireside chat at ITW Asia 2025 in which he set out how Singtel plans to serve sovereign, enterprise and regional AI demand.
Singtel’s data centre arm Nxera has since opened its 58MW DC Tuas facility, lifting its Singapore capacity to 120MW. The new interconnection economy 2 December, 11:15-12:00, ITW Stage, Island Ballroom The first ITW keynote panel examines how cross-border interconnection is moving to the centre of network strategy as traffic becomes more complex and latency-sensitive. Chaired by Dion Teo, partner at Analysys Mason, it features Tony O’Sullivan (CEO, RETN), Ken Miyashita (MD, Telehouse Thailand), Michael Wheeler (EVP, global IP network, NTT DATA), Neha Idnani (RVP APAC, Eutelsat OneWeb) and Kharisma (CCO, Telin).
The line-up brings terrestrial, IP, data centre and LEO satellite perspectives into the same discussion. Investing in Asia’s AI connectivity backbone 2 December, 12:15-13:00, ITW Stage, Island Ballroom Which connectivity assets are attracting investors? This panel weighs subsea cables, cross-border fibre, interconnection platforms and carrier-neutral infrastructure against each other.
LN Sadani, CEO of Lensbridge Capital, chairs Amajit Gupta (group CEO and MD, Lightstorm), Matthew Goh (director, KKR), Matthew Walker (regional VP Asia and Asia CFO, Colt), Warren Aw (CCO, Epsilon Telecommunications) and Praveen Agarwal (chief sales officer, OMC Power). Lightstorm and Microsoft lead the consortium building the I-2SEA cable between India, Malaysia and Singapore, while Goh argued on last year’s subsea panel that networks need more paths and redundancy. AI is rewiring Asia’s networks: where do we need capacity next?
2 December, 14:00-14:50, ITW Stage, Island Ballroom The session asks where AI traffic will hit Asia’s networks first. Speakers include Vinod Joseph (VP AI/data and enterprise architecture, Singtel), Binod Sriwastav (EVP and global business CBO, Airtel), Eric Wong (president APAC and global wholesale, Expereo Wholesale), Mustafa Golam (technical program manager, GNA APAC, Google) and Andrew Bond-Webster (VP broadband APAC, CommScope). Independent advisor Sarah Mills chairs.
The follow-on roundtables are worth staying for. Golam leads a table on what cloud and AI platforms expect from network partners beyond raw capacity, and Mills hosts one on how to build for AI without overbuilding. Building Asia’s next-gen connectivity: resilience, risk and reality 2 December, 16:00-16:50, ITW Stage, Island Ballroom Geopolitical risk and concentration on a few critical routes and hubs frame this panel, chaired by Jay Lee, principal at Analysys Mason.
Panellists are Tuck Han Chan (COO, Super Sistem), Jo Jo Kwong (network strategy and business development, Digital Realty), Damian Matacz (director of network strategy, Cloudflare) and Geraldine Kor (CCO, Xenith IG). The roundtables that follow tackle Asia’s biggest chokepoints, who pays for redundant routes, and whether the region can diversify beyond its established hubs. For background, see Capacity’s analysis of how Asia’s subsea cables are changing connectivity logic.
Hyperscalers, neoclouds and sovereign platforms 2 December, 12:15-13:00, Datacloud Stage, Tower Ballroom The Datacloud keynote panel maps how APAC’s AI and cloud market is shifting as hyperscalers pour capex into core hubs and push into new markets, while sovereign AI platforms and neoclouds emerge alongside them. David Bennett, CEO and co-founder of ai&, chairs Vadim Zendejas (executive officer, global technology lead, Microsoft), Piyush Gupta (VP India, APAC and Middle East, Vultr), Michael Goh (GM EMEA and APAC, Iron Mountain) and Kai Goh (co-founder and CEO, Digital Halo). GPU shipments and early neocloud deals are on the table as signals of where demand is heading, following recent comments in which Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang backed neocloud demand despite rising financing pressure.
Note that it runs at the same time as session 3. Power: from access to on-site generation 2 December, 14:45-15:30, Datacloud Stage; 3 December, 10:00-10:45, Workshop Room 1 Power runs through the whole programme, but two sessions stand out. On 2 December, Datacloud’s access-to-power panel looks at transmission constraints, equipment lead times and new utility partnership models.
Adam Gibson (managing partner, techvox) chairs Donald Hubbard (global head of power and energy, NTT GDC), Alex Hernandez de Toro (VP APAC site and energy acquisition, Oracle), Damien Sanford (founder and CEO, Celera Infrastructure) and Martin Van Wijngaarden (global energy transaction director, Iron Mountain). On 3 December, the energy summit asks whether the AI race is becoming a power race, with Sabooh Whitelaw (AVP utility and energy, AirTrunk), Thava Maniam (GM energy, K2 Data Centres), Alex Tancock (CEO, InterContinental Energy) and Arnaud Castaignet (SVP, Skeleton Technologies) on how energy availability is reshaping site selection. Capacity’s power deal tracker follows the utility and hyperscaler partnerships behind the shift.
The next growth engine: where will telco revenue come from? 3 December, 09:15-10:05, ITW Stage, Island Ballroom The final day opens on the ITW Stage with the commercial question facing every carrier in the room: how to capture value from AI rather than simply carry its traffic. Kaye Hau, managing partner at Stratenium Consulting, chairs Clement Larroque (head of APAC, Orange), Rajeev Kumar Sinha (head of global service provider business, Tata Communications), Warut Wiwattanawongsa (AVP carrier business, NT), Stephen Liu (APAC carrier channel leader, Zoom) and Avijit Singh (chief strategy officer, Colt Technology Services).
Roundtables afterwards cover enterprise relationships, network-as-a-service, APIs and sovereign cloud. The same question frames Capacity’s recent interview with an advisory board member on who captures the value of Thailand’s AI boom. Also worth a seat From Brag-a-Watts to Bankable Megawatts (1 December, 09:15, Workshop Room 1): Teneo’s Sam Evans opens the finance and investment summit by separating headline capacity announcements from megawatts that can actually be powered, financed, delivered and occupied.
KKR’s Matthew Goh and JLL’s Bob Tan speak later that morning. Unlocking capital (2 December, 14:00, Datacloud Stage): Clifford Chance’s Robert Tang chairs DigitalBridge, Cushman & Wakefield, OCOLO, Standard Chartered and Aon on financing structures as cheque sizes outgrow traditional capital pools. Streamlining permitting and overcoming community resistance (2 December, 16:10, Datacloud Stage): Data Centres Australia, ada Infrastructure and Goodman on planning timelines and community engagement.
From messaging to network APIs: building trust in the AI era (3 December, 11:20, ITW Stage): Max Wang, head of cloud communications at Alibaba, and XConnect’s Gautam Hazari on fraud, identity and whether network APIs can secure enterprise revenue. Banking the new compute: neocloud-investor exchange (3 December, 11:30, Workshop Room 2): Arc Compute, NeevCloud and NVIDIA work through what makes an APAC neocloud bankable. Related stories 10 things we learned at ITW Asia 2025 ITW Asia: Subsea supply crunch, technology shifts, and the ‘AI question’ Thailand’s AI boom is just beginning.
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