A3 Technology

The 200 companies on this list are transforming industries from the inside out.

America's Most Innovative Companies

Sector

Culture rank

Process rank

Product rank

Get insights into A3 Technology including business profile, stock information, news, and rankings from Fortune.

A3 Technology Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings

legacy

a3 technology

Companies

A3 Technology | Fortune

A3 Technology Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings | Fortune

Today's employers face a striking paradox: they are competing for the best talent while investing in AI technologies that could make many jobs redundant. As AI moves beyond automating routine tasks to taking on increasingly complex work, what happens to the value of human talent? As launches the Fortune Best Companies to Work For – Southeast Asia 2026 list, this provocative dinner conversation brings together leaders from management consulting and technology-enabled business services to examine how companies can rethink their workforce strategies in the age of AI.

Ng Wei Wei, CEO, UOB Malaysia
Stella Sevegran, CEO, DIGI-TEXX Vietnam 
Arnaud Ginolin, Managing Director and Partner, Boston Consulting Group (BCG) 
Lee Williamson, Co-Chair, Southeast Asia 500 Summit; Editorial Director, Asia, Fortune 

Gala Dinner: Who Needs Humans? The Talent Paradox

Conferences

Thank you, Andrew. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, we are your dinner and a show uh for the evening. It's been a long day packed full of invigorating discussions and sharp insights. I'm hoping this evening, uh, my distinguished panel, as well as sharing some insight, we can hopefully inject a bit of levity, uh, into our final session of the day. Now everyone has had a chance to connect and have a glass of wine as well. On that note, to set the tone. I want to start with a quick fire round to break the ice, to get to so our audience can get to know you a little bit. That is if you're game. You're game? I'm gonna ask, where's the wine? If someone could please bring Wei Wei a glass of wine, that would be much appreciated and maybe help with some of the answers. I'm going to ask each of you. Uh, several quickfire questions. One or two words. The first thing that enters your head, um, as quick as you can. OK, start the clock. Are you an AI optimist or a P doomer, Stella? Oh, optimist, optimist, optimist, optimist. OK, this is gonna be an interesting session. We're gonna talk a lot about entry level jobs. What was your first ever part-time job at school or university? Dog walker, and I have allergies to dogs. scooping ice cream at Baskin Robbins. Actually, Vietnam Airlines maintenance worker. Vietnam Airlines maintenance worker. OK, you have the coolest one. Yeah, he's the professional one. And just for a bit of reciprocity, I worked in a supermarket, just so I'm also willing to give up um some stuff and a fish and chip shop as well, which is the most English thing imaginable. Um, what is one job that people assume AI will replace but you believe will still remain fundamentally human? PA, some personal assistants. Everyone says agentic, CEO. Good one. I'm with her. Consultant consultant. The consultant thinks the consultant is AI proof. OK, very good. Um, complete this sentence. In the age of AI, the most valuable human skill will be. Empathy Staying human, empathy relationship building, relationship building. What's one part of your job that you would happily hand over to AI before dessert tonight? Salah. Oh I don't know everything and nothing only one, yeah. Oh, my emails, emails, yeah, I'm with you there. Honor. I'll be following up with people after so many business cards, yeah, following up on business cards. Uh, what's one skill that you spent years and years mastering that AI can now do annoyingly well? Uh, setting individual KPIs to match with the company objectives. Oh my God. Such a profound answer. I don't know. I'm just going to keep it like maybe analysis. Yeah, no, no. See holiday, holiday planning. I used to spend, you know, weekends doing this. Last weekend my father-in-law did it in a couple of hours with. But you should be happy with that, right? I mean, I thought it used to be a skill, you know, I developed picking in the right hotel. You enjoyed the labor of it. Yeah. What's a telltale sign that someone is using AI at work, but they're not using it very well? Tone of voice, tone of voice, the way they write my speeches, you can tell. Format, the cloud format, the cloud format, the M dashes of the giveaway, right? Um, finally, at least two of those questions that I've just asked were written by AI. Can you guess one of the AI written questions? No, wait, what can you repeat again? I asked about 8 or so questions. Two of them were written by AI. Can you guess which two? This one? That was all human baby. Uh, which one would you give up? Yeah. Oh, which one would I give up? OK, you think so too, Weiwei, yeah, oh no. The skill you used to develop yourself. Actually they were all written by AI. We are truly in trouble. I'm just kidding. The last two were written by AI, the last two. OK, so I think that deserves a round of applause, ladies and gentlemen. They were all very, very game. No, but Lee, we have to ask you, how about you? Which, which of your skills that AI can replace? Which skill can AI replace as a moderator, uh, pretty much what I'm doing right now, um, yeah. Uh, with a lot more charm, no doubt. Let's start with the big question. AI promises unprecedented efficiency of that there is no doubt at all. The one open question that does remain is who benefits from that efficiency? Is it businesses? Is it employees? Is it shareholders? Can AI's productivity gains translate into better jobs, or will it inevitably just lead to fewer jobs? Arnaud, I'll start with you, then I'll ask all three. I think it's a big, big question, um, but to, to answer this, I think AI will, will, uh, change jobs, will fundamentally change many jobs we have, will create new jobs, you know, we have now even BCG AI for our engineers, but we also exit some jobs. Then to your question, what is the net net effect? All of this combined, I think the answer is very region-based and sector-based. But what I know is what I believe is in Vietnam, in a 10% or 8 to 10% GDP growth, actually we lack talent, you know, and there's not enough people to push the growth of the country. So I would really see more AI as a, you know, lever to accelerate, you know, the talents and upskilling rather than a risk in this context. Weiwei, what's your take? Better jobs or fewer jobs? 4.5 years as CEO of the bank. I always ask myself, How can I make my people more valuable with AI? So, so far, I have not used automation to reduce hatecount as yet, thank God. But this means as I invest in technology, I also have to invest in people, which means Upskilling, redeploying resources, that is important. And also redesigning jobs, perhaps the more repetitive task, I can let AI do it. And that frees up my people to take on more complex roles, problem solving, exercise more judgment. I think these are things whereby it's distinctly human. We need AI to help us to be smarter, make faster decisions, but really not quite to replace us. So I'll just stop there. Um, Stella, you're in the IT sector. Last week we learned that Microsoft is offering buyouts to 60,000 employees, nearly a quarter of its staff, Meta, Amazon and IBM have also made significant staff cuts over the last couple of years, while all pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into AI. Is this just the beginning? Should we expect further waves of layoffs? What is your take? Is it more jobs? Excuse me, is it fewer jobs or is it better jobs? I think it's uh uh more jobs and uh better results. I think as a BPO provider to industries such as uh banks. And insurance companies, it's all about the business case as I was mentioned earlier today and the deliverables and what we put together. So for us, AI is a part of our toolbox and it's just making our deliverables to our clients and their pain points uh even better. So from my perspective, it's, it's a win-win. Um, let's talk about the future of outsourcing, Arno. For decades, Vietnam and other Southeast Asian economies have competed partly on the availability. Of skills, cost competitive labor. What happens when AI can perform much of that work? I think it doesn't change, in my opinion, it doesn't change the end state. If you want to be a middle income or high income country, ultimately you need to have higher skill jobs, climb up the value chain, and this outsourcing jobs will disappear. I think so. So the end state for Vietnam is the same, but I think it will massively accelerate the trajectory of the time you have to be what you say, being rich. Before being old, so I think that's the challenge, I think, for countries like Vietnam or Southeast Asia. How do we speed up the development before, you know, air technology catches up and the fundamental factors of labor costs and land become marginally important. I think that's the challenge. And sometimes we say 10% ambition growth in Vietnam is high. Actually, if you flip it, it's probably a requirement 10%, a very high GDP growth to make it before technology catches up. Stella, you operate in the region. What is your take? Can you please repeat? I was listening to your, your company does quite a lot of outsourcing, uh, for companies based in, uh, in the West in Europe, I believe in the US as well. Um, I'm wondering what you think the future of outsourcing is in the region, um, when AI can perform a lot of that work. So for us, it's, it's not so much uh uh about that changing because it's just how we deliver things. So, uh, our clients outsource their processes to us and we take them in and our job is to deliver it as efficiently with high quality, uh, the productivity that we can. And so for me, the client is the winner and we just need to set our frameworks, our processes in order to fit that internally as well. So, in reality, I think We're just changing with it, not changing much from it. Weiwei, one of the conversations around uh Agentic AI is the disappearing entry level job. Um, if AI increasingly handles the work of junior analysts as well as customer service, data processing, administrative tasks, the question remains where the next generation can gain experience, um. And if more entry level jobs disappear, uh, as many believe that will be the case, how should CHROs reconfigure the talent pipeline, in which case? OK. Let me see how to answer. OK. First thing I would say, AI is definitely redefining the way we operate, the way we compete, the way we serve our customers, the way we value add. So I think there is merit there. But at the same time, I think there's also danger that we outsource so much to to AI that the junior employees who would be the future leaders of the organization. They may lose the opportunity to acquire the experience. the knowledge that is needed for them to be future leaders. So that is something That really plays in my mind. I mean, I have a young son. He's Doing M&A In Australia, and every time I catch up with Ryan, I ask him, Ryan. How much of your work is enabled by AI? Are you using AI? Are you improving your critical thinking? You need AI to do your job well, and he's just graduated, yeah. But you're going to make sure you're out there, understanding customer, building relationship. These things AI can help you be better at your job if you nail it right. They can't replace you. So coming back to your question, I think this is something whereby to my earlier point, we've got to invest in technology. We also have to invest in people, they're not competing priorities. I feel, especially for me to run the bank, I need both. So the last 4 years, we have spent so much time to upskill our people. So I still stand by the point in you will be Malaysia. I have not. use technology to displace my workforce. And I'm working very hard to make sure of course I have to deliver cost income ratio, I have to deliver profit, but I owe it to my people to make sure you've got to upskill, and you're willing to upskill, we've got to bring the people along in that journey. So I just feel as leaders, We should use AI to help us. perform better as an organization, but we should never Use that as an excuse to stop being human. I mean, that's what I believe in. That's what I believe. It is our responsibility. Yeah. Arnaud, conversely, could AI make hiring someone inexperienced maybe a better investment? Is there a world in which it's good news for people like like Weiwei's son and many other people are entering or just in the early stages of the labor market. It could help people get up to speed quicker. It can support the the task that that, you know, mean that they can be out there more building relationships. If so, you know, how would that change how we hire, how we train, how we manage entry-level employees? Yeah, I think to, to, firstly, I do believe some of the jobs will, will kind of somehow disappear. Just, you know, because, you know, for example, as 20 years ago as a consultant, I used to design by hand, you know, complex charts with 100 points. I don't think, I don't do it today. Our young consultants don't do it and I don't think they need to now to do it. But I think the point is what what we actually mentioned is about redesigning the job. I think that's And we see on some recent numbers, you know, actually companies are investing into AI training, putting a lot of money into hiring, putting a lot of money in giving GPT free license for cloud. But very few are redesigning the job. What does it mean to be an RM with AI tomorrow? What does it mean to be, you know, a Fortune 500 editor with AI if you can write your script, you know, in, in a minute. So I think even as a consultants we are reinventing ourselves, you know, um, what does it mean to be a consultant with AI? I think that's probably what's coming the next couple of months, couple of years for companies, a bit deeper, uh, redesign, you know, and I think to your point is. You know, once we do this, you kind of know who do you need to, to hire. I think at this point in time there's a bit of a fluctuation, I think, in this AI age. Can I jump in here and give some examples? For example, I'm challenging my HR team. How do we build the kind of skill set in our more junior employees whereby today AI is really doing that foundational work. Let me give you an example. As a banker, when I started my career, I have to do financial statement analysis. I have to do risk identification, check on financial governance. And before I see a customer, I have to write a customer brief, do research on businesses, but actually these are all foundational work that you can outsource to AI. But when you go through the grind, these are the kind of experience that will teach you down the line, commercial instinct. Your ability to understand customer, therefore build relationships. And hopefully over time, the experience will help you build good sound judgment. Now, if all these are taken away, and I think of my son, He used AI but he will not have gone through the grind with all this. So, so much more, I think in the workplace, the kind of courses we train our graduates have to pivot. Even in university today, when I talk to, because we hire graduates, even I'm now also wanting to make sure my team works with university to say, OK, how can we come in? We are practitioners. How can we help you uplift the quality of your syllabus? It's got to be private sector and academia coming together. So I think these are the kind of collaboration. We got to see more and more, um, in order to make sure that, you know, to your question, right, the, the next generation doesn't lose out the best of what all of us in this room actually enjoyed in our early years. I don't know, I haven't cried that yet. No one has. No one has. And, and Stella, I wanna come to you on this. We, we were sharing stories about our kids earlier. If a 17 year old relative came to you and asked what they should study at university next year, what would your advice be? And would you be confident that whatever you did recommend would still be relevant and not redundant 4 years hence when they, when they've graduated? Well, personally, I think it's, it's more of a, of a mindset and teaching the young generation to, to understand the market and, and choosing curriculums or universities that are close to the industries that are, they are interested in and I think that's something that you can't really teach from school, but that also gives you a mindset of being flexible. Uh, this is a very rapidly changing environment and I think it's gonna be like that for the coming 5 to 6 years or, you know, who knows. Um, so, short term, I think the mindset and then it's gonna stabilize a little bit more. We're gonna understand it a little bit better. So, work on yourself. Uh, what I would say, but that's a true sweet answer as well, right? So mindset, I think getting used to, to volatility and a rapid change of pace is probably good advice for anyone at any stage in their career or life, right? Um, Weiwei, let's talk about the skills that AI cannot replace for leaders. For for CEOs as AI destroys the moat that's around technical skills around knowledge around experience, uh, they take a career to accumulate what will become a leader's most fundamentally important quality in the intelligent age? I would say empathy. I have been reading up quite a bit. To find out, can AI really have empathy? And then the answer came back is they can, but it may not be genuine empathy. OK, so now, personally, I feel leadership today, you got to have empathy. Because you're dealing with people. So I think this is one quality whereby AI cannot replace. And so When we make decisions and to me, investments in AI or these are business decisions. It's not technology decisions. So when we look at it, when we're dealing with people, and we're bringing people on the journey, I feel the ability to connect is so important. So that is one area and the other one I would say is judgment. I've said that a few times the last 10 minutes, because to exercise sound judgment, you have to rely on your experience. So AI can never have the kind of experience one has. When you're going through, you know, the years of Whatever, wherever you are in your career, right? Um, And definitely also who we are as individuals, our values, our purpose, these things AI cannot. Replace. So you put them all together, I will say a lot of quantitative. So it's experience, it's empathy, your values, your purpose as a leader, because you need these things to lead the organization so that your people believe in the direction you are steering them. So the more I'm talking to you, I really think the CEO job cannot be replaced by AI. You know what, each of you identified as AA optimists, and this has been a much more upbeat and positive conversation than I was expecting going in, but I'm very grateful to, to all three of you, um. Tell me why we should be optimists in, in a bumper sticker form, right? Give me, give me, give me the takeaway. Why should we be optimistic about the transformation to the labor force that AI will bring? Give me, give me the bumper sticker, oh no, in one line. I mean, AI is a talent is a workforce transformation. AI transformation is a people transformation. That's what I think makes me optimist, right? Sarah, AI can teach you what you want, yeah. But humans are still at the center. Yeah, totally agree there and AI can help you make faster, better decisions with the right information. Well, I'm tremendously grateful to all three of you for uh bringing us some entertainment as well as some really, really sharp insights this evening. Please join me in thanking our three fantastic panelists. Thank you

Healthcare needs are rising rapidly across the region, but access remains deeply uneven. Aging populations and rural disparities are placing greater pressure on already stretched systems. Can technology, new financing models, and public-private partnerships close the gap? And how can Southeast Asia expand affordable, quality care while building stronger primary-care systems for the future?

Li Zhong, President of Asia Pacific, Walgreens Boots Alliance 
David Utama, President Director, Siloam International Hospitals 
Andrew Staples, Co-Chair, Southeast Asia 500 Summit; Editorial Director, Asia, Fortune 

Healthcare Pathways

Gentlemen, thank you for joining me and uh apologies, our third guest is unable to join us today uh due to a uh an uh uh unexpected emergency, but um I am delighted to welcome my two guests who are real experts in the world of healthcare globally and here within Southeast Asia as well. Just by way of context, Developing Asia is trying to build in a single generation. Health systems that Europe and Japan built over a century and it's trying to do it on about half the money. ASEAN countries spend around 4.7% of GDP on health, roughly half the OECD average, and by 2050 developing Asia will have over a billion people over 60 years of age, nearly double today's number. Healthcare needs are therefore rising rapidly across the region. But access remains deeply uneven, aging populations and rural disparities are placing greater pressure on already stretched systems. Can technology and new financing models and public-private partnerships close the gap? And how can Southeast Asia afford, uh, expand affordable quality care or building stronger primary care systems for the future. To explore some of these questions, I'm delighted to be joined by my guest today, um, uh, as you heard, uh, David Utama, President Director, Siloam International Hospitals, and Li Xiong, President of Asia Pacific for Walgreens Boots Alliance. I want to put three general questions, uh, to you both. First of all, who pays? Today, a big share of the. is still paid out of the pockets, around 31% of healthcare spending across Southeast Asia on average. Secondly, what type of system actually fits the region? And rather than copying expensive hospital-heavy Western model, um, what fits Southeast Asia? And third, how can governments enable better care without breaking their budgets? So on the first of those questions, um, who pays? Maybe, uh, Lee, if I could come to you first. Uh, this is, this is so different depending on which market you are in, and we operate in the US under Walgreens, uh, one of the largest pharmacy chains in the US and Boots in the UK. And clearly a number of other brands across the region as well. And if you look at the US, The vast majority of the payment for healthcare comes from the insurance companies. Um, it does not have a universal healthcare system. And so insurer is the primary payer for the US. If you look at the UK which runs the National Health Insurance Service that is paid by largely the UK government over 90% of the UK healthcare spending is by the government of the UK. Um, China is very similar, you know, China is about 90% of the healthcare pharmaceutical spending is, is by the government. And um but in ASEAN countries as you say, a lot more of that is out of pocket. So, very different depending on where you are. Yeah. Uh, David, if I could come to you then thinking about um your role in Indonesia, if I understand correctly, Siloam is the biggest provider of uh of independent hospitals within Indonesia. Um, who pays for the services that that you provide and is that mix sustainable? So that's an interesting question. Obviously, Indonesia adopted the universal healthcare coverage. I think, uh, one of the best. Healthcare insurance in the world because it covers about 250 million population and that, uh, is responsible for all kinds of, uh, treatments. So on the private sector, especially for us, specifically in Siloam, we basically also have uh the universal healthcare coverage uh payer that compromises about uh Close to 20% of our payers and then 40% is corporate and insurance and the remaining is out of pocket. And is that, do you feel a sustainable mix for Indonesia for us, for us, uh, on the private sector, that's a good portion. Uh, definitely on the public sector when it completely is under universal healthcare coverage, if you read the news, there are certain pressures. Uh, we are trying to continue to improve and find better solutions, but uh it's been working well for Indonesia, but obviously, uh, the government is working very uh Religiously, I would say of, of improving uh the coverage. Yeah, yeah, OK, well, let's come back to, to see how things can improve uh in in a moment, but um, Lee, if I could come back to you, you, you've got a global role, you've lived and worked around the world and business is global as well. As you look at this part of the world and you think about the build out of, of, you know, uh, country and regional specific and relevant, um, uh, systems, what, what best practice can, can be taken from elsewhere in the world, or conversely, what should be avoided? Um, maybe let's answer the second part first. That's an easier one. So many of the people that I've spoken to in Southeast Asia and North Asia, China included. The everybody loves to reference the US. Rightly so, this is the biggest market in the world, the largest healthcare market in the world, the most advanced therapies are in the US, so everybody likes to reference the US. But if you look at the numbers, healthcare is 17% of the GDP of the US. So very, very, very expensive, uh, part of the national spending. But if you look at life expectancy, actually let's not talk about life expectancy because the US actually does enjoy one of the highest life life expectancy in the world. Um, let's look at, I don't know whether you've heard of the term, uh, healthy life expectancy. It's a term that, no, I didn't come up with this, you can look at WHHO. That measures the number of years that you live without disease. Healthy life expectancy. Now, clearly that is something that we all want for ourselves and I think it's actually a better metric for a successful outcome of healthcare. If you spend the money, what is the outcome? I think healthy life expectancy is a good measure for that. You wouldn't believe it, but the US It's roughly the same as Vietnam. Actually, probably a little bit worse. Than Vietnam. So there's a lot of money that's been pumped into healthcare. But a lot of that is in sick care, disease care. So, the US model has been able to come up with the most advanced therapies to extend life so you can live for a very, very long life. It doesn't mean you will be very healthy during that, it saves your life, but it it's not very healthy. That's not what I would suggest for Southeast Asia. Or for, you know, kind of developing markets. I think you've just mentioned that um across ASEAN is it 4.8% did you mention 4.7% of the GDP is spent on healthcare and that is a big contrast versus the US. The UK seems to strike the middle ground. I mean, despite how people like to criticize the NHS. Uh, the UK around 11% of spending on healthcare, I think generally strikes about the right balance. China is a very interesting example, very big country, lots of populations, many of them are not wealthy. And um it spends about 5.9% I think of GDP on healthcare and generally speaking it is able to produce relatively good healthy aging uh for for its citizens. So no right answer uh you know kind of every country is different, have to find its own route but what is not right is to reference. You know, automatically the US model. Yeah, OK. Um, uh, David, coming back to you then, and, and I'm sure this is the same in Indonesia, but governments across the region, uh, want private hospitals, uh, to help close the access gap, but they also worry about cost and equity and equality as well. What should a good partnership between a government and a private hospital look like? Have you got that balance right in Indonesia? It's very difficult to say if you get the right balance. I think we are trying to get to the balance. If you look into Indonesia, I think. Basically, the two fundamental issues in, uh, in healthcare. Number 1 is the shortage of specialists. Number two, obviously we talk about the inflation of costs. So for the comparison in Indonesia, the ratio of specialists is about 0.2 per 1000 population. And the neighboring country in Malaysia is already about 0.5, 0.6. 2000 population. Singapore is about 1.2. Thailand is about 0.5. I don't know about Vietnam because I couldn't find the data in Vietnam. Uh, but if you look into this, obviously, the scarcity of specialists is becoming a burden. Obviously, on top of that is the inflation of costs when you talk about access. So in, in, in my view on the partnership with uh the government or public is how can we move today Indonesia, I would say is still built around hospital-centric. So it's, it's all around the hospitals and given That the challenge of, of having enough specialists is adding another burden. So, so when you ask about what would be a good balance of public-private partnership is actually moving from a hospital structure or healthcare that built around the hospital, how can we move it into patient-centric. So patient-centric requires a collaboration between Government, public, and the private sector because who has access, who has scale? Obviously the government. So they can provide that access, but the public has is that role and the private is going to build certain capability, innovation and speed. So combining the two is actually allowing the healthcare, uh, I would say development or transformation from a hospital structured healthcare into a patient-centric with with access. It's a it's a shame our third speaker couldn't join us because this is exactly his area of expertise here in in Vietnam. I think some very interesting developments in that space. But do you have some, um, is this a business model that you're trying in Indonesia as well? No, for us within within uh specific. within Siloam because we start to build that ecosystem. So we have about 41 hospitals across Indonesia, uh, and we're building the ecosystem of primary care and clinics to build around our hospitals so that we can provide uh that ecosystem and uh more importantly is actually also What we do in Indonesia is actually making sure we support the government programs. So to us, One is business model, but two is how can we also become The support or the aligning to what the government wants right in trying to provide better healthcare for Indonesians. Um, great point to come to you on as well, thinking about Boots in particular, the role of pharmacies, um, in, in healthcare. Could you talk a little bit about how you see, um, uh, uh, uh, pharmacies, um, um, playing that role within healthcare and devolving some of the services that you would normally get in, in hospitals and so on, uh, to the high street. Yeah, the answer is going to be different by country. Again, I believe this is tied directly to the quality of the pharmacists being trained and that differs by country. In some countries pharmacists are, um, you know, postgraduate degrees, you know, they spend years in the training like the UK. In the US pharmacists are doctors. I mean they are like doctoral degrees and these are very serious, uh, well-trained people and so. It It is no surprise that pharmacists in the Western markets and particularly the Europe and the US are doing more than a pharmacists here in Asia. So if you think about Boots, you could you mentioned Boots in the uh in the UK um. The government in an attempt to reduce pressure on primary care and the GPs that are in the UK have created a program called Pharmacist First and this is essentially for a number of degrees if you have sore throat, if you have some problems with your headache or something, typically it requires a GP to see you and prescribe a medication but you have to know many GPs are off during weekends and they are off after office hours. And when you need them the most, you cannot see them. And so now you can come to a booth and our pharmacists that are well-trained can look after you. Many people love that program. Um, over 30% of the people that come to our stores, uh, and use that program are after office hours. And so they would not have had the opportunity to gain healthcare. If that program didn't exist. Yeah. And so I see pharmacists playing a stronger role for sure, uh, complimented I should say by digital health which I don't know if you will come on to later but that's clearly another trend where people seek help in alternative channels than offline, uh, you know, hospitals in some cases but also clinics and GPs. And just, just to stay on that if if you were talking to governments in in this part of the world. Um, that, that would be a strategy that they could employ to devolve down to pharmacies, but it's dependent on that that supply chain of pharmacists coming. Agree, absolutely agree. I think that is a much more cost efficient way to utilize community healthcare centers and pharmacists to help with, uh, everyday healthcare that is required on the condition, yes, that we have to get our people well trained. Got it, yeah. David, coming back to you and and sort of related to digital health, but um as I understand it um uh uh AI is is quite big with you and you've also sort of uh uh said that you want to leapfrog that specialist shortage that you identified earlier on uh through uh AI and you've been spending a lot of um time and investment in this area. Give us an idea of of what you're doing in that space. Now this is, this is exactly a thing where it's the excitement for us. Uh, like I said, the fact that we don't have enough specialists. So if we don't want to do anything about it, then we have to accept the fact that we will always be behind and your word leapfrog is exactly the word that we use. So for us to leapfrog, we need to adopt technology. So everybody talked about AI. But for us when we started in the journey of AI second half of 2025, we thought it was about building application. It's not. So then we decided we can do AI a completely different way for Siloang. So we started the journey at the 2 years ago on the data structure. Uh, that allows us to structure it well. At the beginning of the 2026, we decided to build what we call the Enterprise AI Foundation. So it's all about building the foundation using Siam data because all of the data that we have, how can we infuse that into the AI enterprise platform. Uh, using the large language model and we are completing that entire data lake foundation using LLM by end of the year. So it will take us one year. You don't see anything, just the foundation of that AID. Data and then now we start building three main pillars on top of it. One is the patient digital twin because we want to make sure the journey of our patient when it comes to our Siloam app, it's all about the patient. It's very personalized. So we serve about 4 million outpatients yearly. So imagine if I were to build a normal app, I have to build 4 million user interface with AI. It's all about the patient. And we talk about Dr. Digital twin and this is the most difficult because it will be Dr. led, so we are getting our sub-specialists to help download their thoughts. So it becomes a reference for the entire 41 hospitals. And then the third one is the hospital digital twin. So that's for productivity, effectivity and, and whatnot, right. One example that we started implementing today, uh, for example, in the smart ICU. All of our patient monitor in the ICU is connected and send all the data continuously. So today in our ICU because of the algorithm of data analysis that we do, we can predict 30 minutes before the patient drops. Where before, before that, we only react. 30 minutes after the patient drops. So that's how technology can can help. That sounds fascinating and just in terms of how you built that. What about the regulatory regime, it's patient data, all these types of issues. How have you navigated that? Yes, obviously data security and everything else become a big focus for us and for us to ensure that the security of the data is well maintained. We definitely work with many vendors, but more importantly, The data has to reside with within our site and very briefly, what are, what are your expectations for this new patient, doctor and hospital digital twin? Our expectation is It's still early in the game, but if we do not adopt technology, do the Challenges that we face, we can never leapfrog. So we are betting big on this. Expectation is when it comes to patient experience, when they start engaging with Siloam, they can chat with the application and it's all about their next appointment, what was the last previous year's treatment. Everything that they want to know and immediately can even talk to the doctors. Fascinating, it really uh links back to one of the earlier uh panels that I was moderating on climbing up the value chain, and we heard from SAP about the importance of getting your data right and then building up from there as well. Uh, very good. Um, we, we're pretty much out of time, but Leo, I wanted to come to you because you've spent years investing in, in healthcare services and digital health, um, and governments can't fund all of this, uh, themselves. So where does private capital generally add capacity in, uh, Asian healthcare? Um, and can investors make money from prevention? I don't know if investors can make money out of prevention. I will say maybe as a call to action for the audience here who are involved in healthcare. Um, so much of our effort, we've made a tremendous progress over the last 30 years in extending human lives. But living longer does not mean living well for longer. And I think we've not done enough good work in finding ways for us to live healthier and well for longer and this is where I'd like to see our investments. And, and many of your investments go, uh, both in terms of money but also your own time, by the way, our time. I was chatting with uh David earlier. He's full of muscle, by the way, this guy, and I was like patting, he's like, you know, he's training himself. This is very important, you know, these things are important and they don't cost that much more money and it's great for the society to have a workforce that is productive, healthy, well, that are contributing to the economy. And um you know, it saves costs and it, it helps us get more productive. Yeah, excellent. OK. Unfortunately we're at time because this has been fascinating and I very much look forward to seeing how uh some of your uh strategies unfold in in the coming months and the year. We look forward to welcoming you back uh to hear about these developments both at Walgreens Books Alliance and at Hiloam Hospitals as well. Please join me in thanking my guests for their input.

Beyond the investment, technology, and manufacturing forces transforming Southeast Asia, a broader set of growth engines is emerging—from tourism and the creator economy to green industries and a new generation of homegrown businesses. Which of these sectors can reach scale—and what will it take in skills, finance, and regulation to accelerate their growth?

Esther Nguyen, Founder and CEO, POPS Worldwide 
Kenny Ong, Managing Director, Sony Music Entertainment for Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam 
Sujey Subramanian, Head of Asia-Pacific Corporate, ICG 
Lee Williamson, Co-Chair, Southeast Asia 500 Summit; Editorial Director, Asia, Fortune 

New Drivers of Growth

One of the world’s great food-producing regions is also home to a population expected to reach about 773 million by 2050. Feeding a larger, more affluent Southeast Asia will place greater pressure on land, water, and food systems already constrained by climate change and underinvestment. How can technology and investment help Asia’s rice bowl produce more with fewer resources? And can the region strengthen its own food security while continuing to feed the world?

Lensey Chen, Regional President APAC and SVP Food & Health Biosolutions, Novonesis 
Omi Dang, Chairlady, AgriS 
Binu Jacob, Chairman and Managing Director, Nestlé Vietnam 
Rubens Marques, Head of South & Southeast Asia & Global Head of Pulses, Louis Dreyfus Company (LDC) 
Derek Zhang, Executive Editor, Fortune China 

A3 Technology

A3 Technology in Fortune Rankings

A3 Technology in Fortune Rankings

Videos