Keris & Silicon

For decades, industrial policy was the thing economists told developing countries not to do. Now Washington, Beijing and Brussels are all doing it openly.The question is, back for whom? If the big powers can subsidise their way into the future, and AI is concentrated in just two countries, is there still a ladder for everyone else to climb?Amir Lebdioui, Associate Professor of the Political Economy of Development at the University of Oxford and Director of the TIDE Centre, joins Shahril Hamdan.They discuss why critical minerals may not stay critical, what Indonesia's nickel ban got right and why it failed for bauxite, and whether hosting data centres means building infrastructure that could soon be obsolete. Amir also makes the case that Malaysia's biodiversity could be its next frontier of innovation, from wind turbines modelled on spinning seeds to Kancilnomics.Interested in partnering with Keris & Silicon? Get in touch at +6011-1919 1783 or [email protected]

Most of the AI debate is about what it will produce. This conversation starts a step earlier, with who gets to decide. Before we argue about outcomes, we need to settle the procedure and the principle, and make sure the people whose lives AI shapes are the ones with a voice in it.Vilas Dhar, President of the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation and a former AI researcher, joins Shahril Hamdan. They discuss why so many people feel AI is "not for me" and what people are really angry about when they protest data centres. Vilas also argues that people want the dignity of participation, not just a better deal, and sets out what countries like Malaysia can do without frontier AI of their own.Interested in partnering with Keris & Silicon? Get in touch at +6011-1919 1783 or [email protected]

A special collaboration between Subtext and Keris & Silicon.How much AI should a child be allowed to use, and how early? Hold it back, and we may be preparing the next generation for a world that's already gone. Hand it over too soon, and they may never build what only the long way round can teach.In this audio essay, Shahril Hamdan asks what is lost when answers become instant, why AI is different from the tools that came before it, and what it means for how we learn.

China makes most of the world's solar panels, installs most of its industrial robots and refines most of its rare earths, and still governs like a country that doesn't have enough.Damien Ma, Director of Carnegie China, has spent twenty years reading Beijing's five-year plans. His argument: look at what China thinks it's short of, not what it's ambitious for.Why Chinese labs aren't chasing AGI. Why the theft accusation is mostly cope. And what you do when China matches the frontier and stays 30% cheaper.—This episode is supported by moomoo Malaysia, Malaysia's No.1* trading app, with over 2 million downloads and access to local and global markets.MooFest Malaysia returns for a third year under the theme The Age of Smarter Investing. Three days of expert-led talks, live demos and hands-on sessions on financial education, plus a first look at Moomoo AI. 📆 9 to 11 October 2026
📍 Level 2, Pavilion Bukit Jalil
🎟️ Register: https://start.moomoo.com/0IRGTR

"Southeast Asia runs a risk of becoming just a spectator as opposed to a stakeholder." Gita Wirjawan on what it would take to shape the AI era rather than watch it.Shahril Hamdan sits down with the entrepreneur, former Indonesian Minister of Trade and author of Southeast Asia: What It Takes, on why the region is under-narrated, why energy is the hard ceiling on any AI ambition, how China is repositioning itself for the Global South, and whether this region ends up a player or a prize.Interested in partnering with Keris & Silicon? Get in touch at +6011-1919 1783 or [email protected]