KUALA LUMPUR: Surging artificial intelligence (AI)-related demand is fueling an Asian technology (tech) export boom, boosting growth in economies that include Malaysia, according to S&P Global Ratings.
In a report titled "Economic Outlook Asia-Pacific Third Quarter 2026: AI-Exposed Markets To Outperform”, published today, S&P said strong export growth has become a major boost for the economies where tech manufacturing is high.
"This is especially so in Taiwan, South Korea and Vietnam, but it is also significant in Singapore, mainland China, Malaysia, Thailand and Japan,” it said.
S&P said the tech shipments are likely to continue growing strongly in 2026, with products such as memory chips, while an increasing portion of this export growth stems from price increases rather than volume expansion.
It said that in April, overall export prices in dollar terms rose 31.6 per cent year-on-year in South Korea and 17.4 per cent in Taiwan, implying large terms-of-trade gains even amid a price surge in energy imports.
The rating agency said that, in most economies where the economic importance of tech manufacturing is relatively high, the favourable impact of the tech export boom outweighs the unfavourable energy shock.
For Southeast Asia, S&P said the outlook is balanced between strong electronics-related activity, broadly steady domestic demand, and energy stress.
"In addition to benefiting from the tech export boom, most Southeast Asian economies are seeing data centre investment that supports construction and capital spending.
"That is especially the case in Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam.
"Overall, we slightly lower our forecast for the region on a large downward revision in the Philippines and stable forecasts elsewhere; this is relative to our March outlook when we revised up growth in several countries,” it added.
Meanwhile, at the Asia-Pacific level, S&P has kept its baseline 2026 gross domestic product forecasts excluding China unchanged from March at 4.5 per cent, while 2027 growth is expected at 4.4 per cent.
It said the Asia-Pacific economic outlook is shaped by resilient global activity, energy market stress, and an AI-driven tech export boom. - Bernama
