The Uneven Tech Race in Greater Asia

From Islamabad to Jakarta—Riyadh to Kathmandu

Across Greater Asia, countries are attempting a technological sprint into the data economy and Web3. They are erecting giant data centres and snapping up AI chips, yet such ambitions often collide with poverty, graft and missing basic infrastructure.

ForkLog examined why some burn dollars on artificial intelligence, others mine bitcoin under the aegis of the state, and a third group sinks into chaos, banning cryptocurrencies and social media.

The price of a ‘digital leap’

The idea is simple and seductive: why retrace the long road of industrialisation if you can plug straight into the new digital economy? Across Greater Asia, policymakers see technology as a chance for rapid growth. The aim is not to catch up with the West but to overtake it on the bend, by betting on blockchain, AI and the data economy.

In practice, this “leap” often resembles an attempt to clear a chasm. On one side sit ambitious projects, state programmes and grand pronouncements. On the other lie harsh realities: millions without reliable electricity or internet, endemic corruption, weak rule of law and political instability.

Technology does not exist in a vacuum. It cannot be decreed from above while ignoring the foundations. Comparing strategies across countries shows that digitalisation works only when it solves real problems rather than masking them.

Each country is feeling for its own path. The approaches vary wildly, spanning everything from total state control to outright chaos.

Bhutan: state mining

The Kingdom of Bhutan has chosen a distinctive path. With a surplus of cheap hydropower, it channels that energy into state-run bitcoin mining. The goal is to build national crypto reserves.

The model rests on tight control. Authorities treat digital gold as a high-value asset while seeking to minimise its impact on the domestic financial system. In parallel, Bhutan is piloting its own CBDC.

The chief risks are heavy dependence on hydropower—vulnerable to climate variability—and a sharp shortage of domestic IT talent. Bhutan must rely on external partners to execute its technological ambitions.

Bangladesh: digitalisation divorced from reality

The government touts the sweeping Smart Bangladesh programme, aiming for full digitalisation by 2041. Yet the initiatives often inhabit a parallel universe. In the real world the country is among the most climate-vulnerable, struggles with catastrophic pollution and low living standards.

Amid loud pledges to use blockchain for transparency, citizens are banned outright from any cryptocurrency activity. Not a single live, at-scale blockchain project has emerged.

Bangladesh shows how progress is impossible without tackling basics. You cannot build a “smart nation” when a large share of the population is fighting for clean water and survival.

Pakistan: chaos and external pressure

Pakistan illustrates the opposite extreme. Its young population uses cryptocurrencies as a hedge against rampant inflation. According to data from Chainalysis, crypto adoption here is among the highest in the region.

Seeing the trend, the authorities veer between bans and legalisation. Ideas surface to divert surplus power into mining and AI to create a national bitcoin reserve. All this, however, unfolds amid incoherent legislation and legal muddle.

The picture is worsened by acute technological and economic dependence. On one side is China and the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor; on the other is India, which controls the headwaters vital to Pakistan’s energy and agriculture. Poverty, low internet penetration and external reliance make any “digital leap” perilous.

Nepal: a youth revolt

Recent events in Nepal show what happens when digitalisation is not matched by social reform. An attempt to block social networks sparked mass street protests. In the name of combating “violations of social harmony,” the authorities triggered a social explosion.

Young people, newly connected to information online, saw the gulf between their lives and the wealth of a corrupt elite. The protests quickly turned political and led to the government’s resignation.

The lesson: you cannot give the young a smartphone but deny them a future. Digitalisation without economic opportunity and a real fight against corruption breeds revolutionary sentiment. Political chaos and pressure from India and China only compound the strain.

Indonesia: a nation of traders

Indonesia has one of the world’s youngest, most online populations. Yet much of that energy goes into speculation. The mass enthusiasm for the internet has produced a boom in meme-token trading and participation in P2E games.

The government, meanwhile, is crafting ambitious AI strategies. These plans run into a hard skills crunch. Talented engineers and developers prefer to decamp to neighbouring Singapore, where pay is higher and conditions better.

A yawning gap emerges: the digital aspirations of the young fixate on quick gains, while the state struggles to foster a high-tech economy. Infrastructure inequality across the archipelago only deepens the problem.

The Gulf: AI bought with petrodollars

The Gulf’s model—above all the UAE and Saudi Arabia—stands apart. It is a top-down transformation, powered by near-unlimited hydrocarbon revenues. The region’s familiar “enlightened autocracy” is at work.

These states pursue an aggressive strategy of acquiring technology and talent. They buy tens of thousands of cutting-edge Nvidia AI chips, build their own large language models and lure global specialists with outsized salaries. Blockchain is treated not as a vehicle for speculation but as infrastructure for tokenisation of real-world assets.

It is the most successful “digital leap” model so far. Yet it carries a serious political risk. The United States is increasingly uneasy about the concentration of technological heft in the region—and the prospect of advanced technology leaking to China, with which Arab monarchies are tightening economic ties.

Conclusions: dismantling castes as a precondition for success

A digital leap cannot succeed without tackling systemic problems. Technology is merely a multiplier: it amplifies order and chaos alike.

While in the West—Silicon Valley included—the Network State concept in effect revives a caste system, where access to benefits depends on belonging to the “right” network, Greater Asia is moving the other way. Its chances of success hinge on partially or wholly dismantling archaic social hierarchies that hold back development.

An intriguing polarity emerges. Asia needs inclusivity and social mobility to break through, even as the West’s technological vanguard drifts towards elitism and isolation.

The fundamental question—individual versus collective—gains a technological twist. The liberal-democratic model grounded in individualism worked for decades but is plainly misfiring today. The model of “enlightened Asian autocracy,” betting on collective goals, looks more stable in times of crisis.

This clash is visible in the realm of ideas. There is a global tilt to the right which, in its extreme forms, leads to segregation and discrimination. Against that backdrop, Asian models—even authoritarian ones—can offer an alternative that puts the common good above individual ambition.

For digitalisation to succeed, countries across Greater Asia need to:

1. Ensure political stability and the rule of law.
2. Wage a genuine, not performative, fight against corruption.
3. Invest massively in specialist education and basic infrastructure—above all, affordable, ubiquitous internet.
4. Adopt pragmatic, clear regulation instead of panic bans.
5. Create real economic opportunities for the young at home to curb brain drain.

For now, there are few large projects or concepts that meaningfully address these tasks. Corporate transhumanism and technocratic utopias are elaborated in detail, but alternatives are underdeveloped and absent from broad debate.

Changes this deep require a fundamental reappraisal of modern values, and of the individual’s role in the world and society. New grand ideas are needed to ground a different future. Otherwise, the default model will be the one advanced by corporations and authoritarian regimes.

Without these steps, any “digital leap” risks being a jump into the abyss—ending in missed opportunities and millions left waiting for a promised future that never arrives.