Cloud: Digital sovereignty redefines cloud strategy in APAC
- Mr. Jay Jenkins, Chief Technology Officer, Cloud Computing Services at Akamai
- Digital sovereignty becomes economic sovereignty: The EU’s 2025 push to reduce hyperscaler dependency has sparked a parallel movement across Asia Pacific. Organizations now view cloud portability not as a cost optimization tactic, but as essential risk mitigation against geopolitical uncertainty and vendor considerations. India is leading this transformation, with Australia close behind through large scale proof-of-concepts. True digital sovereignty requires infrastructure independence—the ability to move workloads across providers, geographies, and architectures without technical or financial penalty. This flexibility, initially pursued for risk reasons, is also essential for next-generation AI applications that demand computational portability.
- AI architectures get smart and distributed: We also anticipate stronger momentum behind distributed AI architectures, as enterprises move inference closer to users and operational systems to improve latency and performance. This will influence how sectors like mobility, public services, and industrial automation scale their next wave of digital initiatives.
- AI security is more than endpoints: Organizations will also need to strengthen AI governance as security and cost complexity rise. Protecting endpoints alone will no longer suffice; leaders must secure the entire AI data supply chain, from training datasets to inference traffic and model outputs. This will accelerate the adoption of “AI firewalls” that inspect prompts and responses in real time, rating at the edge alongside distributed AI workloads rather than only in centralized environments. In parallel, AI governance will mature quickly, with provenance controls.
- FinOps finally shifts left: The rising volatility of AI compute will force a major shift in FinOps practices. Rather than discovering costs after deployment, in 2026, engineering and product teams will embed real-time cost visibility into the financial impact of model design, showing the financial impact of choices like model version, deployment region or inference patterns. Organizations that adopt shift-left FinOps will gain a decisive advantage, deploying AI applications that competitors cannot afford to match because cost efficiency is built into every architectural decision from day one.
Mr. Jay Jenkins, Chief Technology Officer, Cloud Computing Services at Akamai said,“Cloud strategies in Asia are shifting toward autonomy. Leaders want the ability to move workloads easily, enforce strong data controls and run AI where it makes the most sense, whether that’s in the core or at the edge. With the IDC predicting that 80% of APAC CIOs will rely on edge services for AI performance and compliance by 2027, it’s clear that the region is already preparing for a distributed future. In 2026, designing for portability and distributed AI will be essential to building resilient and future-ready digital services.”
Security: AI to supercharge cyber threats across APAC
- Mr. Reuben Koh, Director of Security Technology & Strategy at Akamai
- Compressed attack timelines due to autonomous AI: We anticipate a fundamental shift in how cyberattacks unfold in APAC in 2026 with faster, more automated and increasingly self-directed threats powered by AI. Attackers will leverage both generative AI and autonomous AI capabilities that can scan for weakness, test entry points and launch exploits with minimal human involvement. This machine-driven model compresses the timelines of breaches that once unfolded over weeks to within hours, raising risk across high-value digital markets such as Singapore, Korea and Japan.
- APIs to become the primary vector for application-layer breaches: API-led attacks are expected to overtake web-based attacks as digital banking, public services and retail applications lean more heavily on API ecosystems. Over80% of APAC organizationsfaced at least one API security incident in the past year, and almost two-thirds lack visibility on which of their APIs are sending sensitive data. This lack of visibility, combined with AI-powered automation creates ideal conditions for attackers to rapidly probe, enumerate and exploit vulnerable API flows at scale.
- The full democratization of ransomware: Ransomware will become fully commoditized in 2026, transforming into a mass-scale cybercrime economy. With off-the-shelf Ransomware-as-a-Service subscriptions, AI-powered “vibe-hacking,” and growing collaboration between cybercriminals, hacktivists, and state-aligned actors, launching an extortion campaign will require far less expertise than before. Sectors rich in sensitive data such as finance, healthcare, retail, media will face intensified targeting, while managed service providers and supply chain vendors become high-value entry points. High-tech industries such as semiconductors remain especially vulnerable.
Mr. Reuben Koh, Director of Security Technology & Strategy at Akamai said, “AI is fundamentally changing the economics of cyberattacks in APAC. Adversaries are no longer scaling through manpower, but rather through automation. Leaders can’t rely on human-paced defenses in a machine-paced threat environment. In 2026, security teams need to operate at the same velocity as the attackers by detecting, analyzing, and containing threats in real time. This starts with modernizing API governance, investing in automated threat containment, and strengthening resilience across supply chains. Organizations that make this shift early will be the ones to better protect customer trust and maintain business continuity in an evolving AI-driven threat landscape.”
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