Julian Lim

Julian Lim is an entrepreneur, technology writer, and a researcher. He started JL Data Analysis after graduating from NUS in Intelligent Systems. Julian writes about technology innovations and entrepreneurship on Business Times, Asia Pacific Magazine and occasionally contributes to Startup Fortune.

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Julian Lim · Jul 1, 2026 · 5:15 AM

South Korea's leveraged ETF experiment just showed the world what AI equity froth looks like when it breaks

South Korea's Kospi is up 90% this year and Taiwan's TAIEX has hit record highs, both driven almost entirely by Samsung, SK Hynix, and TSMC. But a June 23 selloff triggered by single-stock leveraged ETFs wiped nearly 10% off the Kospi in a single session and sent Nasdaq futures tumbling, exposing how dangerously concentrated, and structurally fragile, the global AI chip rally has become.

Julian Lim · Jul 1, 2026 · 12:49 AM

Bitcoin ETFs just posted their worst month on record and the buyers stepping in are not who you think

Julian Lim · Jun 30, 2026 · 8:22 PM

Anthropic's refusal to bend to Washington has cost it Pentagon contracts and earned it a court fight it did not expect

The Trump administration designated Anthropic a national security supply-chain risk, forced it to recall its Mythos AI model under export controls, and banned federal agencies from using its products. While OpenAI and Google secured federal contracts by playing the Washington access game, Anthropic's refusal to allow autonomous weapons use has triggered the most aggressive government action ever taken against a domestic AI company, with real consequences for enterprise buyers and investors prici

Julian Lim · Jun 30, 2026 · 2:59 PM

Indonesia sentences Gojek co-founder Nadiem Makarim to 10 years in prison over Chromebook procurement corruption

A Jakarta court found former education minister and Gojek co-founder Nadiem Makarim guilty of corruption on June 30, 2026, sentencing him to 10 years in prison over a pandemic-era Chromebook procurement program that prosecutors say doubled the per-unit cost of laptops supplied to Indonesian schools. Prosecutors had sought 18 years, citing state losses of 2.1 trillion rupiah and pointing to Google's investment in Makarim's former company GoTo as relevant context. Makarim, who called the charges a

Julian Lim · Jun 30, 2026 · 10:53 AM

Vibe coding has rewritten the rules on who gets to build a startup and billions in VC money are betting it sticks

The vibe coding market hit $4.7 billion in 2026, with Cursor at a $29.3 billion valuation, Lovable at $200 million ARR, and Replit targeting $1 billion by year-end. The funding wave is real, but so is the commoditization pressure bearing down on 20-plus well-funded platforms competing for the same users. For non-technical founders, the tools have genuinely changed what is possible, and the infrastructure layer underneath them looks like the safest long-term bet.

Julian Lim · Jun 30, 2026 · 6:26 AM

JPMorgan is treating digital assets as core banking infrastructure and the rest of Wall Street is following

JPMorgan has launched a USD deposit token on public blockchain, is assessing spot and derivatives crypto trading for institutional clients, and is co-building a multi-bank tokenized deposit network with Citi, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo targeting 2027. It's not a bet on crypto. It's a structural move to keep dollar settlement inside the banking system before stablecoins make that choice for them.

Julian Lim · Jun 30, 2026 · 2:01 AM

London Stock Exchange Group turns AI from threat into its strongest growth engine

LSEG posted its strongest quarterly income growth in over five years and now has 150 customers connected or onboarding to its Model Context Protocol server, turning the AI-disruption narrative on its head. CEO David Schwimmer's 'More Valuable in an AI World' thesis is gaining traction with markets, with UBS removing LSEG from its AI risk basket and shares up 27% since Elliott Management built a significant stake.

Julian Lim · Jun 29, 2026 · 9:35 PM

Ardian is betting over a billion dollars that the Nordics will power Europe's AI infrastructure buildout

Ardian is committing up to $1.2 billion to expand its Verne data center platform across Iceland, Finland, Sweden, and Norway, with Bloomberg reporting broader Nordic investment plans exceeding €3 billion. The bet is a PE firm structuring a long-duration toll road on AI infrastructure, capturing the region's cheap renewable energy and natural cooling without touching model risk.

Julian Lim · Jun 29, 2026 · 3:53 PM

China is turning humanoid robots into an industrial assembly line and the rest of the world is watching

Chinese humanoid robotics companies are minting unicorns at a pace the rest of the world isn't matching. Robotera raised $200 million in May 2026, Unitree filed a $610 million Shanghai IPO on 335% revenue growth, and China now ships 90% of global humanoid robot units, backed by $20 billion in government subsidies and a manufacturing ecosystem built for rapid iteration.

Julian Lim · Jun 29, 2026 · 11:27 AM

Germany is betting €300 billion on AI to solve a labor crisis that AI cannot fully fix

Germany's €500 billion infrastructure fund is directing €300 billion at physical and digital modernization, with AI earmarked as the primary fix for a labor shortage costing the country €49 billion annually. The strategy works where knowledge work can be automated , IT, finance, administration , but leaves the trades, care, and the broader 1.8 million vacancy gap largely untouched. For European founders and investors, the government demand signal is real, but the playbook is nothing like Silicon

Julian Lim · Jun 29, 2026 · 4:27 AM

Baidu's Kunlunxin is chasing a $50 billion Hong Kong IPO with a condition investors have rarely seen

Baidu's chip arm Kunlunxin is targeting a $50 billion Hong Kong IPO valuation, up from $14.7 billion cited just two weeks ago, and is asking prospective investors to commit to buying its semiconductors as a condition of participating in the deal. The unusual bundling of capital and procurement reflects how much work the company still has to do to prove its revenue base beyond Baidu itself.

Julian Lim · Jun 28, 2026 · 8:13 PM

Firmus puts its ASX float behind a larger Nvidia bet

Firmus has delayed its expected ASX IPO timetable after The Australian reported a major Nvidia partnership tied to a 360 megawatt AI factory in Batam, Indonesia. The deal could cover up to 170,000 Nvidia accelerators and support $US25 billion to $US30 billion in first-six-year revenue from committed offtake contracts.

Julian Lim · Jun 28, 2026 · 11:51 AM

Bitcoin ETFs just logged their seventh straight week of outflows and the damage is real

Julian Lim · Jun 28, 2026 · 2:22 AM

Domo is selling itself after burning through a billion dollars chasing growth it never found

Domo, once valued at $2.8 billion, is in advanced sale negotiations after breaching debt covenants and disclosing going-concern doubts. With revenue flat for three years at roughly $318 million, a $1.55 billion accumulated deficit, and a forbearance agreement with its lender, the business intelligence company has hired Jefferies to find a buyer, with analyst estimates putting a likely takeout at $400 to $600 million including debt.

Julian Lim · Jun 27, 2026 · 1:12 PM

NVIDIA has taken the top spot in datacenter Ethernet switching and it now controls the full AI stack

NVIDIA's Spectrum-X platform claimed the top spot in datacenter Ethernet switching by revenue in Q1 2026, with $2.1 billion in quarterly revenue and 21.5% market share, up from under 4% two years ago. The IDC data confirms NVIDIA is extending its AI infrastructure dominance beyond GPUs into the networking layer, compounding its leverage over hyperscalers. Cisco and Arista now face a rival that isn't selling switches so much as selling a vertically integrated AI factory architecture.

Julian Lim · Jun 27, 2026 · 5:37 AM

The CFTC just opened a fraud probe into Polymarket and the timing could not be worse for the prediction market boom