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 · Jun 27, 2026 · 12:33 AM

Robert Kuok's grandson is staking €5.3 billion on Italy becoming Europe's AI infrastructure capital

K2 Strategic, the Kuok Group's digital infrastructure arm led by Robert Kuok's grandson Meng Wei Kuok, presented a €5.3 billion, 300 MW hyperscale data center campus south of Milan to Italy's Minister of Business on June 26, 2026. The project is part of a $10 billion plan to grow from 120 MW to 1,200 MW by 2030, with Italy marking the family conglomerate's first move outside Southeast Asia. The bet lands as Italy has quietly become Europe's most contested AI infrastructure market, attracting ove

Julian Lim · Jun 26, 2026 · 1:51 PM

Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin goes live in Japan through SBI, setting a regulatory template for dollar coins in Asia

Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin went live in Japan on June 25 through SBI VC Trade after clearing the JFSA's new Type 4 electronic payment instrument framework, becoming the first foreign dollar stablecoin to navigate the updated Payment Services Act. With a $1.7 billion market cap and backing from U.S. Treasuries in a New York trust, RLUSD is now positioned inside Japan's largest regulated crypto distribution network, with real implications for the Southeast Asia remittance corridor SBI already servi

Julian Lim · Jun 26, 2026 · 6:53 AM

A mining billionaire just won $250 million from the CHIPS program to build semiconductors no one else is making

The Department of Commerce awarded $250 million in CHIPS R&D funding to I-Pulse Inc., Robert Friedland's pulsed-power startup, to develop silicon-carbide semiconductors for drilling, defense, and manufacturing. The deal, signed June 25, marks one of the more unconventional bets in the CHIPS program's history: a mining billionaire building chips no legacy fab is chasing.

Julian Lim · Jun 26, 2026 · 2:34 AM

Most Singaporeans with anxiety or depression never seek professional help but say they would welcome peer support

A Duke-NUS and Institute of Mental Health study finds 77% of Singapore adults with anxiety or depression symptoms never seek professional help, yet 62% say they would accept support from peers with lived experience. Published this week in the Singapore Medical Journal, the findings highlight peer support as a viable complement to a formal mental health system that cultural stigma is keeping out of reach for most sufferers.

Julian Lim · Jun 25, 2026 · 7:39 PM

Adobe is buying Topaz Labs because building on-device AI from scratch would take too long

Adobe announced on June 25 it will acquire Topaz Labs, maker of the Emmy-winning Astra video upscaling and Wonder image retouching models, integrating its NeuroStream on-device inference technology into Creative Cloud and Firefly. The deal, expected to close in H2 2026, is a direct response to competitive pressure from Canva's own acquisition spree and Blackmagic Design's free DaVinci Resolve. Adobe is buying a capability it calculated would take too long to build.

Julian Lim · Jun 25, 2026 · 2:33 PM

Amazon raises its India bet to $48 billion as Big Tech turns the subcontinent into an AI proving ground

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy met Prime Minister Modi in New Delhi on June 25 and announced an additional $13 billion in AI and cloud investment, raising Amazon's total India commitment to $48 billion through 2030. Combined with Microsoft's $17.5 billion and Google's $15 billion pledges, Big Tech has staked $67.5 billion on India's AI infrastructure buildout, turning the subcontinent into the most contested hyperscaler battleground outside the United States.

Julian Lim · Jun 25, 2026 · 9:31 AM

China's trillion-yuan bet on hard tech startups is rewriting the rules of early-stage competition

Julian Lim · Jun 25, 2026 · 6:11 AM

How to Negotiate SaaS Contracts and Stop Overpaying at Every Renewal

How to negotiate SaaS contracts is a skill most finance leaders assume they have until the renewal invoice lands. Vendors price for the negotiation they expect you to skip, and most buyers oblige. Here's what actually works, from timing your renewal conversations correctly to the contract clauses that silently erode your leverage year after year.

Julian Lim · Jun 25, 2026 · 4:26 AM

The AI world has a new obsession and it isn't chatbots

Julian Lim · Jun 25, 2026 · 12:00 AM

Dubai Holding is in talks to buy into Hscale as Gulf capital moves to lock up Europe's AI infrastructure before the buildout peaks

Dubai Holding is in early talks to take a stake in Hscale, Bain Capital's EMEA hyperscale data center platform, as Gulf sovereign capital continues its systematic push to acquire AI infrastructure exposure across Europe and the Middle East before permitting and power constraints tighten further.

Julian Lim · Jun 24, 2026 · 7:39 PM

Big Tech has lost $2.7 trillion in market value this month as investors question whether AI can pay for itself

Julian Lim · Jun 24, 2026 · 3:46 PM

A San Jose legal-tech startup just sued the US government over losing Anthropic's Fable 5 and it won't be the last

Legion LegalTech, a San Jose AI litigation startup founded in 2024, filed suit in Washington D.C. on June 24 against the Commerce Department over the export control order that pulled Anthropic's Fable 5 from foreign nationals. The complaint cites existential harm after Canadian developers on Legion's team lost access overnight, and it's the first commercial lawsuit targeting the Fable 5 blackout. The case puts a spotlight on how little protection AI startup contracts actually provide when a regu

Julian Lim · Jun 24, 2026 · 4:22 AM

The EU has joined Pax Silica and the global AI chip map just changed permanently

The EU formally joined Pax Silica on June 3, completing the US-led bloc's Western membership and reshaping AI chip supply chains. France's warning that Washington was trying to colonise European tech policy was overruled, but the tension between alliance coordination and EU regulatory autonomy has not been resolved, only deferred.

Julian Lim · Jun 23, 2026 · 3:16 PM

China's all-CPU LineShine supercomputer reaches exascale without a single Nvidia or AMD chip

China's National Supercomputing Center in Shenzhen has unveiled LineShine, a 2-exaflop supercomputer built entirely from Huawei's domestic LX2 processors , no Nvidia, no AMD, no foreign components. The machine demonstrates that US chip export controls may have accelerated China's push to build a fully sovereign AI compute stack, with implications for how infrastructure investment and geopolitical leverage will play out over the next decade.

Julian Lim · Jun 23, 2026 · 7:01 AM

Bending Spoons is heading to Nasdaq at a $19 billion valuation and its turnaround math is hard to argue with

Bending Spoons, the Milan-based acquirer behind Vimeo, Evernote, and AOL, is targeting a $19 billion Nasdaq valuation after swinging from a $112 million loss to $27.5 million in net profit in a single year. CEO Luca Ferrari's AI-powered roll-up strategy drove revenue per employee to $2.6 million and revenue to $601 million in Q1 2026 alone. The early-July IPO will test whether public markets will pay a 14.5x revenue multiple for a company that builds nothing from scratch but extracts margin with

Julian Lim · Jun 23, 2026 · 2:35 AM

Chevron and Microsoft sign a 20-year gas deal that turns an oil major into an AI infrastructure company

Chevron and Microsoft have signed a 20-year power purchase agreement for Project Kilby, a 2.67-gigawatt natural gas plant near Pecos, Texas that will supply one of the largest data center campuses in the US. The $7 billion co-development with Engine No. 1's Joulent marks a structural shift: oil majors are repositioning as AI infrastructure companies, locking in long-term contracted revenue as hyperscalers scramble for dedicated, dispatchable power outside the constrained grid.