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 19, 2026 · 1:48 PM

Geoffrey Hinton says today's chatbots are already conscious and the AI safety debate may never be the same

Geoffrey Hinton told the Big Technology Podcast this month that today's chatbots are already conscious, a claim he says he usually avoids because it drowns out his other safety warnings. The admission reshapes how founders, lawyers, and investors should think about building on top of frontier models.

Julian Lim · Jun 19, 2026 · 10:00 AM

Strategy's preferred stock meltdown is exposing the first real cracks in Michael Saylor's infinite leverage model

Julian Lim · Jun 19, 2026 · 3:23 AM

Baseten closes a $1.5 billion round at up to $13 billion valuation as inference becomes its own infrastructure war

Baseten is closing a $1.5 billion dual-tiered funding round at valuations between $11 billion and $13 billion, up from $5 billion just five months ago. The AI inference infrastructure startup tripled its annualized revenue run-rate from $200 million to $600 million in a single quarter, with customers including Cursor, Mercor, and OpenEvidence reporting up to 30% cost savings over closed-source APIs.

Julian Lim · Jun 18, 2026 · 5:54 PM

Whatnot raises $225 million at an $11.5 billion valuation as live commerce finally breaks through in the West

Whatnot closed a $225 million Series F co-led by DST Global and CapitalG at an $11.5 billion valuation, more than doubling its January 2025 value after doubling GMV to $8 billion in 2025. With one in eight sellers now full-time on the platform and DST Global's pre-IPO track record in play, the Los Angeles company has become the clearest evidence that live commerce can work in Western markets.

Julian Lim · Jun 18, 2026 · 1:28 PM

South Korea's food delivery duopoly faces its biggest antitrust reckoning yet

South Korea's Fair Trade Commission has rejected settlement bids from food delivery giants Baemin and Coupang Eats, opening the door to fines of up to 510 billion won ($375M). The ruling, one of Asia's largest platform antitrust actions of 2026, reflects a coordinated global regulatory push against most-favored-nation clauses that lock suppliers into matching pricing terms across rival platforms.

Julian Lim · Jun 18, 2026 · 9:40 AM

DayOne Data Centers is raising billions before an IPO that could redefine AI infrastructure investing in Asia

DayOne Data Centers closed a $4.5 billion Series C in June 2026 at a $20 billion valuation, is pursuing a record $7 billion corporate loan, and is planning a dual Nasdaq and Singapore Exchange IPO targeting $5 billion. Hillhouse and Coatue led both tranches of the Series C and are now the company's two largest shareholders, signaling deep conviction ahead of what could be one of 2026's defining technology listings.

Julian Lim · Jun 18, 2026 · 5:52 AM

An Indonesian gold retailer's 115-place Fortune ranking jump tells you everything about where Southeast Asia's money is going

Julian Lim · Jun 18, 2026 · 1:26 AM

Allbirds sells its sneakers for $39 million and bets what's left on AI infrastructure

Allbirds has renamed itself Smartbird Inc., sold its footwear assets to American Exchange Group for $39 million, and hired DCAI's Nadia Carlsten as CEO to pursue managed AI infrastructure. The stock surged 52% on the announcement, but the company has no customers yet and faces well-funded hyperscaler competition.

Julian Lim · Jun 17, 2026 · 7:44 PM

Canada's pension giant bets $741 million on India's data center boom as US and European pipelines stall

CPP Investments is committing up to $741 million to Indian data center operator CtrlS in a deal that combines a direct equity stake with a hyperscale joint venture, as sovereign pension capital emerges as the dominant funding vehicle for AI infrastructure. The move comes as US and European data center pipelines face severe delays from power constraints and permitting backlogs, making India an increasingly attractive alternative for large-scale compute investment.

Julian Lim · Jun 17, 2026 · 12:14 PM

Snap's $2,195 Specs bet everything on AR being the next smartphone

Snap launched Specs, its first consumer AR glasses, at $2,195 on June 16, sending the stock down nearly 10% even as CEO Evan Spiegel rejected activist investor calls to spin off the hardware unit. The device runs on dual Qualcomm Snapdragon chips with a 51-degree field of view and ships this autumn, and Spiegel is framing it as a platform bet on post-smartphone computing rather than a gadget play.

Julian Lim · Jun 17, 2026 · 11:10 AM

How to Build a Personal Brand as a Founder Before You Have Anything to Sell

How to build a personal brand as a founder is a question most people ask too late. The founders who figure this out early, before they have a product, before they have traction, build the one asset that makes every future launch easier: an audience that already trusts them.

Julian Lim · Jun 17, 2026 · 6:20 AM

The US government just gave DeepSeek a quiet pass while blacklisting more than 100 other Chinese firms

The Trump administration suspended plans to add DeepSeek to its commercial blacklist, even as it designated more than 100 other Chinese firms as national security risks. The decision coincides with DeepSeek closing a $7.4 billion funding round that handed China's national AI fund direct voting rights over the lab, signaling a deliberate leverage calculation rather than a clean bill of health.

Julian Lim · Jun 17, 2026 · 1:15 AM

SpaceX's $60 billion Cursor deal signals that vibe coding is no longer a niche experiment

Julian Lim · Jun 16, 2026 · 9:27 PM

Binance bet on Greece for its EU licence and is now running out of time

Greece's Hellenic Capital Market Commission is expected to reject Binance's MiCA licence application before the EU's hard July 1 deadline, potentially blocking the world's largest crypto exchange from serving European clients. Binance chose Greece after failing to secure approval in Germany, the Netherlands, and Austria, betting on a regulator with no prior MiCA approvals. With 53 firms already licensed and Tether also shut out, the deadline is reshaping who gets to operate in the bloc.

Julian Lim · Jun 16, 2026 · 5:39 PM

Ripple bets on Flutterwave to make RLUSD the dollar layer for African payments

Ripple has taken a strategic stake in Flutterwave as part of a Series E round valuing the African fintech at $3.25 billion, with RLUSD set to integrate into Flutterwave's payment rails across 34 countries. The deal advances Ripple's push toward $1 billion in non-XRP revenue and bets that stablecoin settlement can undercut the 8%-plus fees that make Africa the world's most expensive remittance market.

Julian Lim · Jun 16, 2026 · 2:30 PM

STMicroelectronics raises $1.5 billion in convertible bonds as its AI photonics bet reshapes how the market sees the company

STMicroelectronics launched a $1.5 billion dual-tranche convertible bond offering today, retiring its 2027 notes and extending debt maturities to 2031 and 2033 after shares rose roughly 196% year-to-date on its AI silicon photonics push. The move fits a broader pattern of AI-adjacent chipmakers using elevated valuations to lock in cheap, long-dated financing, with Nvidia completing a $25 billion bond sale the day prior.