March Tech Round-Up: Hard Hats, Harder Problems. APAC AI Digs In
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Dear reader,
It turns out that some of the best moats are built in the least fashionable industries. This month we profile the growing cohort of native AI companies from Australia, New Zealand and Singapore doing exactly that, across sectors from construction and healthcare to compliance, legal and energy.
Enjoy, from the team at North Ridge Partners.
Original Thinking From North Ridge Partners
Some of the most defensible AI businesses are not being built at the frontier. They are being built inside the workflows that proved too complex, too regulated or too relationship-heavy for off-the-shelf software and generalist AI models to crack. Hospital diagnostics, AML compliance, electricity grid modelling, legal contract review: the more specialised the problem, the stickier the product tends to be once it is embedded. A growing cluster of ANZ and Singapore companies is thriving on exactly that logic. Check it out here: The moats that matter in AI.
Construction and property may well be two of the world’s largest industries, but they’re also two of the least digitised. AI is finally changing that, not with moonshots, but with tools that can read a 200-page contract, flag a scaffolding defect from a phone photo, or turn a planning brief into a code-compliant building design, in seconds. From SafetyCulture and Ailytics to PropHero and Ohmyhome, a cluster of ANZ and Singapore companies is showing that the next wave of built-world automation is already well underway. Read more here: Cranes, code and co-pilots: why AI is finally cracking construction and property.
Short on Time? Listen to our AI Podcast
This month, Anne Thropic and Claude Compute, our AI podcasters, explore how a new generation of native AI companies across Australia, New Zealand and Singapore is moving beyond the hype - building deeply embedded solutions in industries like healthcare, compliance, energy and construction.
Click here or on the banner below to listen. Enjoy.
Big Tech
Cooling on AI? Nvidia may not invest its promised $100bn in OpenAI and Anthropic after all. Even Jensen Huang blinks sometimes.
Altman, Amodei and the Pentagon: uncomfortable questions about AI in defence.
Winning by losing: Netflix surges as it walks away from Warner Bros. Did Larry and Son overpay for Paramount?
Facing the music: Musk in court over Twitter stock. Zuckerberg takes the stand in social media addiction trial.
AI Gets the Corner Office: Jack Dorsey cuts 40% of Block's workforce, predicts most companies will follow suit. Stock up 24%.
Asia Pacific Tech News
Decentralise and dominate: Xi calls on China’s provinces to lead on tech.
TikTok Shop narrows the gap with Shopee across Southeast Asia, dancing its way to the top of the cart.
Alibaba stumbles: Qwen AI lead departs. Maintaining momentum just got harder.
In the Red Dot, infra is hot: Singapore’s Day One DC operator prepares for an IPO.
Home ground advantage is hard to hold: Amazon, Shein and Temu are squeezing Australian e-commerce. When the world turns up, locals feel it.
Stuff We Found Interesting
Old tricks, new threats: An 80-year-old spy technique is alive and well in the age of modern computing. Congress wants answers.
Your number’s up: Anthropic maps the labour market impacts of AI. Not comfortable reading.
Watching you: Meta is sued over its AI smartglasses after workers filmed people in private moments. The coolest gadgets have the ugliest blind spots.
SaaS lives: a16z argues AI will make software bigger, not kill it. Moats still matter.
Nightmare fuel: Citrini Research’s 2028 Global Intelligence Crisis models AI-driven layoffs and defaults - a thesis that reads well if you’re short tech stocks (were they?)
Tech Investment Banking Across Asia Pacific
North Ridge Partners advises tech companies across the Asia Pacific on strategy, capital raising and M&A. We’re experienced dealmakers who have built and sold many tech companies. In partnership with GP Bullhound, we have 200 bankers in 17 global offices.
Contact us here.
© North Ridge Partners 2026
Singapore, Australia, New Zealand
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