The charged battle between two Singapore EV firms

This week’s On the Rise looks at Charged Asia’s EV playbook, Ion Mobility’s shift in strategy, and Amazon’s generative AI play. [Read from your browser]( On the Rise 🚀 Welcome to On the Rise! Delivered every Tuesday via email and through the Tech in Asia website, this free newsletter breaks down the biggest stories and trends in emerging tech. If you’re not a subscriber, get access by [registering here](. --------------------------------------------------------------- IN FOCUS In today's newsletter, we look at: - New EV two-wheeler firm Charged Asia’s [moving with speedy strategies]( - Why Ion Mobility [switched from]( the ODM strategy to building EVs in-house - Amazon’s generative AI play to win the cloud battle Hello {NAME} I don’t like a story with a loose ending. I recently read a novel that finished abruptly and it just left my brain trying to figure out what would have been a better way to finish it. I understand the reason why writers do this - it forces the reader to think - but it just leaves me with an unsatisfied feeling. That brings me to a story we had published earlier in May on a [court battle]( between Ion Mobility CEO James Chan and former COO Joel Chang. The electric vehicle manufacturer had filed a temporary injunction against Chang in the Singapore High Court that barred him from being involved with operations of Charged Asia, an EV company that he founded after leaving Ion Mobility. However, the issue between the two parties has been “settled amicably,” Chang says. That has enabled him to return to the helm of Charged Asia. Besides Ion Mobility, Chang is also a co-founder of another two-wheeler EV maker, Scorpio Electric. With the feud between Ion Mobility and Charged Asia over, their battle for dominance in the EV two-wheeler space continues in the hotly contested Indonesian market. In this week’s Big Story, my colleague Nikita follows up with Chang on what Charged Asia is doing. While Charged Asia is using a white-label approach to sourcing parts from partners, Ion Mobility has stepped away from this strategy and resorted to building e-bikes from scratch. According to Chan, existing white-label offerings can’t convince people to make the move from combustion vehicles to EVs. More on this in our second Big Story. Speaking of making moves, in AI Odyssey, I explore Amazon’s latest announcements in the generative AI space, which are designed to keep its leadership position in cloud services. But first, our big stories. -- Collin  --------------------------------------------------------------- THE BIG STORIES 1️⃣ [Last to start, but first on road: New Singapore e-bike maker heats up EV race]( Charged Asia, which has a zero-emissions facility in Indonesia, says it has sold nearly 1,000 bikes since December 2022. 2️⃣ [Ion Mobility now builds e-bikes from scratch after design strategy fails]( CEO James Chan talks about why Ion’s original design manufacturer approach failed and the improvements it's made since it switched to an OEM strategy.  --------------------------------------------------------------- AI ODYSSEY Promising AI projects we’re noticing GenAI battles it out in the cloud Amazon made a few crucial announcements at its Amazon Web Services (AWS) Summit in New York last week. One of them was the [unveiling of HealthScribe]( a generative AI platform that healthcare software developers can integrate into their systems to create transcripts, summarize, and extract details from patient-doctor interactions. It enables medical professionals to cut out a lot of the laborious paperwork. But the more important development was Amazon bringing its genAI foundational model Amazon Bedrock [together with other foundational models]( - Cohere, Stability AI, Anthropic, and AI21 Labs - under one API. All of them will be tied together with AI agents to help developers by eliminating the need for manual coding. While Amazon has been a late entrant into the genAI race, this move looks to be a way to play catch up to Microsoft, which is powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4 model, and to Google with its LaMDA model. For Amazon, genAI is a must-have if it wants to ensure its breadwinner AWS maintains its leadership in the cloud computing space. Just a few days before Amazon’s announcement, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella bragged during the company’s [earnings call]( that while Microsoft isn’t the largest provider of cloud infrastructure for companies, it is No. 1 when it comes to selling cloud-based AI services. Overall, he said that Azure has grown to become “a strong No. 2” player. Though Amazon’s AWS still leads the cloud infrastructure space worldwide with a dominant [32% market share]( that’s down from the 40% share it once had. Azure, on the other hand, has grown its market share to 23% as of [Q1 2023]( from 21% in the same quarter last year. During the same period, Google Cloud has also seen its market share grow to 10% from 8%. The demand for Azure and Google Cloud has been growing with the introduction of genAI into their existing cloud services. While Google Cloud may be a distant rival for Amazon, Microsoft’s OpenAI-infused offering is something the Jeff Bezos-founded firm will have to worry about. HealthScribe, too, follows other similar healthcare products from Amazon's competitors. Nuance Communications and Microsoft have developed an AI-automated [clinical documentation app]( in March. Google has also been developing Med-PaLM, designed to provide doctors with medical information quickly. But Amazon won’t be undone easily. Its AWS Summit [reportedly drew thousands]( of customers to try out its AI cloud services. The company said that clients such as Sony, Sun Life, Ryanair, and Coda are already using Amazon Bedrock. Amazon's advantage is the large number of existing AWS customers that it can offer its genAI products to. Expanding these to include other foundational models will help plug any weaknesses in Amazon Bedrock. That said, Amazon’s genAI offerings are currently only available to existing business clients. The real test will be how effective it is in comparison to the genAI cloud service capabilities of Azure and Google Cloud. -- Collin  --------------------------------------------------------------- FYI 1️⃣ [Malaysia grants Musk’s Starlink rare ownership exemption to operate in country]( This comes after a highly publicized virtual meeting between Elon Musk and Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim. 2️⃣ [Serial entrepreneur opens up about failed fintech firm]( Muhammad Aditiriya Indraputra recalls how the pandemic-induced closure of lending startup AgenKan pushed him to grow. 3️⃣ [Asian workers more bullish on AI than most]( A PwC survey found that employees in Asia Pacific are more likely to see AI as beneficial to their work compared to their global peers.  ---------------------------------------------------------------  NEWS YOU SHOULD KNOW Also check out Tech in Asia’s coverage of the emerging tech scene [here](. 1️⃣ [Australian tech firms set sail to SEA]( Australian accelerator Haymarket HQ has launched two programs that aim to help local firms expand to Vietnam, Indonesia, and Singapore. 2️⃣ [Crypto.com and Line team up]( As part of the collaboration, Crypto.com’s services will be integrated into Line’s platform. 3️⃣ [A new MD to scale Peak XV]( Rohit Agarwal, who joined the VC firm in 2015, has been appointed as a managing director for its Singapore office. 4️⃣ [SG biotech firm reports revenue drop]( IPO-bound Mirxes recorded US$17.8 million in revenue for FY 2022, a 70.7% decline from the year before. 5️⃣ [The $150m cloud]( Singapore-based cloud infrastructure firm Aethir has raised an undisclosed amount of pre-series A funding at a US$150 million valuation.  --------------------------------------------------------------- That’s it for this edition - we hope you liked it! Do also check out previous issues of the newsletter [here](. Not your cup of tea? You can unsubscribe from this newsletter by going to your “edit profile” page and choosing that option in our preference center. See you soon! [ADVERTISE]( | [SUBSCRIBE]( | [HIRE]( | [FIND JOBS]( P.S. Don't miss out on the biggest tech news and analysis. Add newsletter@techinasia.com to your address book, contacts, or safe sender list. Or simply move us into your inbox. Too many emails? Switch to a different frequency or get new content through our [preference center]( or [unsubscribe](. You can also break our hearts and remove yourself from all Tech in Asia emails over [here](  Copyright © 2023 Tech in Asia, All rights reserved. 63 Robinson Road, Singapore 068894