APEC Adopts AI Plan Amid Industry Power Shift

APEC ministers adopted the Incheon Plan, a five‑year roadmap prioritizing AI and digitalization and calling for human‑centered approaches, regulatory modernization, talent development, and digital infrastructure investment to boost inclusive growth across the Asia‑Pacific, with national initiatives such as Malaysia’s RM2 billion Sovereign AI Cloud cited as moves to protect digital sovereignty. Subsequent reporting places that policy move in a rapidly changing industry context where generative models like ChatGPT are shifting AI from products to infrastructure, concentrating technical power in a few firms and raising geopolitical and sovereignty concerns. Businesses and governments are committing large sums to AI compute and chip capacity while adoption surges, even as workforce impacts include automation, hidden data‑annotation labor, and simultaneous startup optimism and significant tech layoffs. Observers also highlight real harms and limits — high‑profile model errors, environmental costs, and risks of concentrated control over data and models — underscoring the need for robust governance, equitable data control, AI literacy, and protections for vulnerable workers. Ministers’ calls for coordination, social safety nets and ethical frameworks in the Incheon Plan are therefore seen as timely but now framed against these broader systemic industry shifts.