The AI boom is lifting economies across Asia. But for Southeast Asia, it might just be a ‘short-term blip’

The numbers in Asia just keep getting bigger and bigger.

Taiwan is on track for its first year of double-digit GDP growth since 2010, thanks to surging demand for AI hardware exports.

It’s not the only economy reporting surging growth and export numbers.

Japan , Malaysia , Singapore and mainland China all reported over 20% growth in exports in July.

Exports from South Korea, home to chipmaking giants SK Hynix and Samsung , surged by more than 60% .

Second-quarter GDP growth also beat expectations in economies like Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan, thanks to electronics exports.

Equity markets, too, are experiencing the AI boom.

Shares in both chipmaker ChangXin Memory Technologies and robot manufacturer Unitree surged more than 450% on their first days of trading, on July 27 and August 19 respectively.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 and Thailand’s SET index are both up around 25% for the year; even after recent declines, South Korea’s KOSPI is almost 60% higher year-to-date.

Yet economists who study the region are worried that AI’s gains won’t be evenly shared across Asia—and that for Southeast Asia’s economies, which sit on the lower end of the value chain, the boom could be more of a “short-term blip.” “The sugar rush economic boom that Southeast Asia is experiencing is from providing the supporting—not leading-edge—semiconductors, and the power and resources to drive data centers,” Danny Quah, an economist from Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKYSPP), tells Fortune .

“But these are commodifiable, and no one will have a sustained comparative advantage in them.” Southeast Asia’s AI opportunity For now, at least, Southeast Asian nations are benefiting from the AI boom.

On August 11, Singapore sharply lifted its annual economic growth forecast from 2-4% to 4.5-5.5%, citing a boost from AI-related sectors and exports.

The city-state’s deep bench of semiconductor talent has made it a regional base for global developers and cloud providers.

Malaysia is also tapping its established position in chip assembly, testing and packaging, while Thailand and Vietnam have also attracted investments in data centers, cloud computing and electronics.