As artificial intelligence (AI) deployments outgrow their experimental phase, Asia-Pacific organisations are now leaning on infrastructure standardisation and sovereign AI to scale globally and dodge supply chain bottlenecks. This shift reflects a maturing AI cycle where enterprises move from proof-of-concept to production-grade systems that must be resilient, cost-effective, and aligned with regional regulatory demands.
Speaking at a media briefing on the sidelines of Dell Technologies World 2026 in Las Vegas, executives from Dell, Standard Chartered, and South Korean tech giant Naver Cloud discussed how the maturity of the AI cycle is reshaping datacentres across the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region. The conversation highlighted two parallel but complementary strategies: standardising hardware to improve supply chain agility, and building sovereign AI capabilities to address data governance and national security concerns.
Dell revealed that its AI factory customer base has surged from 3,000 to over 5,000 in the past year. Beneath this rapid adoption of AI software and Nvidia-powered infrastructure lies a deeper need for resilient, highly commoditised infrastructure. The AI factory concept – pre-integrated, validated, and ready-to-deploy AI systems – has become a cornerstone for enterprises lacking the in-house expertise to design custom AI clusters.
The standardisation imperative at Standard Chartered
For Standard Chartered, operating across 54 global markets required the bank to redesign its private cloud infrastructure to achieve global scale and survive hardware shortages, according to its global head of infrastructure and operations, John Sharratt. The bank operates 52 country datacentres and four global datacentres as it looks to become a “super connector” for clients operating across borders.
To manage the bank’s infrastructure footprint, Sharratt’s team eliminated all specialised hardware components in favour of a fully virtualised, hyper-converged environment, where the standard unit of scale is the server rack itself. The remit of “simplicity, commodity and scale” meant that all storage, networking, and security had to be hyperconverged. The bank eliminated standalone storage area networks (SANs) and physical firewall appliances, instead relying on “boring” and interchangeable commodity hardware – specifically Dell servers and switches – housed within standard racks.
By avoiding highly specialised components, Standard Chartered has shielded itself from the worst of the industry’s supply chain shortages. “If you have a very specialist design, you cannot substitute components if the NICs [network interface cards], memory or disks are not available,” said Sharratt. “By eliminating that specialisation, we can literally roll a rack off the back of a lorry and have workloads running in just 24 hours.”
The bold move required navigating decades of technical debt, which is notoriously difficult to do in the financial services sector. Sharratt said the bank set up an architectural review board run by engineers to systematically refactor, virtualise, and scale every legacy application. “There’s always lots of legacy in a banking environment,” he said. “We have resolved all that legacy. There’s no physical server; it is all virtualised. We are sitting in an extremely comfortable position as a bank to ride out the supply chain problems.”
Sharratt revealed that the bank’s estate in Asia, which accounts for 70% of its global infrastructure footprint, is already running on this new architecture, with the model currently being deployed in the UK. “This is not a story of what we’re going to do,” he added. “This is a story of what we’ve done.”
The transformation at Standard Chartered offers a case study in how financial institutions can decouple their infrastructure from proprietary hardware dependencies. By embracing open standards and commodity components, the bank has not only improved resilience but also reduced costs and accelerated deployment cycles. This approach is particularly valuable in emerging markets where supply chain disruptions can delay critical projects.
Naver Cloud takes sovereign AI global
While Standard Chartered focuses on standardising infrastructure, Naver Cloud is leveraging its massive domestic datacentre footprint to export sovereign AI capabilities globally. Naver is South Korea’s leading IT portal and one of the few global search engines to successfully defend its home turf against Google. It operates massive infrastructure, including the multi-megawatt Gak Sejong datacentre. Having built its own generative AI model, HyperClova X, the company is now partnering with Dell and Nvidia to deploy AI factories tailored for digital sovereignty.
Kim Yu-won, CEO of Naver Cloud, noted that owning the full stack – from datacentres and graphics processing units to the underlying AI models – gives the company a unique advantage as governments and highly regulated industries look to protect their data. “In a world where sovereignty is key, we are highly flexible in giving each customer specific security and governance,” said Kim. “We want to provide customers that prioritise sovereignty with a dedicated private cloud, and on top of that, we want to integrate with AI technology.”
Naver Cloud is already taking this strategy beyond Korea, partnering with Thailand’s Siam AI to develop a Thai large language model and launching a joint venture in Saudi Arabia to build digital twin capabilities. These partnerships underscore the growing demand for AI systems that respect local data residency requirements and cultural nuances. Sovereign AI is not just about compliance; it also enables countries to build AI models that reflect their own languages, norms, and values.
“Infrastructure and models only matter if they solve real-world problems,” said Kim. “Ultimately, what we want to create is unprecedented practical value that does not exist in the world today.” This philosophy drives Naver Cloud to focus on vertical applications such as digital twinning, which can simulate smart city initiatives, and specialised language models that outperform generic alternatives in Korean context.
The rise of sovereign AI is reshaping the global AI landscape. As more nations seek to reduce dependence on foreign AI platforms, companies like Naver Cloud are well positioned to offer tailored solutions. The company’s deep integration with Dell and Nvidia provides the hardware foundation, while its own model gives it control over the AI layer. This end-to-end ownership is a key differentiator in a market where many cloud providers rely on third-party models.
Dell’s role in the ecosystem
Dell Technologies’ newly appointed leader for the APAC region, Richard McLaughlin, said helping customers navigate supply chain challenges and chart a path to becoming AI-driven companies remain his top priorities. “The AI ecosystem is changing as it is being embraced and created by our customers in the AI economy,” said McLaughlin. “New business models, products and services are emerging in the region as agentic frameworks become more commonplace. We’re seeing the region’s enterprises accelerating, advancing, innovating, and entering agent lifecycle development at pace.”
He added that Dell is actively working with enterprise clients on “demand shaping” over the next four to five years to improve supply chain resilience, echoing Sharratt’s sentiment that disciplined infrastructure planning is critical. “We believe that we have the supply chain advantage in the marketplace,” said McLaughlin. “We have over 40 years of relationships with suppliers to help de-risk the supply chain for our key customers.”
Dell’s role extends beyond hardware supply. The company’s AI factory program provides reference architectures, validated designs, and integration services that help customers deploy AI at scale. With the explosion of agentic AI – systems that can autonomously perform tasks and make decisions – Dell is seeing demand for more dynamic infrastructure that can support continuous learning and inference. The company’s partnership with Nvidia remains central to these efforts, especially as GPU availability continues to be a bottleneck.
McLaughlin emphasized that APAC is a hotbed of AI innovation, driven by both large multinationals and startups. From financial services in Singapore to manufacturing in Japan and e-commerce in India, enterprises are looking to embed AI into their core operations. However, the path is not without challenges. Skills shortages, data quality issues, and regulatory fragmentation remain obstacles that Dell and its partners are working to address.
Infrastructure standardisation and sovereign AI are not mutually exclusive; in fact, they complement each other. Standardisation provides the agility to deploy AI quickly and cost-effectively, while sovereign AI ensures that the AI systems respect local laws and cultural contexts. Together, these strategies are enabling APAC organisations to move from AI experimentation to production at unprecedented scale.
The lessons from Standard Chartered and Naver Cloud are clear. Enterprises must simplify their infrastructure to survive supply chain disruptions, while also building sovereign capabilities to meet regulatory demands. As AI continues to evolve, those who invest in both will be best positioned to lead in the AI era.
Source:ComputerWeekly.com News