Asia's economic divide forecast to widen in 2026

This underscores a two-speed emerging Asia, where success is increasingly tied to technological integration and supply chain positioning. Winners are capitalizing on what the Tokyo-based investment bank Nomura described as "the AI supercycle". In its latest Asia macro outlook report it says that strong momentum in tech exports will sustain in 2026 on the back of strong AI demand, higher memory prices, and low-tech inventories.

Nomura expects prices of memory chips such as DRAM and NAND to rise by 44 percent and 61 percent respectively, generating "significant terms-of-trade gains" for South Korea.

"In terms of growth outlook, we think there will be leaders and laggards in the region," Sonal Varma, Nomura's chief economist for Asia ex-Japan, said at a briefing this month. She sees tech exports potentially accelerating next year, driven by the continued capital spending by cloud service providers.

Park Chong-hoon, Standard Chartered's head of research in South Korea, told China Daily he expects AI infrastructure investment flows to continue, becoming "more or less like a necessary investment for every economy".