Investment Monitor

Weekly Newsletter

11 August 2023

Weekly Newsletter

Shengyi Technology to open $200m plant in Thailand

China's Shengyi Technology will open a new $196m plant in Chachoengsao, Thailand, to build components used in printed circuit boards.

Shengyi Technology, a China-based manufacturer and supplier of electronic circuit base materials, plans to invest $196m (1.41bn yuan) to establish a new plant in Chachoengsao, a province in south-central Thailand. The new plant will enable the company to meet international clients' demand for the components used in printed circuit boards.

Shengyi Technology is headquartered in Dongguan, China, and was founded in 1985. It has wholly owned subsidiaries and holding companies in Xianyang, Suzhou, Changshu, Nantong and Jiujiang within the Chinese mainland, as well as in Taiwan and Hong Kong. The company employees nearly 10,000 people worldwide.

The province of Chachoengsao has a population of around 750,000. Its economy had been traditionally based around agriculture but it has more recently established a reputation as a centre for recycling potentially hazardous electronic waste. China has been responsible for a number of investments into Thailand in recent months, including an electric vehicle production facility from Changan and Wuxi Baotong Technology's $90m conveyor belt plant.

Generative AI expected to drive significant disruption across the financial services industry

Per latest GlobalData estimates, the AI market was valued at $81 billion in 2022, and is expected to achieve a CAGR of more than 35% between 2022 and 2030. Artificial intelligence is reported by executives across all industries (and all FS sub-segments), as likely to drive “significant disruption” next 12-24 months out, and that “significant disruption” has already occurred (within the past 12-24 months). Gen AI, a specific sub-set of AI, is expected to drive even greater disruption. Gen AI is being experimented with by many leading incumbent banks, new entrants and technology vendors but concerns around data privacy and hallucinations drive caution. More human-like chat bots, and synthetic data for fraud and cyber resilience, are leading possible use cases. However, currently Gen AI is virtually non-existent in terms of “live” customer facing propositions. Chatbots, perhaps the most compelling near-term use case, remain completely untouched by even the pioneers in the field. While the benefits are clear long-term, short-term the risks are even clearer, whether that’s inaccurate guidance or advice in a heavily regulated arena, data leakage, fraud and cyber vulnerabilities, and so on. As such, risk management features prominently in the calculations. However, the fear of missing out is palpable. Incumbents need clear policies to help identify those most promising, early Gen AI use cases, then rapidly deploy them across the enterprise.