When US President Donald Trump stood outside the White House on April 2 and unveiled his punitive “Liberation Day” tariffs on most US trading partners, Asia was singled out for particularly harsh punishment. With the region accounting for seven of the 10 economies with the largest trade surpluses with the US, Asia was bound to be hit hard.
However, as 2025 draws to a close, Asia’s economies have shown remarkable resilience. While several factors are at play, the most important one is the boom in generative artificial intelligence (AI).
Home to many of the leading companies that supply components for the AI buildout, Asia’s export-oriented economies are among the biggest beneficiaries of the AI super cycle. Tariff exemptions for semiconductors and other electronic products contributed to a tripling of Asian technology exports this year, causing tech exuberance to reach a different level in 2025, according to JPMorgan.
In Asia’s real estate industry, the impact of the AI boom is plain to see. A cursory glance at commercial property transaction volumes this year shows that data centres were the stand-out performer. In the third quarter, there were US$6.5 billion worth of deals, more than in the retail sector and up 739 per cent in annualised terms compared with a 25 per cent increase for income-producing properties across all sectors, data from MSCI shows.
Not only were data centres the preferred sector for cross-border investors in Asian commercial property this year, but investment activity for the year as a whole is on track to surpass last year’s record of more than US$20 billion.
The craze for AI is part of a broader theme of resilience in sales and leasing activity in commercial and residential real estate across the Asia-Pacific region. In fact, what is striking is that some of the markets where geopolitical, economic and financial vulnerabilities are most acute performed the strongest in 2025.