Alibaba meant a small seller could open a shop and reach customers far beyond their own town, without owning a storefront.

Amazon meant that same seller could get fulfilment, logistics and trust, without building a warehouse and delivery network first.

My view puts those two moments together and adds a third: agents give that seller a global team, for sales, service, operations and finance, at a cost a small business can actually pay.

That is why the moment matters now, and why it matters most in markets like Vietnam, where the customers, payments and distribution are already in place, but the enterprise layer is not.

Own the brain, keep the data and deployment local, and use the best model East or West. That is how a country, and a company, goes from using someone else's AI to building with its own.

Allocators: do not allocate on the model alone. Allocate on the application layer in emerging markets, where distribution and payments already exist. Price geopolitical risk into both sides: last week's DeepSeek ban in Washington (Federal Register) and this week's China capacity building push (Foreign Ministry briefing, 26 Oct) are two sides of one market. Watch Anthropic's IPO as a pricing event for the whole West AI stack, not just one company (S-1; CGTN).

Builders: build for the SME first. The shop, fulfilment and global team are now composable. Build the trust layer, identity, payments, verification and control, or your agents will not be allowed into real businesses (IBM release via AAP).

Both: look East for physical and applied AI, not just models. Nanning (Xinhua via AsiaNet) and China's AI hardware makers (National Bureau of Statistics) are signing orders and booking profits, not just demoing.

China welcomed more countries into AI capacity building through the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization. Foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said global governance needs "the collective capacity enhancement of the Global South" (Foreign Ministry briefing, 26 Oct). (Foreign Ministry, 26 Oct, official)

China's industrial profits rose 14.4% year on year in September (National Bureau of Statistics), the fastest in three months by CNBC's reading. CNBC links the rise to AI hardware demand and higher energy prices, with factory gate prices rising at their fastest pace since mid-2022, and the statistics bureau credits electronics and advanced manufacturing (CNBC). (NBS, 27 Oct, official)

Nanning launched an AI marketplace at the 23rd China ASEAN Expo: more than 70 companies showed over 500 products, with transactions above 28 million yuan (Xinhua via AsiaNet). (Xinhua, 27 Oct, reported)

All five of the most used AI models on OpenRouter last week (19 to 25 Oct) were Chinese, led by DeepSeek. By an NBD estimate from OpenRouter data, 188T tokens were routed in total, and the Chinese models among its top nine handled 93.54T against 22.47T for US models, the 26th straight week ahead. OpenRouter counts only traffic routed through its own platform, so this is not global market share (NBD). (NBD, 26 Oct, reported)

The DeepSeek fight continues. Last week Washington published an order removing DeepSeek products from federal civilian agencies (Federal Register), and China's commerce ministry called the move discriminatory and promised "all necessary measures" (China Daily). (DHS and MOFCOM, 20 Oct, official)

Anthropic filed publicly for its IPO. First half 2026 revenue was $16.29B, up from $1.16B a year earlier, with a first quarterly operating profit of $974M. It plans to list on Nasdaq under ANT (S-1; CGTN). The net loss was $80.7B, mostly a $72.4B non-cash fair value charge on convertible notes and other instruments (S-1). (S-1, 26 Oct, company disclosure)

Anthropic's 5% share commitment to a new Public Benefit Fund could be worth about $100B if the company reaches the $2T valuation backers hope for. Its seven co-founders pledged to give away 80% of their equity (AFP via Malay Mail). (AFP, 27 Oct, reported)

US stocks rose, helped by the filing. The Nasdaq gained 0.82% on Monday, led by semiconductors and consumer discretionary shares (HDFC Sky). (Market close, 26 Oct, reported)

IBM launched identity and control for AI agents: verified identities, least privilege access and real time revocation. IBM says enterprises cannot scale agents they cannot see, test or account for (IBM release via AAP). (IBM, 27 Oct, company disclosure)

Thieves have taken more than $100M in AI data centre freight across the US since June, including a $13M trailer bound for Georgia (NBC News). One investigator counted $110.6M between 3 June and mid-August (FreightWaves). (NBC News, 26 Oct, reported)

Anthropic: S-1 filed; no share count or price range set yet (S-1). Backers hope for a valuation of up to $2T (CGTN). (Reported)

No other new funding rounds were verified in today's news flow.