News & Events
new piece: malaysian flag gaffes expose how AI can inflame deep societal divisions
Two main points from this piece:
1. Under the hood of reductive geopolitical narratives, domestic dynamics offer a more interesting - yes, messy - but nuanced composite of how smaller countries juggle strategic competition;
2. In already polarised societies, the more we surrender cognitive filtering, critical analysis, and due diligence to the altar of digital tech including AI, the higher the real world costs of "convenience" and "optimisation".
Published in South China Morning Post, 6 May 2025: https://www.scmp.com/opinion/asia-opinion/article/3308971/malaysian-flag-gaffes-expose-how-ai-can-inflame-deep-social-divisions
Channel News Asia, 30 April 2025:
Recent event: Briefing on AI, Geopolitics, and diplomacy to closed group of asia-pacific leaders
Humbled by the opportunity to offer some thoughts on AI, its geopolitics of access and infrastructure, and impact on diplomacy to a group of former ministers/heads of government in the Asia Pacific. The gathering was convened by the incomparable Pak Marty Natalegawa, Indonesian former foreign minister.
Grateful that this event took place in my home city of Kuala Lumpur (great reason to return!) and was supported by Temasek Foundation.
new piece: in us-china rivalry, southeast asia is no one's prize. why do we insist otherwise?
new piece: in us-china rivalry, southeast asia is no one's prize. why do we insist otherwise?
The narrative about Southeast Asian countries to be courted/won over by the major powers is "a lazy, tired trope, repeated inside the region as well as beyond, that refuses to disappear [...] The region's population would be better served in the 21st century by policy elites building Southeast Asia's collective potential in new and creative ways, rather than rehashing trite arguments about why the region matters for the self-interested gaze of metropoles near and far."
Published in The Lowy Institute's, The Interpreter, on 24 April 2025: https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/us-china-rivalry-southeast-asia-no-one-s-prize-why-do-we-insist-otherwise
Republished by Channel News Asia, 25 April 2025: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/commentary/southeast-asia-united-states-china-rivalry-trade-war-5086156
Media: Xi's visit to southeast asia
New piece: AI Competition in Southeast Asia: Can Malaysia’s ASEAN Chairmanship Make a Difference?
new piece: in us-china rivalry, southeast asia is no one's prize. why do we insist otherwise?
Fresh (well, jet-lagged, really) from returning from Malaysia, was on CGTN America's "The Heat" on 17 April 2025 to discuss Xi Jinping's visit to Vietnam, Malaysia, and Cambodia mid-April.
Interestingly, but unsurprisingly, my very brief - and benign - mention of the South China Sea dispute was edited out of the recording: https://america.cgtn.com/2025/04/17/the-heat-xis-visit-to-southeast-asia-2
New piece: AI Competition in Southeast Asia: Can Malaysia’s ASEAN Chairmanship Make a Difference?
New piece: AI Competition in Southeast Asia: Can Malaysia’s ASEAN Chairmanship Make a Difference?
New piece: AI Competition in Southeast Asia: Can Malaysia’s ASEAN Chairmanship Make a Difference?
"ASEAN could, in fact, consider a different approach to AI if it allows itself to strategize beyond the strictures of the global supply chain and obsession with growth figures. Malaysia’s chairmanship theme of “Inclusivity and Sustainability” offers a timely opportunity to deliberate on the goals of AI optimisation in the regional context and to substantively and practicably reframe the raison d’être for AI deployment throughout the region."
More in the link below.
Published by the Asia-Pacific Leadership Network, 10 April 2025: https://www.apln.network/projects/asia-dialogue-on-china-us-relations/ai-competition-in-southeast-asia-can-malaysias-asean-chairmanship-make-a-difference
New video: western bias in AI: Why local models matter for Southeast Asia
New piece: AI Competition in Southeast Asia: Can Malaysia’s ASEAN Chairmanship Make a Difference?
New piece: AI Competition in Southeast Asia: Can Malaysia’s ASEAN Chairmanship Make a Difference?
Many large language models (LLMs) are trained on data that reflects Western perspectives and the English language. But what does that mean for users in Southeast Asia, where over 1,200 languages are spoken?
In this video, Binya Kanitroj and I explore how AI models like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude struggle with cultural understanding, historical narratives, and identity. These blind spots aren't just small errors—they reflect a deeper issue of cultural representation in AI.
Now, developers across Southeast Asia are pushing back. They’re building AI models in languages like Thai, Malay, and Khmer to democratize AI access and challenge the dominance of Western and Chinese models. But they face tough choices: should they train new models from scratch or fine-tune existing ones? And how do they navigate the growing geopolitical competition over AI?
This clip is based on our fuller report: https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2025/01/speaking-in-code-contextualizing-large-language-models-in-southeast-asia?lang=en
New publication: Indonesia in BRICS
New publication: Speaking in Code: Contextualizing Large Language Models in Southeast Asia
recent event: China-southeast asia in a changing world, 16 january 2025
My take, based on discussions within Indonesian policy circles, on why Jakarta decided to join BRICS.
A Carnegie Endowment for International Peace publication on, "BRICS Expansion and the Future of World Order: Perspectives from Member States, Partners, and Aspirants," 31 March 2025:
recent event: China-southeast asia in a changing world, 16 january 2025
New publication: Speaking in Code: Contextualizing Large Language Models in Southeast Asia
recent event: China-southeast asia in a changing world, 16 january 2025
The relationship between Southeast Asia and China reflects a complex interplay of strategic, economic, and ideological considerations that unfold in diverse and sometimes contradictory ways across and within Southeast Asian states, shaped by varying interests, actors, perceptions and lived experiences.
Co-hosted by Carnegie China and the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, this event unpacks these complexities by focusing on three new facets: the implications of recent leadership changes in Southeast Asian countries for Southeast Asia-China relations, the growing salience of technology in China’s regional engagement, and Southeast Asian responses to China’s ideational and ideological projection through its various global initiatives.
Drawing on insights from the recently launched China Through a Southeast Asian Lens series by Carnegie China (https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2024/11/china-through-a-southeast-asian-lens?lang=en), the event provides a timely exploration of these topical issues and fosters a candid dialogue between Southeast Asian and Chinese speakers. The discussion offers an exchange of different perspectives to better understand Southeast Asia’s evolving strategies in navigating its ties with China and how China perceives Southeast Asia’s importance in its global strategy.
https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2025/01/southeast-asia-want-new-us-administration?lang=en
New publication: Speaking in Code: Contextualizing Large Language Models in Southeast Asia
New publication: Speaking in Code: Contextualizing Large Language Models in Southeast Asia
New publication: Subsea communication cables in Southeast Asia: A comprehensive approach is needed
Southeast Asia’s developers have sought to democratize AI by building language models that better represent the region’s languages, worldviews, and values. Yet, language is deeply political in a region as multiculturally diverse and complex as Southeast Asia. Can localized large language models truly preserve and project the region’s nuances?
New publication: Subsea communication cables in Southeast Asia: A comprehensive approach is needed
New publication: Subsea communication cables in Southeast Asia: A comprehensive approach is needed
What do history, nature, and geopolitics have to do with subsea communication cables in Southeast Asia? A lot, I argue.
The region needs to take a comprehensive approach to this critical element of digital infrastructure - in fact, with regard to all data-driven tech - across a longer arc of time:
https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2024/12/southeast-asia-undersea-subsea-cables?lang=en
Appointment to UN Secretary-General's Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters
Appointment to UN Secretary-General's Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters
So pleased and honored to serve on this advisory board at a time when multilateralism and its institutions are being challenged or undermined, and when advances in science and tech are extending the trajectory of impact on human security in very different ways.
Over the next two years, alongside a formidable, diverse group of colleagues and an excellent team at UNIDIR and UNODA, we'll focus on international peace and security risks emanating from science/tech advances. We began our first meeting with an intense strategic foresight exercise that pushed many of us beyond our comfort zones. Hopefully, we'll be able to do some of our own envelope-pushing within the UN system.
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About
Elina Noor is a senior fellow in the Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace where she focuses on developments in Southeast Asia, particularly the impact and implications of technology in reshaping power dynamics, governance, and nation-building in the region.
Previously, Elina was director of political-security affairs and deputy director of the Washington, D.C. office at the Asia Society Policy Institute. Prior to that, Elina was an associate professor at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu. She spent most of her career at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies Malaysia, where she last held the position of director, foreign policy and security studies. Elina was also formerly with the Brookings Institution’s Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World.
Between 2017 and 2019, Elina was part of the Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace. From 2021 to 2023, she served on the International Committee of the Red Cross Global Advisory Board on digital threats during conflict. She currently serves on the United Nations Secretary-General's Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters.
Elina read law at Oxford University. She obtained an LL.M (Public International Law) from the London School of Economics and Political Science, University of London, graduating with distinction at the top of her class. A recipient of the Perdana (Malaysian Prime Minister’s) Fellowship, she also holds an MA in security studies from Georgetown University, where she was a Women in International Security Scholar.
Special project: Between the binary
What is it?
Between the Binary is a limited series podcast highlighting the priorities, prospects, and challenges of technology in the Global South through the voices of experts in and from the Global South. It was curated during my time as John H. McArthur Research Fellow with the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada in 2022.
'Between the Binary' is a play on three concepts in the digital age: of societies that either fit within or straddle the Global South/Global North divide (defined here to refer to developed countries geographically located in the southern hemisphere or marginalized peoples in high-income economies north of the equator); of stakeholders in a landscape increasingly underwritten by the binary code of 1s and 0s.; and, of countries caught in the middle of a trending technological rupture.
By 2100, more than 90 per cent of the world’s population is projected to live outside Europe and North America. Most will live in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, presenting substantial market opportunities. Yet current deliberations on technology inadequately address the needs and aspirations of this majority – let alone how stakeholders in these parts of the world should be able to determine the way tech impacts their lives. If a large part of the future lies with the people of Asia and Africa, it seems only fair to expect the governance structures – the norms, rules, and international legal frameworks – of technology to reflect the perspectives, expectations, and value-systems of the world’s majority.
'Between the Binary' seeks to amplify the viewpoints of this majority by unpacking technology’s intersections with history, gender, power, the economy, and behavioural psychology with a mix of established and next-generation guests from Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Pacific Islands, and North America. Through these conversations, this podcast aims to improve understanding of the prospects and challenges of digitalization and equity in the Global South, as well as identify areas of convergence and co-operation within the Global South and with the Global North.
*Here, the term Global South refers to developing countries, most of which are geographically located in the southern hemisphere. However, it also takes a more expansive conception of the term – as outlined by Chinmayi Arun – to include disenfranchised communities living both in “Southern” countries but also in economically developed countries in the “North”. This interpretation would account for, for example, indigenous populations in both “Southern” and “Northern” countries but also other stakeholders who have had to resist marginalization, oppression, and/or injustice.
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Listen to a range of expert voices from Aotearoa and Brazil to South Africa and the Caribbean on what tech priorities, challenges, and innovations look like in the majority world.