Science
Asia Leaders
Scott Wu Joined Devin With Windsurf. The Combined Product Must Earn a US$26 Billion Valuation
A FigureAsia examination of how Scott Wu is turning Cognition's integration of the Windsurf editor into Devin's agentic workflow and its 2026 expansion into London, Japan and Singapore into a test of economics, execution and durable leadership.
Asia Leaders
Aravind Srinivas Turned Search Into a Computer. Perplexity Must Now Make the Economics Legible
A FigureAsia examination of how Aravind Srinivas is turning Perplexity's 2026 shift from an answer engine towards Perplexity Computer, an agentic system that executes research and work rather than merely returning links into a test of economics, execution and durable leadership.
Asia Leaders
Adarsh Hiremath Built Mercor's Human-Data Engine. Security and Worker Quality Are Now the Product
A FigureAsia examination of how Adarsh Hiremath is turning Mercor's move from automated recruiting into high-skill human-data infrastructure for frontier AI laboratories into a test of economics, execution and durable leadership.
Asia Leaders
Nithin Kamath Is Turning Zerodha’s Profits Into Patient Capital. Rainmatter Needs Portfolio Accountability
Rainmatter has expanded from fintech partnerships into a broad portfolio and a foundation supporting climate and livelihoods. Nithin Kamath must show how patient capital learns, recycles returns and remains accountable when it avoids board seats and fixed exits.
Asia Leaders
Huda Kattan Bought Back Huda Beauty. Founder Control Must Now Fund Its Own Growth
Huda Kattan has placed social-led product discovery, colour cosmetics, direct consumer relationships and selective distribution through retailers such as Sephora at the centre of the strategy. The next phase will test capital discipline, execution and durability across Asia.
Asia Leaders
Feng Zhang Won $34.5 Million for Paediatric Epilepsy Editing. A Shared Platform Must Defeat Rare-Disease Economics
Feng Zhang’s ARPA-H-backed PERC consortium targets two severe childhood epilepsies first. Its real value will be whether one platform can lower the cost of treating many ultra-rare diseases.
Asia Leaders
Demis Hassabis Moved DeepMind Deeper Into the Laboratory. Scientific AI Needs a Verification Business Model
Demis Hassabis is building a wider scientific-AI stack around AlphaGenome and Co-Scientist. The opportunity is large, but laboratories need reproducible gains rather than fluent novelty.
Asia Leaders
Chuan He Connected Diet, RNA Marks and Early Immunity. Product Builders Must Separate Signal From Platform
Chuan He’s latest research brings RNA regulation into early-life immunity, learning and development. The opportunity is broad, but commercial claims must stay behind causal evidence.
Asia Leaders
Anima Anandkumar Put Neural Operators on Firmer Ground. Scientific AI Must Earn Its Compute
Anima Anandkumar’s neural-operator research targets reusable scientific models rather than one-off predictions. Adoption will depend on verification, compute economics and domain trust.
Asia Leaders
Shimon Sakaguchi Extended Treg Science Into Cancer and Heart Failure. Translation Must Now Prove Its Range
Shimon Sakaguchi’s 2026 research links Treg biology to checkpoint response and heart-failure fibrosis. Platform value will depend on reproducibility, manufacturing and patient selection.
Asia Leaders
Omar M. Yaghi Pulled Carbon From Open Air With COFs. Deployment Must Beat the Energy Bill
Omar M. Yaghi’s 2026 work pairs direct-air carbon capture with ambitious framework design. Commercialisation depends on energy use, material lifetime and repeatable manufacturing.
Asia Leaders
Anousheh Ansari Proved Prizes Can Mobilise Research. XPRIZE Winners Still Need Customers
XPRIZE can define ambitious goals and attract innovators that conventional programmes miss. Anousheh Ansari must now measure how many winning technologies become deployed systems rather than ending at a compelling final demonstration.
Asia Leaders
Yoshinori Ohsumi Put Nobel Capital Into Basic Research. Autophagy’s Drug Pipeline Still Has to Deliver
Yoshinori Ohsumi's fund is backing young researchers whose work may need years to mature. The latest autophagy drug programmes show why Asia needs capital structures that can absorb scientific uncertainty without confusing a celebrated mechanism with a de-risked market.
Asia Leaders
Susumu Kitagawa Made Porous Crystals More Selective. Industrial Separation Will Test Their Economics
Susumu Kitagawa’s 2026 MOF research advances selective carbon-dioxide and ammonia capture. Commercial value will turn on lifetime cost, process integration and industrial-scale production.
Asia Leaders
Shou Zi Chew Kept TikTok in America. Now He Has to Run a Global Platform Through National Borders
Shou Zi Chew survived TikTok’s American divestiture crisis. The settlement now forces him to govern one product through separate systems of ownership, algorithms, safety and regulation.
Asia Leaders
Lip-Bu Tan Has Put Intel Back on an Engineering Clock. The Foundry Still Has to Find Customers
Lip-Bu Tan has restored discipline and delivered Intel 18A into production. The company’s future now turns on whether 14A can win the external volume that its fabs—and its identity—require.
Asia Leaders
Jay Bhattacharya Is Rewriting How America Funds Medical Science. The Portfolio Test Starts Now
Jay Bhattacharya has secured room to reshape the world’s most influential biomedical funder. His challenge is to make risk-taking, replication and real-world data produce better science without turning grant selection into an opaque policy instrument.
Asia Leaders
For Demis Hassabis, Gemini’s Leap Into Action Makes Scientific Proof the Hard Part
Demis Hassabis has turned Google DeepMind into the research engine behind products used at vast scale. Its next challenge is to preserve scientific credibility while delivering on Alphabet’s historic AI investment.
Asia Leaders
Daphne Koller’s $800 Million AI Bet Is Reaching Its First Human Trial Test
Daphne Koller has financed insitro with roughly $800 million in capital and collaboration revenue. Its first AI-discovered MASH programme is nearing the point where patients, not models, set the valuation.
Asia Leaders
Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke Turned a Haunted Vacuum Into Thailand’s Breakout Film. Now He Has to Build Beyond the Festival Circuit
After ‘A Useful Ghost’ won the Critics’ Week Grand Prix, Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke must convert festival discovery into durable financing and distribution.
Asia Leaders
Uğur Şahin Is Preparing to Leave BioNTech. The Oncology Pipeline Must Outlast Its Founder
BioNTech’s Covid success funded an ambitious oncology pipeline. With Uğur Şahin preparing to leave, clinical execution and succession have become inseparable.
Asia Leaders
LG Chem Is Learning the Price of Transition
A FigureAsia examination of how Shin Hak-cheol is positioning LG Chem for the next phase of chemicals and materials.
Asia Leaders
Bong Joon-ho Bet Big on a Disposable Man
A FigureAsia long-form profile of Bong Joon-ho, examining how the 2025 work changed the terms of filmmaking, international reach and creative control.
Asia Leaders
Huda Zoghbi Opened a New Route to Rett Treatment. The Dose-Control Problem Will Decide Its Value
Huda Zoghbi’s latest Rett research attacks the disease’s narrow therapeutic window. Translating it will test whether precision neuroscience can deliver control, not simply a powerful one-time intervention.
Asia Leaders
Nikesh Arora Is Automating the Internet's Certificate Reset. Forty-Seven Days Will Expose the Gaps
Nikesh Arora is pushing Palo Alto Networks into cryptographic operations as certificate renewals accelerate and governments prepare for quantum-resistant standards. The opportunity sits inside every digital service; the risk is that failed automation can stop those services at the same scale.
Asia Leaders
Shimon Sakaguchi’s Nobel Prize Has Become a Clinical Manufacturing Test
Shimon Sakaguchi’s discoveries gave immunology a new control system. RegCell’s planned US and Japanese trials will test whether that science can become a scalable autoimmune therapy rather than another elegant but expensive cell-therapy proposition.
Asia Leaders
Idan Ofer Is Rewriting a Shipping Inheritance for the Energy Transition
FigureAsia examines the strategic choices, governance pressures and market consequences defining Idan Ofer’s next chapter at Quantum Pacific and Israel Corp..
Asia Leaders
Masashi Yanagisawa Is Taking Sleep Testing Out of the Lab. The Data Must Earn Clinical Trust
Masashi Yanagisawa is building a commercial bridge between sleep neuroscience, home EEG and health data. Its value depends on proving that measurement changes treatment and outcomes.
Asia Leaders
Haluk Bayraktar Is Moving KIZILELMA Into Production. A Combat-Ready Fleet Is the Test
Baykar’s KIZILELMA has progressed from rapid prototyping to a production model with an expanding weapons portfolio. Haluk Bayraktar must now build the airworthiness, maintenance and manufacturing system behind an operational fleet.
Asia Leaders
Vinod Khosla Backed a Record-Hot Geothermal System. The 2026 Wells Must Turn Heat Into Bankable Power
AI data centres need clean power around the clock. Vinod Khosla’s backing of Mazama Energy could open a major geothermal resource, but a temperature record is not a power plant and the 2026 field campaign must prove repeatable economics.
Asia Leaders
Zhang Yiming Left the Corner Office but Not the Algorithmic Age
FigureAsia examines the strategic choices, governance pressures and market consequences defining Zhang Yiming’s next chapter at ByteDance.
Asia Leaders
Ameera Shah Shifted From Operator to Capital Allocator. Metropolis’s Acquisitions Must Now Earn Their Margin
Metropolis Healthcare delivered stronger revenue and margins after acquiring three diagnostic businesses. Ameera Shah's next task is to integrate specialised science, local brands and a national network without overpaying for consolidation.
Asia Leaders
Demis Hassabis Raised $2.1 Billion to Industrialise AI Drug Design. The Clinic Has Yet to Validate the Engine
Demis Hassabis has given Isomorphic Labs the capital and computing ambition of a technology platform. The harder test is whether its drug candidates can survive the slower economics of human biology.
Asia Leaders
Feng Zhang Made Genome Editing Programmable. His New Tools Must Make It Deliverable
Feng Zhang’s laboratory has expanded the genome-editing toolbox again. The commercial test is whether smaller, safer systems can escape specialist centres and reach patients across Asia at viable cost.
Asia Leaders
Neal Mohan Turned Video Podcasts Into a Premium Habit. YouTube Must Prove the Subscription Lift
Neal Mohan is using video podcasts to deepen YouTube's subscription proposition while preserving free discovery and creator payouts. The next proof is whether heavy listening produces durable, profitable members.
Asia Leaders
Feng Zhang Found Smaller Gene-Editing Machinery. Delivery Will Decide Whether It Becomes a Therapeutic Platform
Feng Zhang’s laboratory continues to mine natural biology for programmable systems. Compact editors can fit into delivery vehicles that larger tools cannot, but therapeutic value will require precision, manufacturing and evidence beyond the discovery paper.
Asia Leaders
Yejin Choi Is Challenging AI’s Scale-at-All-Costs Economics. Smaller Models Must Win Beyond the Lab
Yejin Choi’s work questions the assumption that the largest model should perform every task. Her alternative—smarter algorithms, specialised systems and pluralistic design—could lower AI costs if it proves robust in real organisations and languages.
Asia Leaders
Ong Ye Kung’s S$2.5 Billion Research Bet Must Connect to Healthier SG
Singapore is committing S$2.5 billion to translational and clinical research while expanding Healthier SG and ageing capacity. Ong Ye Kung must link discovery, primary-care incentives and measurable reductions in hospital demand.
Asia Leaders
Aaron Ciechanover’s Protein-Disposal Discovery Has Its First PROTAC Drug. The Platform Must Now Show Breadth
The first PROTAC medicine won US approval in May 2026, extending the commercial legacy of Aaron Ciechanover's ubiquitin research. The field must now demonstrate that targeted degradation can produce multiple drugs, reliable manufacturing and accessible patient value.
Asia Leaders
Suchi Saria Put Predictive AI Into 20 Hospitals. The Next Sale Depends on Operational Returns
Suchi Saria’s clinical AI has evidence of adoption and improved sepsis outcomes. Its 2026 test is whether those gains can be reproduced across Asian health systems with different data, workflows and economics.
Asia Leaders
Lim Chow Kiat Is Building GIC for a World That Cannot Be Forecast. The Price Is More Selectivity
Lim Chow Kiat is adapting GIC to geopolitical fragmentation, AI disruption and climate risk through granular investing and stronger cross-asset leadership. The strategy depends on liquidity, selectivity and institutional patience.
Asia Leaders
Fei-Fei Li’s $1 Billion Spatial-AI Bet Runs Into the Physics Problem
Fei-Fei Li has raised $1 billion to commercialise spatial intelligence. World Labs’ harder task is moving from compelling 3D output to reliable simulation.
Asia Leaders
Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber Is Building ADNOC for an Energy Transition That Adds Before It Subtracts
Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber is turning ADNOC, XRG and Masdar into a single thesis about energy security, industrial power and decarbonisation. Its credibility will be determined by capital allocation, not rhetoric.
Asia Leaders
Hock Tan’s $35 Billion AI Platform Moves Broadcom Closer to Its Biggest Customers—and Their Risks
Hock Tan has expanded Broadcom’s custom-chip model into gigawatt-scale infrastructure financed by Apollo and Blackstone. Its power comes with customer, supply and deployment concentration.
Asia Leaders
Anima Anandkumar Joined the UN’s Science Board. AI for Science Needs Standards the World Can Afford
Anima Anandkumar’s 2026 appointment to the UN Secretary-General’s Scientific Advisory Board puts a technical researcher inside a global governance debate. The commercial and policy test is whether AI-assisted science can be verified, reproduced and made accessible across unequal computing markets.
Asia Leaders
Daikin’s Masanori Togawa Is Selling Climate Control to a Warming World
A FigureAsia examination of how Masanori Togawa is positioning Daikin for the next phase of industrial.
Asia Leaders
Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw Has Recombined Biocon. The Biosimilars Bet Must Now Generate Cash
Biocon’s structure is finally catching up with the global biosimilars business Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw assembled. Stronger margins and falling leverage are encouraging, but dilution, price competition and manufacturing execution remain material tests.
Asia Leaders
Lee Bul Built the Future From Ruins
A FigureAsia long-form profile of Lee Bul, examining how the 2025 work changed the terms of contemporary art, international reach and creative control.
Asia Leaders
Jitendra Malik Is Putting Sensorimotor Learning Before Language. Robotics Must Build Its Own Data Economy
Jitendra Malik helped shape modern computer vision and now presses AI toward embodied learning. The next advance will depend on shared benchmarks, useful simulation and fleets that turn physical experience into reliable generalisation.
Asia Leaders
Han Kang’s Nobel Afterlife Changed the Business of Translation
A FigureAsia long-form profile of Han Kang, examining how the 2025 work changed the terms of literature, international reach and creative control.
Asia Leaders
Liu Cixin Became a Franchise Without Becoming a Brand Mascot
A FigureAsia long-form profile of Liu Cixin, examining how the 2025 work changed the terms of literature and screen adaptation, international reach and creative control.
Asia Leaders
Daphne Koller Is Turning Insitro’s AI Platform Into Drug Candidates. Biology Still Sets the Clock
Daphne Koller has spent years building a machine-learning company around human biology. In 2026, insitro’s partnerships and preclinical programmes are beginning to test whether its data advantage can produce medicines rather than promising hypotheses.
Asia Leaders
Ardem Patapoutian Found Pressure Sensors Across the Body. Drugmakers Must Decide Where Not to Intervene
Ardem Patapoutian’s PIEZO discoveries are expanding into common diseases with large Asian markets. Commercial value will depend on tissue-specific control, not the breadth of possible indications.
Asia Leaders
Abdulrahman Al-Fageeh Is Fighting the Commodity Cycle With SABIC’s Portfolio
A FigureAsia examination of how Abdulrahman Al-Fageeh is positioning SABIC for the next phase of chemicals and materials.