China’s Runjian Co., Ltd signed two rounds of cooperation agreements on 18 July for what it calls a China–ASEAN Token ecosystem. The first involved Indonesian and Malaysian partners; the second brought together organisations from mainland China and Hong Kong.
No contract values, purchasing commitments, service volumes or implementation schedules were disclosed. The agreements establish a prospective sales and integration network, rather than evidence that Runjian is already supplying AI inference across Southeast Asia.
The infrastructure behind the proposal remains in China. Runjian’s Token factory is located at Wuxiang Yungu, an AI computing facility in Nanning. Its business model is to sell access to large-model inference, billed according to Token usage, instead of renting GPU capacity directly.
Under that arrangement, ASEAN customers could use models and applications running on computing capacity in Guangxi. Local partners would provide industry knowledge, integration and market access, but the hardware, platform operations and much of the technical expertise would remain in China.
Nanning was among four Chinese cities approved in 2024 to host new international communications gateways. The planned gateway is intended to shorten data routes between China and Southeast Asia, supporting the city’s role as an integration point for Chinese digital services entering ASEAN.
Data governance remains the main constraint. Runjian says it can deploy systems locally where information must remain within a customer’s environment, while using homomorphic encryption for some cross-border model calls. It has not disclosed whether that encryption architecture is operating with an ASEAN customer, or the cost and latency involved.
Some related work has moved beyond a new MoU. Runjian has presented its Apollo11 enterprise AI platform as a pilot with Malaysia’s National Aerospace and Defence Industries organisation. It has also established an embodied and multisensory AI laboratory with university partners in Malaysia.
Neither project demonstrates scaled Token sales. Apollo11 user numbers, connected workflows and measured results remain undisclosed, while the laboratory’s staffing, active projects and outputs are unclear.
The status would change with a named paying customer, verified Token consumption, disclosed service revenue or an ASEAN-based installation operated locally.
Last verified: 1 August 2026