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Biman Mukherji

Paul Bratby had already drawn up plans for expanding to Hong Kong when war broke out in the Middle East earlier this year.
But the founder of xBratAI, a Dubai-based AI-powered trading signals platform, soon brought that timeline forward as the Iran conflict dragged on and widened in scope.
“Our Hong Kong entity had been scheduled for a few years later, but we established it in early 2026,” he said.
Bratby is not alone in looking east. As missiles continue to target Gulf capitals and shipping lanes, digital businesses and investors are increasingly setting up shop in Hong Kong and Singapore.
“The war has influenced the pace of expansion into East Asian hubs more than it has redrawn the map. Firms that can relocate cheaply have done so,” Bratby said, adding: “Hong Kong and Singapore are now treated as primary growth markets.”

For many, these new Asian bases supplement established operations in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, creating what Anndy Lian, a Singapore-based adviser to governments on blockchain and information technology, calls a “dual-hub” model.
“We are not seeing an outright exodus from the Gulf, but we are witnessing an accelerated shift towards proactive geopolitical hedging,” he said. “Major digital and tech enterprises are no longer content with relying on a single operational anchor.”
Ali Moosa, executive vice-chairman of Bahrain-headquartered Singapore Gulf Bank, said the conflict had accelerated Gulf businesses’ use of Asian financial hubs.
“Business continues during uncertainty,” he said. “Companies still need to pay suppliers, buy equipment, meet payroll and complete projects.”
In the long term, greater access to Asian capital and investment could support growth in the Gulf, Moosa said.
The closer the Gulf becomes to Asia, the more capital Gulf businesses can access and the more opportunities they can pursue
Ali Moosa, Singapore Gulf Bank
“The closer the Gulf becomes to Asia, the more capital Gulf businesses can access and the more opportunities they can pursue,” he said, adding he expected “many of these relationships to continue after the immediate disruption ends”.
The disruption could last for some time, however, as the conflict continues to widen.
At the weekend, Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis claimed missile and drone strikes on “sensitive” sites in the Saudi capital Riyadh and on an Aramco facility in the Red Sea oil export hub of Yanbu.
Britain has agreed to help Saudi Arabia’s military counter the Houthis, whose attacks have increasingly threatened shipping near the Bab el-Mandeb chokepoint.


Meanwhile, Singaporean financial institutions have been setting up cross-border digital networks and multicurrency settlement methods to carry Gulf capital into a region undergoing an unprecedented infrastructure boom, driven by the race for AI data centre capacity.
Building AI infrastructure was enormously capital intensive, Lian said, pointing to the huge amounts of upfront investment required for high-voltage power grids, industrial cooling systems and the like.
“Middle Eastern institutional capital is uniquely suited to this demand,” he said. “Gulf investors possess deep familiarity with massive, energy-intensive infrastructure projects, and they are deploying liquidity directly into Southeast Asia’s digital backbone.”
The Asia-Pacific’s financial services industry is forecast to nearly double in value to US$4.8 trillion by 2035, according to a Deloitte report published last month – overtaking the United States, whose industry is projected to reach US$4.3 trillion over the same period.
Gulf sovereign wealth funds were hungry for exposure to Asia’s consumer digital economy and industrial supply chains, and Asian fund managers and technology consortiums were more than happy to oblige, Lian said.

Iranian attacks on data centres in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates led to service outages earlier in the conflict, fuelling a surge of interest in Southeast Asian alternatives, said Raj Kapoor, founder of the India Blockchain Alliance.
This had “introduced something that technology companies historically treated as an unlikely tail risk”, he said.
Even so, Kapoor said the Gulf would remain central to the global AI buildout as tech companies had already sunk billions of US dollars into the region, with government backing and it “therefore makes little sense” for them “simply to abandon those markets”.
“So I see this mainly as diversification rather than relocation,” he said.


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People take pictures with the city skyline of Singapore on September 14. The Iran conflict has accelerated Gulf businesses’ use of Asian financial hubs, insiders say. Photo: Reuters

Hong Kong and Kowloon. Digital businesses and investors from the Gulf are increasingly setting up shop in the city, according to reports. Photo: AFP

Smoke rises near Riyadh’s main airport on Saturday, the same day Yemen’s Houthis announced they had carried out attacks on the Saudi Arabian capital. Photo: Xinhua

Saudis scramble to solve ‘humiliating dilemma’ after US rejects Red Sea intervention

Firefighters inspect damage to a building caused by falling debris from a reported Houthi drone intercepted over Taif province, western Saudi Arabia, on Thursday. Photo: Saudi Press Agency / AP

Fighters affiliated with the Saudi-backed Yemeni government clash with Houthis in Al-Jawf province on Tuesday. Photo: AFP

US President Donald Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman hold hands during a meeting in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington on November 18, 2025. Photo: Reuters

A man and his brother walk through a makeshift camp for people displaced by the fighting between Saudi-backed government forces and Houthis in Aden, Yemen, on Thursday. Photo: EPA

South Korea’s president rejects US request for Iran war support

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung speaking during a press conference at the presidential Blue House in Seoul on Friday. Photo: AFP

A South Korean navy ship. The country’s presence in the Middle East remains focused on protecting trade routes. Photo: EPA 

Vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, as seen from Musandam, Oman, on September 6. Photo: Reuters

Protesters rally in Seoul on Saturday, opposing US demands to deploy South Korean troops to the Strait of Hormuz. Photo: AP

‘Doing a North Korea’? Why the Middle East could be entering a new nuclear age

Iranian commuters pass a huge anti-US billboard reading in Persian, “The devil army will be drowned in the Persian Gulf”, erected on Enghelab Square in Tehran, on Monday. Photo: AFP

A satellite view shows tunnel entrances at Pickaxe Mountain near Natanz, Iran, on June 30. Photo: Vantor/Handout via Reuters

The logo of the International Atomic Energy Agency at the agency’s headquarters in Vienna, Austria. Photo: TNS

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Analysts point to growing adoption of a ‘dual-hub’ model, using secondary Asian bases to hedge against geopolitical risk


Analysts point to growing adoption of a ‘dual-hub’ model, using secondary Asian bases to hedge against geopolitical risk.


Gulf tech firms turn to Hong Kong and Singapore as Iran war grinds on

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Analysts point to growing adoption of a ‘dual-hub’ model, using secondary Asian bases to hedge against geopolitical risk

Analysts point to growing adoption of a ‘dual-hub’ model, using secondary Asian bases to hedge against geopolitical risk