AI Governance Events
ASEAN Regional AI Governance Roundtable
Vientiane, Lao PDR
AI Governance in the Lao PDR: Building Trust and Capacity in a Developing Context.
Produced by the AI Governance Pillar at AI Singapore,
now part of the NUS Artificial Intelligence Institute
This is the fifth in a series of regional roundtables convened by AI Singapore for representatives from industry, government, and academia to discuss responsible AI within ASEAN. Such discussions are typically too narrow and too broad. Too narrow in that a few voices dominate the discussion—notably those in the United States and Europe, with China sometimes included. Too broad in that discussion is often limited to generalities and principles. This project aims to address both aspects of this problem, involving a wider set of stakeholders— in particular those from Southeast Asia—in more focused discussions of specific challenges in the application of Responsible AI to particular questions.
This report synthesises discussions from the fifth ASEAN AI Governance Roundtable, held in Vientiane in October 2025, which examined how low-resource and developing contexts, specifically the Lao PDR, can approach AI governance in a responsible, realistic, and development-oriented manner. Convened by AI Singapore in partnership with the Lao Ministry of Technology and Communications and ARIST, the roundtable brought together government, academic, and private-sector stakeholders to explore how Laos is contextualising AI governance, the constraints it faces, and the broader lessons this offers for developing countries.
The discussions underscored a central tension between ambition and capacity. Laos’ draft National AI Strategy is notably ambitious yet self-aware, positioning AI as a long-term enabler of digital transformation and socio-economic development while explicitly acknowledging constraints in infrastructure, human capital, data availability, and institutional coordination.
Rather than pursuing rapid deployment, the strategy prioritises governance readiness, ethical safeguards, and incremental capacity-building. This reflects a broader insight: in developing contexts, AI governance should function as a “seatbelt”—enabling safe acceleration—rather than as a brake on innovation.
Funding: This roundtable was funded via a charitable grant from Google.org, as part of Google’s Digital Futures Project.
