Across the thirteen nations of the Asean+3 bloc, a quiet but consequential upgrade has arrived: the region's 2026 growth forecast now stands at 4.1%, lifted by the world's accelerating hunger for artificial intelligence and the semiconductors that make it possible. The Asean+3 Macroeconomic Research Office sees in this moment both opportunity and fragility — a region that has found its footing in a technological revolution it largely supplies, yet whose fortunes remain tethered to the pace of an investment cycle no one fully controls. Inflation, too, has eased its grip, even as food prices and