Kent Cai, a Chinese entrepreneur based in the eastern province of Zhejiang, made a major life decision earlier this year by moving abroad to pursue a PhD.
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While this is not uncommon, his destination of choice might appear unusual – he did not, as many of his peers, relocate to the United States or Europe.
He went to Malaysia.
Upon arriving on campus in Kuala Lumpur to study the application of AI-driven tools in media production, Cai noticed he was not the only one to make such a move. He is, in fact, part of a surge of Chinese students heading to Southeast Asia for higher education.
Cai soon saw why. He had not even graduated before Chinese companies were paying him to participate in site assessments for their regional headquarters, and he already has plans to launch a start-up in Malaysia, leveraging AI and a bilingual workforce to establish a content production hub targeting the Chinese-speaking market.
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“In Southeast Asia, the chances of approaching venture capital are much bigger than in China. And being a PhD student here makes it easier to catch investors’ attention,” he said.