Taiwan Mobile has taken a 12% stake in local software firm Systex, the latest in a string of AI-driven investments by Asian telcos this year.

The company paid 3.97 billion Taiwan dollars (US$124 million) to cement a strategic partnership with the publicly listed firm. The news drove Systex's stock 5.8% higher.

Taiwan Mobile CEO Jamie Lin said the two companies would jointly target AI, 5G private networks and AIoT ("artificial intelligence of things") growth opportunities in Taiwan and southeast Asia.

The operator said it sees synergies between its cable, mobile and e-commerce businesses, and Systex's software development and system integration capabilities.

It said the two companies will use their AI expertise to optimize digital processes and improve the efficiency of enterprise customers. They will also collaborate on R&D for cloud, cybersecurity and generative AI applications and services.

Earlier this year rival Chunghwa Telecom led a $21 million funding round for Taiwan AI and analytics startup iKala. Like the Taiwan Mobile transaction, this seems aimed at securing additional expertise.

But in a busy year for AI-related deals, the biggest are focused on infrastructure in general, and data centers in particular.

Largest AI data center

Singtel, for one, and partner KKR are investing $1.3 billion in a regional data center business, ST Telemedia GDC. Singtel has also signed Taiwan Mobile as a strategic partner and they are now building a new facility in Malaysia.

In Japan, KDDI has teamed with Sharp, Super Micro and Datasection to build what it says will be Asia's biggest AI data center on the site of an old Sharp plant. SoftBank is also building another center on the same site.

Australia's Telstra sees AI traffic as a major revenue stream on its new inter-city network, estimating its expanded partnership with Microsoft will generate 200 million Australian dollars (US$134 million) annually.

But the busiest player has been South Korea's SKT, which merged its chip subsidiary to create the country's biggest AI chip business, invested in US startups Perplexity and Anthropic and signed a partnership with GPU cloud firm Lambda. It also tipped $200 million into US AI data center solution firm Smart Global Holdings.

Additionally, it founded the Global Telco AI Alliance, with members including Singtel and DT, aimed at building telco large language models (LLMs) for operators worldwide.