The CIO Playbook: The Rise of Agentic Systems
Celebrating 12 years of thought leadership, the IDC CIO Summit – ASEAN returns on 27 March 2026 in Singapore as the region’s premier gathering of technology decision-makers.
2026 marks a defining year for the ASEAN digital economy. CIOs across Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Indonesia are navigating a moment of both extraordinary opportunity and accelerating complexity. With ICT investments in the region projected to surpass $170 billion, and AI spending growing 1.7 times faster than overall digital tech investments, the decisions made today will shape not just enterprise competitiveness but national innovation trajectories across Southeast Asia.
The CIO Summit 2026 is the region’s most forward-thinking IT and business leaders converge to reimagine what’s next. This exclusive one-day event in Singapore brings together senior executives, CIOs and digital transformation heads to exchange insights, benchmark strategies, and set the direction for the next wave of intelligent enterprise.
Low Han Yong
Low Han Yong is the Chief Information Officer at Kuok Group Singapore, driving digital transformation, enterprise architecture, and technology operations to deliver innovation and resilience. He brings extensive experience from leading U.S. multinationals, including General Electric, CA Technologies, and Oracle (acquisition of Sun Microsystems), where he managed large-scale IT programs and led Asia Pacific business operations. This unique blend of enterprise IT and global technology experience gives him a deep understanding of the entire IT ecosystem—from solution development to large-scale implementation. Combining strategic vision with technical expertise, Han Yong has guided Kuok Group Singapore to earn multiple industry awards for leveraging advanced technologies to deliver impactful business outcomes. He is recognized for fostering collaboration, driving pragmatic execution, and cultivating an innovative mindset that enables organizations to achieve digital competitiveness and sustainable growth.
Christina Lee
Zeljko Ivkovic
Kshitij Mulay
Deny Rahardjo
Expert Perspectives
Hear from thought leaders, visionary CIOs, and celebrity speakers redefining technology,
leadership, and innovation across ASEAN.
IDC Welcome Address
Jyoti Lalchandani | IDC
Head of WW Events & MD – META, Central Asia, India
Jyoti Lalchandani
Jyoti Lalchandani is a seasoned business executive with more than 25 years of experience in emerging markets across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA). In his role as IDC’s Group Vice President and Regional Managing Director for the Middle East, Turkey, and Africa (META), he has been instrumental in establishing IDC’s presence in the region – first, through the initial expansion of the Dubai headquarters and then by spearheading the development of IDC offices in Johannesburg, Istanbul, Riyadh, Casablanca, Lagos, Nairobi, and Cairo.
Jyoti is responsible for the planning, development, implementation, and coordination of IDC’s market intelligence and advisory services, sales, conferences and events, go-to-market services, and office development activities across the META region. As a respected authority on emerging market tech trends, he is also regularly invited to speak at major industry events throughout the region and is frequently quoted by both the national and international media.
His field of expertise includes key tech areas such as cloud, analytics, artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things, and he is well known for providing guidance on digital transformation strategies for the entire C-suite. He is a trusted advisor to senior executives in the supplier/enabler space across the ICT ecosystem, as well as to tech buyers from the CIO and line-of-business communities.
Starting at IDC’s CEMA (Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa) headquarters in 1995 in Prague, the Czech Republic, Jyoti served as IDC’s regional consulting manager. In this role, he headed several country-based project teams that advised local and multinational IT vendors on issues relating to entry strategy, competitor analysis, ROI analysis, distribution and partner evaluation, and market segmentation. He later took on the additional responsibility of overseeing the CEMA software practice, in which he was responsible for overseeing all related research (applications, system infrastructure, and tools) and advisory work across emerging EMEA countries.
Before joining IDC, Jyoti served on the national board of international non-profit organization AIESEC, where he managed the association’s partnership agreements with leading Indian conglomerates. He graduated from Loyola College, India, where his studies focused on strategy management and business policy. He later attended a corporate-sponsored program at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts.
Event Sessions
Friday, March 27 2026 9:35 am | Location:
IDC Welcome Address
Insights
Discover thought-provoking articles from IDC analysts, strategic partners, and end-user speakers. Explore expert viewpoints on the latest tech trends, real-world transformation stories, and forward-looking insights shaping the digital future.
Analyst Spotlight
The world is entering a defining moment for digital infrastructure. Artificial intelligence has moved from experimentation to ubiquity, and with it, a new operational paradigm is taking shape — one where agents rather than applications become the primary engines of digital value creation. This is the dawn of the agentic AI era, and its success depends on one thing above all else: robust, intelligent, and scalable infrastructure.
Matt Eastwood
IDC
SVP, WW Research
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Getting Your Data AI Ready.
It has become a common refrain – getting data governance right is key to a successful AI strategy! This conventional wisdom is very true, but it is not a new problem. For as long as I have been involved in IT, both as an analyst and as a CIO, companies have struggled with wrangling the various data sets across the applications running at the organization.
Bob Parker
IDC
SVP, Software and Services Research
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Unlocking AI Potential
Driving AI success requires more than technology—it starts with getting your data ready: clean, governed, and accessible. Equally important is selecting an AI platform that aligns with business goals while ensuring architectural agility to integrate emerging technologies seamlessly. While partnerships with technology providers remain essential, organizations should design for interoperability rather than rigid dependency.
Beyond technology choices, true value comes when businesses are willing to re-engineer processes to fully leverage the strengths of generative AI and traditional AI. This combination of data readiness, platform strategy, architectural flexibility, and process transformation positions enterprises to innovate faster and adapt confidently in an evolving AI landscape.