The Hinrich Foundation and Digital Policy Alert held a roundtable on 18 May with policymakers, businesses, and think tanks, to examine how regulatory fragmentation, strategic dependencies, and shifting geopolitical influence are reshaping digital trade governance.

As governments adopt divergent approaches to data, digital platforms, AI, businesses operating across borders face an increasingly complex patchwork of rules that high-level digital trade commitments alone cannot resolve. The challenge is no longer simply writing digital trade rules, but making them meaningful through implementation, interoperability, and institutional cooperation.

Guests included High Commissions and embassies of Australia, Denmark, New Zealand, and Republic of Korea, executives from Apple, Cloudflare, Samsung Asia, Business Software Alliance, GlobalFoundries, and Kearney. Singapore’s Ministry of Trade and Industry, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Secretariat, and the Institute of Policy Studies of Singapore, also joined the discussion, which was conducted on the Chatham House Rule.

Some photos from the session: