There will be no Pax Silica AI hub announcement at the ASEAN Summit in Manila. US Ambassador Lee Lipton says no announcement on the Pax Silica Economic Security Zone “was ever planned” for the ASEAN Leaders’ Summit this month, during it or after it.
That expectation came from Manila. The Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) had floated that the signing could be among the major developments of the summit, which runs November 16th to 18th, Rappler reports. Lipton’s statement answers those “comments in the media” directly.
The zone is the Philippines’ piece of Pax Silica, the US-backed initiative to secure supply chains for AI. The plan is a 4,000-acre industrial site in New Clark City, on Luzon, meant to make the country a hub for AI, semiconductor manufacturing and advanced industries. The Philippines joined Pax Silica on April 16th, and the US called the site the first of its kind.
The statement doesn’t set a new date. “Decisions will be made in full consultation with the government of the Philippines at the appropriate time,” Lipton says, adding that the US expects “rigorous discussions on impacts to all stakeholders.”
We read that as a slower track, not a cancelled one. The same statement calls Pax Silica an “exciting initiative” that the US looks forward to working on with the Philippine government. The framework deal now waits on those impact talks instead of the summit calendar.
