News & market updates

Krane, a San Francisco–based AI construction supply-chain startup founded by Sri Lankan-born Eshan Jayamanne, raised $9 million in a round led by Glasswing Ventures and Link Ventures. The platform uses specialized AI agents to manage procurement, submittals and deliveries and supports over $15 billion in active projects across the U.S. and Canada.

EWIS launched 'AEGIS,' an AI-powered, on-premise platform to simulate and validate legacy-system modernisation, aiming to reduce transformation risk, downtime and cost overruns. The solution targets banks, insurance, government, telecoms and healthcare and uses AI code intelligence, dependency mapping and digital-twin simulation.

Dialog Axiata PLC expanded its 5G network to over 800 live sites across 24 districts, marking the fastest 5G rollout in Sri Lanka. The move builds on an earlier commercial launch (220+ sites, 1.5M+ subscribers) and includes new-district coverage and 5G Experience Zones at Iconic, WTC and Kandy.

A delegation of 30 Ceylon Chamber of Commerce professionals completed a nine-day International Trade Facilitation programme at IIFT, New Delhi. Participants engaged with DGFT, FIEO, CII and covered trade negotiations, trade finance and digital topics including AI and cyber risk.

China opened the world's first smart elder-care robot station in Beijing — a four-storey, ~1,100 sqm facility with over 40 types of robots offering dining, rehabilitation and healthcare services and capacity for 300+ visitors daily. Separately, Sri Jayawardenepura General Hospital's 1,001-bed 'Presidential Suite' was ordered opened for public use.

EWIS launched EWIS AEGIS, an AI-powered, patent-pending platform that uses code intelligence and digital-twin simulation to de-risk enterprise legacy system modernisation for sectors including banking, insurance, government, telecom and healthcare.

99x transformed from a Colombo engineering firm into a Norwegian-headquartered tech group after a $20m Scandinavian private-equity investment, expanding via acquisitions to seven countries and over 600 employees while keeping its engineering core in Sri Lanka. Founder Mano Sekaram remains the largest individual shareholder and was appointed Norway’s Honorary Consul General to Sri Lanka.

Daily FT and ICCSL host a webinar today (28) titled "AI and Jobs – What Survives, Evolves, Disappears" from 4:00 pm, streamed live via ICCSL/WIM/ACCA and partners' Facebook pages; keynotes by Prof. Harin Sellahewa, Prof. Vajira Dissanayake and Prof. Mayur K. Patel.

A 25-member delegation of Sri Lankan start-up founders attended a fully funded 45-day Training and Capacity-Building Program at IIT Madras from 2 Feb–13 Mar 2026, part of India’s commitment of 700 annual training slots; sessions covered entrepreneurship, AI, investor pitching and leadership. The program aims to strengthen tech collaboration and skills links between India and Sri Lanka.

LankaPay has partnered with the Bar Association of Sri Lanka as a Corporate Partner to promote and implement digital signatures and digitalisation across the legal profession, aiming to enable secure, efficient electronic signing of legal documents.

Sri Lanka's export earnings rose 4.22% YoY to $1.4bn in February, with Jan–Feb total exports up 7.56% YoY to $2.89bn (merchandise $1.06bn, services $335m); apparel fell 6.29% YoY to $831.7m in Jan–Feb while ICT/BPM, coconut products and food & beverage exports showed strong gains.

SLT-MOBITEL achieved a decisive turnaround to profitability in FY2025 and announced public 5G availability plus a 24/7 Outside Plant Maintenance Centre network to strengthen national digital infrastructure and customer service.

Visa warns Sri Lankan consumers about payment scams during Avurudu and publishes 10 safety tips to avoid fake shopping pages, impersonation accounts, suspicious links and urgent payment requests. The Central Bank and Sri Lanka CERT reinforce the advice, urging people not to share PINs/OTPs and to report incidents to hotline 101.

BrandRadar (Roar Global) launched the Sri Lanka AI Visibility Index and hosted the country's first AI Visibility Summit to benchmark how brands appear in AI-driven discovery platforms (ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, etc.). Initial coverage includes hospitality, banking/finance, insurance, retail/e-commerce, automotive and real estate.

Pointlabs Technologies launched 'Anya', Sri Lanka's first AI-powered voice concierge for Standard Chartered Priority customers on 18 March 2026, offering voice-enabled travel and lifestyle recommendations, bookings, itinerary management and real-time concierge support.

Sri Lanka's services exports rose 14.68% to $334.9m in Feb 2026, driven by a 36.66% increase in ICT/BPM earnings to $153.62m while construction services fell 8.10% to $6.35m. Total goods and services exports were $1,401.78 billion, up 4.22%.

Sri Lanka aims to digitize 100% of government transactions by 2030 and build a USD 15 billion digital economy; Mastercard launched the 'Access Unlocked V2.0' payments program introducing SoundBox and SoftPOS to help SMEs adopt low-cost digital payments.

Cabinet approved a fee-free QR payment program for transactions below Rs. 5,000 to boost digital payments and financial inclusion. Officials noted LankaQR logged about 274,000 transactions worth Rs. 1.18 billion in Q3 2025 (avg ~90,000/month; avg txn value < Rs. 5,000).

Sri Lanka's ASPI rose 3.38% to 21,784.11 and the S&P SL20 climbed 3.63% to 6,123.82; market turnover was Rs.2.3bn. Top contributors included Hatton National Bank, Commercial Bank, John Keells, Melstacorp and Dialog, while food, beverage & tobacco led turnover (Rs.834m).

Dialog Axiata PLC launched the Dialog Play Mini, a 4K-ready plug-and-play set-top device offering integrated access to Netflix, Apple TV, YouTube and Dialog Play. The device is available islandwide with multiple connectivity options and local warranty.

Huawei unveiled a full U6GHz product suite at MWC Barcelona 2026, now commercially available and covering macro/micro AAUs, small cells and microwave transport, claiming up to 100 Gbps downlink and >10 Gbps uplink to support 5G-A and evolution to 6G.

Dialog Axiata (DIAL.N0000) expanded its 5G network to over 800 live sites across 24 districts, marking the fastest 5G rollout in Sri Lanka. The rollout builds on 220+ commercial 5G Ultra sites serving ~1.5 million subscribers and includes new 5G Experience Zones in Colombo and Kandy.

Dimuth Bhashitha Atapattu was appointed Director General of the Data Protection Authority effective 5 March 2026. The appointment is intended to operationalise the DPA and advance phased implementation of the Personal Data Protection Act to strengthen data privacy and digital trust.

ASPI fell 1.33% to 20,364.97 as the market reacted to Middle East tensions and rising crude oil prices. Market turnover was Rs.2.37bn, the market has lost over Rs.1.1tn since 28 Feb, primary negative contributors were DOCK, JKH, RIL, DIAL and CFIN, while JKH, SINS and DIAL saw largest foreign outflows and PKME, WIND and TAP largest inflows.

Economist Talal Rafi warned the Middle East war could complicate Sri Lanka's debt path as IMF program plans boost external reserves from ~$8.9bn to $13.4bn by end-2027 and envisage a $1.5bn ISB in 2027, with annual external debt servicing rising from $2bn to $3bn; he noted reform-dependent opportunities in renewables and data centres.

Port City Colombo is proposed as a strategic South Asian hub aimed at driving construction and infrastructure development and boosting trade, tourism and IT-enabled services in the region.

Huawei launched a 5G-A Mobile Backhaul Network architecture at MWC Barcelona 2026 featuring 10GE/25GE to site, L3 to site and end-to-end SRv6 to enable deterministic transport and experience-based monetization. Huawei cited deployments in China and a South African operator where ARPU rose from $18 to $25 after SRv6 optimization.

UnionPay International will be Platinum Sponsor of the LankaPay Technnovation Awards 2026 for the fourth consecutive year; the event will be held on 24 March 2026 at Cinnamon Life Colombo under the theme "Inclusive FinTech."

Speakers at an OPA seminar warned the Middle East conflict will raise global energy prices, strain fuel supplies (fuel ≈20% of Sri Lanka's import bill), and hit tourism and remittances (≈40% from the Middle East), urging price reforms, renewables, maritime and cyber security upgrades.

UnionPay International is the Platinum Sponsor of the LankaPay Technnovation Awards 2026 (fourth consecutive year), to be held on 24 March 2026. UnionPay said it will roll out a LankaPay/UnionPay co-badged national card and seek to expand RMB-based cross-border payment solutions with issuing banks.