During its third‑quarter earnings call, Sea announced Sea Cloud, a service designed to help other businesses use AI while creating a new revenue stream for the group. The plan highlights a shift from costly infrastructure to a software‑first model.

Sea plans to rely primarily on partners and customer pre‑payments to finance computing equipment, rather than building extensive data‑center infrastructure. It will only invest in dedicated capacity when a client makes a firm commitment and the expected return justifies the cost.

Sea will pursue projects that need dedicated computing power only after customers provide firm commitments and the projected earnings cover the investment. This selective approach keeps capital spending tightly linked to real demand.

"We see this as an opportunity to turn our AI capabilities from a cost center into a profit center for Sea," said founder Forrest Li. The company aims to commercialise AI tools already used for fraud detection, customer service and content generation, spreading existing costs across more users.

Sea Cloud was first announced last month after an internal memo revealed that about 500 employees had spent two years rebuilding the company’s cloud platform to support AI applications. In September, Sea announced it would become the first Southeast Asian firm to adopt Nvidia’s next‑generation Vera Rubin AI computing platform, giving it greater power for AI models and applications.