Malaysia enters global AI race with Ilmu, a chatbot to rival ChatGPT
Developed through a partnership between YTL AI Labs and Universiti Malaya, Ilmu (short for Intelek Luhur Malaysia Untukmu) marks a significant milestone as the nation's first locally-built, multimodal large language model.
Created with a deep understanding of Malaysia's cultures and languages, it was benchmarked to rival world-class AI models like GPT-4o, DeepSeek-v3, and Llama 3.1.
Its performance in Bahasa Melayu has set new standards, especially on MalayMMLU, an international benchmark for the Malay language, highlighting its fluency and contextual accuracy.
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim officially launched Ilmu during the inaugural Asean AI Summit in Kuala Lumpur.
'This launch also signifies that Malaysia is no longer merely a consumer of technology but has now proven capable of developing world-class innovations through the expertise of its own people.
"Ilmu was designed to understand, respect, and celebrate the nation's diversity, while opening new avenues in education, public services, and industrial innovation,' he said at the summit, as posted on his official X account.
Unlike its global counterparts, Ilmu's data and servers are hosted entirely within Malaysia, reinforcing digital sovereignty and localised security.
Designed to surpass GPT-4 in Malay-language proficiency, Ilmu is already in use across education and multilingual citizen support services.
According to a report by Awani, YTL AI Labs executive director Lou Yeoh stated that Ilmu symbolises a historic step for Malaysia.
'This is highly significant because we are now on par with the world's top models like GPT, Llama and DeepSeek.
"However, Ilmu is uniquely Malaysian, owned by Malaysia, trained in our language, and embedded with our cultural context,' the article read.
Set to be released on Sept 16, in conjunction with Malaysia Day, the first version of Ilmuchat will be available in web and mobile formats, supporting communication in Malay, English and Manglish.
The initial rollout will focus on text-only interactions, with voice and image support to follow in later updates.
The project has already attracted attention from both local and international sectors, with organisations in automotive, finance, media, healthcare, education, telecommunications and technology exploring or adopting its capabilities.
In conjunction with the launch, three major initiatives were introduced to broaden Ilmu's accessibility and application.
The first, Ilmu for Business, allows companies to integrate Ilmu's capabilities through API access, offering enterprise-grade AI tools tailored to local needs.
The second initiative, the Ilmu AI Accelerator Programme, was launched in collaboration with MDEC and provides up to USD$1 million worth of free API tokens to qualifying startups, encouraging innovation and development within the AI ecosystem.
Ilmuchat for Consumers, a smart chatbot described as 'Malaysia's ChatGPT,' will be made available for early access beginning Sept 16, in celebration of Malaysia Day.
With Ilmu's introduction, Malaysia not only strengthens its standing in the global AI ecosystem but also ensures that future technological advancements will remain firmly rooted in national values and identity.
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