5 days ago
- Business
- Malaysian Reserve
AI sector attracts RM3.3b approved investments in 1H25
by HIDAYATH HISHAM
MALAYSIA'S artificial intelligence (AI) sector secured RM3.29 billion in approved investments from January to June 2025, with the potential to create 6,920 jobs.
Digital Minister Gobind Singh Deo said the figure was achieved under the Malaysia Digital (MD) strategic initiative, reflecting growing investor confidence in the country's AI ecosystem.
He was replying to Kubang Pasu MP Datuk Wira Dr Ku Abd Rahman Ku Ismail, who asked about the progress of the National AI Office (NAIO) and cross-ministry collaboration in AI development.
Gobind said NAIO is drafting the 2026-2030 National AI Action Plan, focusing on talent, data and infrastructure, alongside a dataset readiness guide to support its implementation.
'The draft of the AI Dataset Readiness Guide is also being finalised to support the implementation of this Action Plan,' he told the Dewan Rakyat today.
The minister added that Malaysia will host the ASEAN AI Summit 2025 in Kuala Lumpur (KL) on Aug 12-13, themed 'Leading Sustainable and Inclusive AI Development in ASEAN.'
The office is also completing an AI impact study on the public sector involving 28 ministries, while working with various ministries on 55 identified AI use cases.
These include traffic forecasting systems with the Transport Ministry, AI-based radiology and hospital resource management with the Health Ministry (MOH) and smart agriculture platforms with the Agriculture and Food Security Ministry (KPKM).
Other collaborations involve workforce readiness programmes with the Human Resources Ministry (Kesuma) and TalentCorp, and generative AI applications for daily tasks in the public service.
