The world’s leading AI firm, a company that has one of the highest total financing and highest valuations in the industry, has signed an agreement with a Malaysian tech firm to build Malaysia’s first AI park.
The agreement, which was signed during last week’s Belt and Road Forum in Beijing, envisages a US$1 billion, five-year project to build a campus for research into computer vision, speech recognition, natural language processing and robotics.
In a press release, the two companies stated that the park would try and develop a “commercial ecosystem” to help Malaysia in AI governance.
During the forum, the AI firm’s Founder gave the Malaysian Prime Minister a demonstration of the company’s applications in autonomous driving, smart city, education and, healthcare.
It was noted that the AI company is honoured to be part of Malaysia’s new journey and look forward to working together with the Malaysian government, academia and business sectors, bringing its technological expertise and experience to Malaysia and building a better world with AI technology.
Earlier this month, the AI start-up also signed a strategic partnership with a US automobile electronics supplier. The companies will promote developments in intelligent cockpits. Founded in 2014, the AI start-up to date has received total funding of US$2.6 billion in capital funding.
It has been reported that Malaysia’s first artificial intelligence park will be developed by a trio of local and Chinese firms is expected to raise the country’s standing in the global race for AI supremacy.
The will also serve as a platform to groom local artificial intelligence talent, and support efforts to build a commercial AI ecosystem and advance AI research in Malaysia.
The Chairman of one of the collaborating firms noted that there is huge potential for AI in Malaysia. The idea to set up the AI park is vital to building AI research-related public service infrastructure as the base to promote AI technology in Malaysia. In addition, it will be a place for talent to be trained on AI and machine learning.
AI has become a tool for Malaysian organisations to glean business insights and increase productivity; it is expected that the AI park to have a “huge impact” on government agencies, as well as banking, manufacturing and healthcare industries.
During a demonstration of the AI firm’s capabilities in areas such as autonomous driving, smart cities, education and healthcare, Mahathir noted that there are plenty of application scenarios for those technologies in Malaysia. With a passion for driving, Mahathir also tried out a self-driving car system.
With advanced AI technology and extensive business experience, the AI firm is will be part of Malaysia’s new journey and will work in conjunction with the Malaysian government, academia and business sectors, bringing its technological expertise and experience to Malaysia and building a better world with AI technology.
Malaysia is one of the few countries with a national big data analytics framework to encourage the adoption of big data across industries. Building on this framework, the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) is expected to introduce a national AI framework by the end of this year.
In 2018, MDEC teamed up with a Chinese cloud computing giant to roll out an AI platform aimed at easing Kuala Lumpur’s notorious traffic congestion.
Dubbed Malaysia City Brain, the platform harnesses the giant’s Cloud’s AI capabilities such as video and image recognition, data mining and machine learning, to analyse massive amounts of real-time data generated by 382 camera feeds and 281 traffic light junctions in the capital city.
However, despite the clear benefits of AI, however, only 41% of enterprises in Asia-Pacific have embarked on their AI journey, according to research.
AI is a game-changer and is key to driving competitiveness, not just for organisations, but also for economies, according to the Vice President of the research agency.
