Malaysia Urged to Accelerate AI Adoption for a Competitive Future
- nabalunews
- 21h
- 4 min read
30 December 2025
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia must transition artificial intelligence (AI) from pilot projects to widespread adoption to foster a competitive economy by 2030, leaders from government, academia, and industry urged at the recent Third Digital Think Tank Network Roundtable, co-hosted by Universiti Malaya and Huawei Technologies (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd.
The roundtable brought together policymakers, academics, and key industry figures under the theme “Building Malaysia’s AI Ecosystem Towards 2030” to discuss strategies for accelerating scalable, sustainable AI implementation across sectors.
Deputy Dean of Research and Innovation at UM’s Faculty of Computer Science & Information Technology (FCSIT), Associate Professor Dr Saaidal Razalli Azzuhri, highlighted the vital role universities play in developing future-ready digital talent and applied research capacity.
“Although FCSIT remains relatively small structurally, it has become one of the university’s largest faculties by student enrolment, reflecting growing demand for computer science and information technology disciplines. The increasing enrolment, especially in AI, underscores national demand and emphasises the importance of closer collaboration between academia and industry to ensure education and research yield practical outcomes,” he stated.
Huawei Cloud’s Vice President for Malaysia, Andy Wei, noted that rapid global investments in AI and decreasing training costs have lowered barriers to adoption, shifting the focus from experimentation to scaled deployment.
“To implement AI effectively, organisations must consider numerous factors, including computing resources, model optimisation, data preparation, application development, business security, and more. Our aim at Huawei Cloud is to make advanced AI tools and cloud services affordable, secure, and accessible for businesses of all sizes,” Wei explained.
Wei further emphasised that AI should be deployed in ways that generate tangible value for the economy and society. He highlighted Huawei Malaysia’s efforts in AI talent development under the broader Huawei Cloud Asia-Pacific AI ecosystem initiative, which aims to train 30,000 Malaysian AI professionals over the next three years, encompassing students, public sector officials, and industry practitioners. He reaffirmed Huawei Malaysia’s commitment to strengthening local talent pipelines and partner capabilities to promote AI adoption across manufacturing, healthcare, finance, and smart city sectors.
Addressing challenges in AI implementation, Associate Professor Ts Dr Aznul Qalid Md Sabri from UM’s Department of Artificial Intelligence pointed out that Malaysia’s AI readiness has yet to produce consistent industrial outcomes. Challenges include fragmented and non-scalable AI applications, shortages of industry-ready talent, and slow research commercialisation.
“To overcome these issues, priorities should include making AI applications measurable, aligning talent training with market needs, increasing funding for local innovation, establishing effective governance frameworks, and treating data as a strategic national asset,” he said. He also announced that UM will launch a Bachelor’s Degree in AI in 2026 as a key step in strengthening the national AI talent pipeline.
Representing the business community, Sean Lee, Chairman of the Domestic Commercial Affairs Committee at the Malaysia-China Chamber of Commerce, suggested that deeper Malaysia-China cooperation could foster AI ecosystem development through joint innovation and localisation of solutions.
He proposed an AI-driven credit scoring system to improve access to financing for small and micro-sized enterprises, helping to address structural inefficiencies in current funding mechanisms.
Max Lee, SEA Technical Consultant for iFLYTEK, spoke on practical AI deployment, emphasising that AI should enhance human-machine collaboration and complement human expertise, especially in healthcare and public services.
“Trusted AI use depends on high-quality datasets, rigorous validation, and secure implementation, particularly in sensitive environments. In healthcare, AI supports clinicians by reducing documentation workloads, while similar tools are being applied in public administration to improve service delivery in line with national digital transformation goals,” he stated.
In terms of policy, Mohd Al Hafidz Yahya, Director of AI Innovation at the National AI Office (NAIO), described Malaysia’s AI Nation 2030 Vision as a vital roadmap to transform the country from a technology consumer to a producer and regional hub for homegrown AI solutions.
“Based on economic and social impact assessments, twelve priority sectors—including agriculture, food, public services, education, healthcare, utilities, and traditional industries—have been identified to drive widespread AI deployment,” he explained.
William Law Kian Boon, Head of the Digital Health Research and Innovation Unit at the National Institute of Health’s Institute for Clinical Research, stressed that digital transformation remains essential for effective medical AI adoption. However, gaps in data interoperability and digital readiness across healthcare facilities continue to hinder large-scale deployment.
“Recent initiatives, such as the establishment of the AI Community Centre and the Trusted Research Environment under the National Institute of Health, enable secure, privacy-preserving data access to facilitate wider AI adoption over time,” he added.
The roundtable discussions underscored that Malaysia’s progress towards a competitive and sustainable AI ecosystem depends on coordinated policy execution and long-term collaboration among government, academia, and industry. Key enablers for scaling AI beyond isolated pilots include clear policies, robust data governance, sustained research funding, international partnerships, and strong ethical standards.
