Microsoft’s AI initiatives for Malaysia
MICROSOFT’s plan to invest RM10.5 billion over the next four years to support Malaysia’s digital transformation is poised to develop Malaysia into a hub for cloud computing and related advanced technologies such as generative artificial intelligence (AI).
During a recent visit here, Microsoft president and chief executive officer Satya Nadella said the company aims to develop “world-class infrastructure” for Malaysia that will help local businesses, communities and developers apply the latest technology to bolster economic growth nationwide.
Its investment entails the development of cloud and AI infrastructure, creating AI skilling opportunities for 200,000 people, strengthening its partnership with the government and supporting the growth of the developer community.
MICROSOFT’S SKILLING COMMITMENT COVERS:
• Technical and vocational education and training students with AI skills through the AI Teach Malaysia programme;
• Women with opportunities and support to build careers in cybersecurity via the Ready4AI&Security programme;
• Young people with AI fluency training to enhance the employability and work readiness of those from underserved and underrepresented communities; and
• Employees of non-profit organisations with knowledge of and skills in AI and digital technologies.
Overall, the commitment builds on Microsoft’s other recent skilling activities in Malaysia, including its success in providing digital skills to more than 1.53 million Malaysians as part of the Bersama Malaysia initiative.
MICROSOFT’S AI SOLUTIONS
In his speech at the Microsoft Build: AI Day, Satya said the company launched Microsoft Copilot in September last year which unified all of Microsoft’s capabilities into a single experience.
The solution is available on Windows 11, Microsoft 365, Edge and Bing for a seamless AIpowered experience across applications and devices.
Copilot incorporates context from the web and an individual’s work data onto the PC to provide a seamless working experience without compromising privacy and security.
Among the first users of Copilot in Malaysia are Permodalan Nasional
Bhd and AmBank Group.
Satya said Perumahan Rakyat 1Malaysia (PR1MA) had also deployed Copilot for Microsoft 365 across its information technology, human resources, finance and legal department.
“PR1MA has already seen a 30 per cent reduction in time spent on routine administrative tasks, allowing employees to focus more on strategic initiatives and value-adding activities.”
OPTIMISING THE POWER OF AI
Satya said Microsoft aims to have a wider selection of models for its AI infrastructure to enable users to optimise the power of AI.
“We will have the frontier model, as well as the open source model. The combination of these excellence models really brings the power back in the hands of developers to optimise for all of the various design considerations.”
Satya said Microsoft will continue
to help Malaysia’s developer community tap their potential through new initiatives such as AI Odyssey, which is expected to help 2,000 Malaysian developers become AI subject matter experts by learning new skills and earning Microsoft credentials.
Meanwhile, he said Malaysia is also a rapidly growing market on Microsoftowned software development, GitHub.
Almost 680,000 of the nation’s developers are said to have used GitHub — a developer platform that enables developers to store and manage their code — last year.
Doctor2U is one of the local developers using GitHub Copilot to expedite development.
Satya said tasks that previously took two hours were now being completed in 30 minutes.
In addition, the implementation of Azure AI Search has sped up the record retrieval process, reducing the time it takes to return results from a multi-million patient data set from one minute to one second.
Microsoft Azure is Microsoft’s public cloud computing platform that provides services such as computing, analytics, storage and networking. It offers four different forms of cloud computing, namely infrastructure as a service, platform as a service, software as a service and serverless functions.
Microsoft will also collaborate with the National Cyber Security Agency of Malaysia (NACSA) through the Perisai Siber initiative to enhance the country’s cybersecurity capabilities. The collaboration will focus on promoting security and resilience in the public sector through security assessments and capacity building.
In addition, Microsoft will look to support NACSA in its role as Malaysia’s lead agency for cybersecurity matters, as it formulates the next stage of the nation’s cybersecurity strategy.