Malaysia a step closer to achieving nationwide AI ambitions

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC), the lead agency for Digital Economy, together with Dewan Bandaraya Kuala Lumpur (DBKL), also known as Kuala Lumpur City Hall, and Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing arm of Alibaba Group, announced their collaboration to catalyse Malaysia’s Artificial Intelligence ( AI) ecosystem through the introduction of Malaysia City Brain.

The announcement was in line with Malaysia’s commitment to develop the National AI Framework, as announced by Datuk Sri Mohd Najib Tun Abdul Razak, the Prime Minister of Malaysia, in 2017.

“As a digital economy nation, Malaysia should embrace AI revolution and make the most of the data economy. The collaboration with DBKL and Alibaba Cloud is another leap towards digitising Malaysia, where knowledgesharing and the crossover of best practices transpire.

“As we set our sights on the future, we are excited about the prospects this partnership will bring to our community, benefiting millions of Malaysians,” said MDEC chief executive officer Datuk Yasmin Mahmood, in a press statement.

“The introduction of Malaysia City Brain is just the beginning. MDEC will continue to work on selected high-profile AI initiatives and simultaneously develop the National AI Framework,” she added.

Deemed as one of the most disruptive technologies, AI is believed to be a paradigm-shifting development that will have significant implications for our society and economy.

Today, AI is already being used in industries such as healthcare, business, marketing and transportation management.

Malaysia City Brain is an example of the use of AI in city operations. The programme offers a comprehensive suite of acquisition, integration, and analysis of big and heterogeneous data generated by a diversity of sources in urban spaces through video and image recognition, data mining and machine learning technology. With this, city council and urban planners will be able to make better decisions for the community. Turn to Page B3, Col 5

(From left) DBKL Project Management executive director Datuk Mahadi Che Ngah, Yasmin Mahmood, Hu, and Alibaba Cloud Machine Intelligence vice president and chief scientist Dr Wanli Min are seen during a press conference at the announcement of...