KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 2 — Firms must start embracing big data and artificial intelligence (AI) to stay relevant in an increasingly competitive environment, Deputy Communications and Multimedia Minister Eddin Syazlee Shith said today.
Eddin Syazlee said companies need to understand and keep up with trends to gain a substantial return of investment.
'I strongly advise companies and mainly start-ups to look into leveraging analytics, big data, AI and machine learning in businesses in order to stay relevant in the market and to serve needs of businesses and consumers,' he said when launching Big Data Week 2018 Kuala Lumpur and the Next Big Tech Asia 2018 conference.
“If businesses do not actively invest in such a transformation, they risk losing out from the market,” he added.
Eddin Syazlee noted the potential applications for AI in various fields, such as in the healthcare industry and the finance sector.
He said Stanford University researchers in 2017 found that an AI algorithm was able to match the performance of 21 dermatologists in identifying skin cancers.
He pointed out credit card service provider Mastercard was able to cut down the rate of false positives faced by its customers by 80 per cent, after the company started using AI and machine learning to detect fraud.
The Big Data Week is a global initiative focused on big data, with Kuala Lumpur being a Big Data City Partner for the sixth year now.
Eddin said the week-long event from October 1 to October 6 was targeting an attendance of over 2,000 people, with events to include networking functions, debates, demonstrations, conferences and hackathons.
The Next Big Tech Asia 2018 conference is the anchor event for Big Data Week. This is the second year it has been held.
