AUGUST 31 — The artificial intelligence race in Asean is no longer something Malaysia can discuss as though it belongs to the distant future.
It has started. More importantly, Indonesia appears determined to move quickly.
A Business Times survey conducted with Kantar across six major Asean economies found that 62 per cent of Indonesian companies surveyed could be classified as AI “first movers”.
Thailand followed at 55 per cent, while Malaysia stood at 46 per cent.
Singapore, interestingly, registered 36 per cent, although its lower figure may reflect a more mature and cautious approach to AI adoption rather than technological weakness.
The numbers nevertheless contain an important warning for Malaysia.
Malaysia is not disastrously behind. But neither is it sufficiently ahead.
And in artificial intelligence, standing still can quickly become another form of falling behind.
Indonesia’s advantage is particularly interesting because its AI ambitions are increasingly connected to technological sovereignty.
Its Sahabat AI initiative, involving Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison, GoTo, Nvidia and AI Singapore, is developing models capable of understanding Indonesian languages, dialects and cultural nuances.
The objective is not merely to consume artificial intelligence produced elsewhere but to develop technological capabilities rooted in Indonesia’s own data and society.
There is an economic logic behind this. Indosat has already incorporated AI into areas including human resources and sales.
According to figures cited by Business Times, AI has helped the company optimise or reallocate as much as 22 per cent of its capital expenditure.
The company estimates that AI could contribute US$200 million to US$300 million in additional EBITDA over three years.
That is where Malaysia should pay particularly close attention.
The AI revolution will not ultimately be measured by how many conferences Malaysia organises, how many data centres it attracts or how frequently the words “digital economy” appear in policy documents.
It will be measured by whether ordinary Malaysian companies and workers actually use AI to become more productive.
Here companies such as GDEX offer an instructive example.
The likes of GDEX has long invested in workforce development. Its 2024 annual reporting stated that 5,584 employees received training during the financial year.
More recently, GDEX has been promoting free virtual training enabling business users, executives, managers and other workers to learn how Amazon Quick can be applied to emails, reporting, research, data analysis and repetitive workplace tasks.
The training explicitly requires no coding background.
Even more significantly, companies such as GDEX through GD XCHANGE, together with VSTECS and Amazon Web Services, is involved in an initiative intended to provide AI access to 10,000 Malaysian SMEs through a six-month programme.
This is precisely the direction Malaysia needs. One must keep in mind that on National Day Address this year, for the first time ever, the Malaysian government has gone aggressive by promising to provide free AI training too.
Malaysia must work with the likes of GDex to make the AI ecology in the Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) even more complete, indeed, to competitive.
AI literacy cannot remain confined to computer scientists, programmers, universities and technology companies.
Drivers, logistics coordinators, accountants, administrators, executives, sales personnel, warehouse managers, researchers and SME owners must gradually become comfortable using AI platforms.
AWS itself provides more than 500 free on-demand digital training courses across 17 languages through its training ecosystem.
Its Malaysian Skills to Jobs Tech Alliance, launched with MDEC, has also been working with Malaysian educational institutions to strengthen cloud, software and data capabilities. AWS says curriculum initiatives have already potentially benefited tens of thousands of Malaysian students.
Malaysia therefore does not have to invent every platform from scratch.
It has to mobilise them.
The objective should be mass AI literacy combined with deeper Malaysian capabilities in data, cloud infrastructure, cybersecurity, language models and eventually sovereign AI.
This distinction matters.
Malaysia cannot become technologically sovereign merely by owning data centres.
Neither can sovereignty mean shutting Malaysia away from AWS, Google, Microsoft, Nvidia, OpenAI or Chinese technological ecosystems.
Sovereignty means possessing sufficient domestic knowledge to choose among them intelligently while protecting Malaysian data, languages, institutions and strategic interests.
The Business Times survey also contains another warning.
Across Asean, cost remains one of the largest obstacles to AI adoption. And 56 per cent of respondents expect substantial disruption to operational and manufacturing roles by the end of 2026.
Logistics coordinators, inventory managers, procurement analysts and demand planners are among the occupations likely to experience significant transformation. This makes workforce training urgent rather than optional.
Malaysia’s strategy should therefore be simple: democratise access before technological inequality becomes entrenched.
Large corporations can purchase AI systems and consultants. SMEs often cannot. Highly educated professionals can independently learn new platforms.
Millions of ordinary workers may need employers, universities, government agencies and technology companies to create pathways for them.
The GDEX approach is useful precisely because it begins with people.
Malaysia does not necessarily have to beat Indonesia in every AI ranking. Asean should not become another arena of technological nationalism.
But Malaysia must keep up in order to catch up.
Indonesia’s 62 per cent first-mover figure compared with Malaysia’s 46 per cent should therefore be read neither with alarm nor complacency.
It should be read as a call to action. Malaysia already possesses strong universities, sophisticated corporations, semiconductor capabilities, growing cloud infrastructure and considerable investments from global technology companies.
The missing ingredient is scale.
AI has to travel from Cyberjaya into factories, warehouses, universities, government departments, SMEs and ordinary offices throughout Malaysia.
When thousands of companies begin doing what GDEX is attempting — training workers rather than merely buying technology — Malaysia will have moved beyond talking about the AI revolution. It will finally be participating in it.
* Phar Kim Beng, PhD is the Professor of Asean Studies at International Islamic University of Malaysia and Director of Institute of International and Asean Studies (IINTAS).
** This is the personal opinion of the writers or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.
