Putrajaya: The Digital Ministry has decided to fully roll out 40 use cases of 5G private networks by December, Minister Govind Singh Deo said.
He said the government has approved the use cases and the province hopes the first few will be launched by the end of September.
“The ministry is focusing on various areas such as medical care, logistics, tourism and transportation that are important to the country. Towards the end of the year, the ministry expects all use cases to be up and running,” he told media at the launch of Alibaba Cloud’s Digital Accelerator program today.
Govind said the ministry was initially focusing on 40 key areas in preparation for Malaysia’s ASEAN chairmanship in 2025, and noted progress on Malaysia’s 5G network, with subscriber numbers reaching 14.8 million.
“In just three years, Malaysia has recorded an adoption rate of about 48.6 per cent, backed by 5G subscriber numbers,” he added.
Meanwhile, Alibaba Cloud, the digital technology and intelligence arm of the Alibaba Group, announced a series of initiatives to boost AI adoption and advance Malaysia’s digital transformation and innovation roadmap, including expanding talent training for start-ups and rural communities, upgrading its partnership programs with a focus on artificial intelligence, and launching its latest AI platform.
Alibaba Cloud said the move further demonstrates the company’s ongoing commitment to deepening its localization efforts, following its announcement in May that it would build its third data center in Malaysia by 2027.
At the ceremony officiated by Govind, Alibaba Cloud launched its Digital Accelerator Program to boost local AI and tech literacy by expanding, strengthening and building a comprehensive ecosystem with funding, training and technical support.
Govind said Malaysia is at a critical juncture in its digitalisation journey, with the integration of advanced technologies such as AI and cloud computing being crucial to the country’s growth and innovation.
Additionally, Kun Huang, general manager of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence South APAC, said the digital accelerator programme aims to incubate and certify more than 500 startups in Malaysia by the end of 2025.
“The company also plans to establish Alibaba Cloud Academy Skills Centres in at least five universities by 2025, provide digital training to 10,000 community students in rural areas in Selangor, Johor, Penang, Sarawak and Sabah, and nurture 50 independent software vendors by equipping them with critical cloud knowledge, especially on generative AI,” he added.
Alibaba Cloud also announced that it will begin offering its proprietary generative AI development platform, Model Studio, to international customers through its Singapore Availability Zone.
Through Model Studio, customers in Malaysia can access Alibaba Cloud’s large-scale Qwen family of language models, which includes both closed and open source models with multi-modal capabilities, facilitating the development of custom generative AI applications across various industries in Malaysia.
