This opportunity refers to a variety of business models such as principal hub which include global trading centre and global business services. Global services represent many complex and high-value activities, with digital technologies and capabilities empowering many business-related services. Operating AI-driven procurement systems, for example, will require high-skilled talents such as software engineers to support the end-to-end operations. These efforts will also reaffirm Malaysia’s position as a principal hub, further growing the cluster.

This opportunity refers to creating a centralised platform for ecosystem players to co-develop IoT and AI solutions. Given the likely development-focused nature of IOT and AI hubs, it is expected that most activities will be related to research and development, which is both highly experimental and requires deep knowledge of analytics. There will be significant demand for high-skilled talents who can think out of the box and participate in high value-added activities in order to realise the greatest value from this opportunity. As the development hub matures, it is expected that new applications and services related to IoT and AI will be launched, specifically in industries where Malaysia has a competitive edge such as manufacturing and agriculture. The most direct ecosystem impacts could be seen in the growth in demand for E&E products, as IoT hardware is purchased to grow the space. Indirectly, IoT and AI can also grow other existing clusters such as manufacturing and agriculture by using technology to improve efficiency and quality, reducing costs and improving global competitiveness.

This opportunity refers to the critical infrastructure for connected digital transformation. These technologies will be vital in ensuring Malaysia has the sufficient capacity to support advanced technologies such as 5G mobile networks. World-class digital infrastructure will accelerate the development of Malaysia’s Digital Economy, and provide a suitable test bed to grow both existing and emerging digitally-empowered clusters. However, when framed against the NIA, the high energy usage and minimal generation of local, high-value job roles means data centre development is positioned with a lower priority compared to other investment opportunities. Extensive mitigation plans such as renewable energy development and establishment of energy efficient systems are imperative to balance out these risks.

This opportunity refers to leveraging digital as the foundations to streamline and enhance existing governmental operations, specifically in Malaysia. Frontier digital platforms are gamechangers in digital economic opportunity, and offer the potential to energise multiple industries. Developing strong local capabilities in these frontier platforms will directly drive development of application and service-based activities enabled by these platforms. Such operations typically comprise of highly complex and value-adding activities. Government procurement can further unlock opportunities, with strategic allocation of projects enabling local startups and industry players to participate, driving domestic linkages. High-value jobs will be created through this ecosystem boost, as skilled talent will be essential to ensure the smooth operations of these use cases.

This opportunity refers to the development of complex applications which are operable on the Cloud. However, this represents a crowded space, with a significant number of incumbent global players and developments to compete with. With private companies having announced plans to develop hyper-scale data centres, and further commitment from government to shift 80% of content to cloud, the country is still in an early stage of development when it comes to demand and local capabilities in this space. Given strong competition across the world from market leaders such as the US and China, developing significant market share in best-in-class, location-agnostic cloud-based software applications will be challenging. However, it is important to recognise the value of software developments, and the potential to explore niche market areas such as software developed with regional or local context, this area should still be explored for its medium-term opportunities. As with other digital platforms, success in this space will be highly experimental, and require deep knowledge in analytics. This will also result in substantial demand for high-skilled talent. Clusters that leverage on developing cloud capabilities could benefit from this software application focus, empowering them to drive more competitive growth.

This opportunity refers to a future of more distributed data technologies, and one which offers a remarkably powerful potential. It represents one of the fastest growing and important areas of innovation in advanced data infrastructure over recent years. Due to its nascent nature, it is too early for Malaysia to drive commercial application, and efforts should instead be focused in areas of medium-term opportunity to capture value as the underlying technology matures. On top of being a critical enabler to a sustainable and future-proof Digital Economy, it also promises a solution to resolve the intense energy usage of accompanying technologies such as data centres. When commercialised, it will reduce energy use and carbon emissions, making it a more environmentally-friendly option compared to traditional established data centres.