Malaysia tiada rancangan jelas manfaat ekonomi AI, kata Shahril

PETALING JAYA: Former Umno chief communicator, Shahril Hamdan, has stated that Malaysia lacks a clear strategy to fully utilize artificial intelligence (AI) to transform its economy and improve the delivery of public services. The 2027 budget allocations for AI usage are vague in outlining how the funding will translate into meaningful outcomes for businesses and the overall economy.

Currently, the budget includes 100,000 free AI subscriptions for young people next year and RM30 million under the Digital Economy Corporation Malaysia (MDEC) to assist 4,000 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in adopting AI. However, Shahril questions whether the funding is sufficient to bring about significant changes, highlighting that RM30 million divided among around 4,000 companies would amount to only about RM7,500 per business.

He also expressed concerns about whether the initiative will follow a similar pattern to past efforts aimed at helping businesses digitalize their operations, where the impact of the funding is not clearly reported. Comparing Malaysia's approach to Singapore's, Shahril cited companies such as Anthropic, OpenAI, and ElevenLabs as examples of AI-driven firms that have established a presence in Singapore.

He believes that in places like Pulau Pinang and Kulim (in Kedah), Malaysia has focused on packaging and testing chips, but this has not yet generated the momentum needed to develop AI applications and capabilities locally. Shahril emphasized the need for a company, a government department, or a ministry that truly understands what it wants to achieve from AI for Malaysia, rather than relying on a broad range of ministries and secretaries.

He questioned whether any Malaysian minister or even the Prime Minister (PM) knows what they want from AI in Malaysia. He does not believe that they do, expressing the view that Malaysia mostly benefits from the spill-over effects, including investments in semiconductor industries, capital markets, and foreign direct investments.

However, he noted that the government has not yet demonstrated a clear strategy for using AI to transform the economy and improve public service delivery.