KUALA LUMPUR: MyEG Services Bhd has partnered with China's Guangxi Beitou IT Innovation Technology Investment Group Co Ltd to establish a flagship China-Asean artificial intelligence (AI) lab in Malaysia.
The Malaysia-China AI Innovation and Cooperation Centre, to be located at MyEG's headquarters in Petaling Jaya, aims to support the shared vision of Asean and China to deepen collaboration in AI development, the group said in a statement today.
The exchange of agreement was witnessed by Investment, Trade and Industry Minister Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz and a government representative from China.
In conjunction with the signing, MyEG and Beitou IT Innovation were selected to jointly establish a government-to-government lab that brings together leading AI companies from China and Asean to develop localised AI products and enhance cross-border applications.
Spearheaded by MyEG, the AI Lab will also see the participation of leaders in their respective fields such as China's Deepseek, robotics and drone companies DJI and Leju Robot, Huawei Technologies, Alibaba Group as well as Malaysian IT services provider Heitech Padu Bhd, among others.
MyEG said the lab will focus on the convergence of blockchain, generative AI and robotics technologies with emphasis on cross-border applications and customisation of AI services according to local culture and values.
The first service to be introduced will be the mutual recognition of national digital identifications (IDs) between Malaysia and China starting with Guangxi Autonomous Region.
The service will allow Malaysian citizens to use their MyDigital ID for identity verification purposes in the Guangxi Autonomous Region, and vice versa for Chinese citizens in Malaysia.
"We are well positioned to offer state of the art next generation products. We look forward to expanding this partnership to other Asean countries," said MyEG group managing director TS Wong.
The Guangxi provincial government has allocated a sum of RMB10 billion (about RM6.08 billion) through an investment fund to seed the development of such projects under the China-ASEAN programme.
"As the leading digital technology group in Guangxi, we are proud to act as the bridge connecting China AI resources such as open source LLMs, AI applications and AI talents, and others, with AI use cases across public private sectors, industries and academics in Malaysia and Asean.
"Working closely with our China and Malaysia partners, we are confident of increasing the overall productivity of Malaysia and Asean by leveraging the power of AI," said Beitou IT Innovation Group chairman Lai Shuiping.