KUALA LUMPUR, April 11 — Malaysian businesses can benefit from the immense potential of artificial intelligence (AI) by establishing comprehensive upskilling programmes and adopting advanced generative AI solutions, said Google’s global head of government affairs and public policy Karan Bhatia.
By doing so, they can position themselves as leaders in technology and drive economic growth, as what makes generative AI different from other forms of AI previously introduced previously is user-friendliness in terms of helping to solve everyday problems in people’s personal or professional lives.
People can use everyday language to interact with a generative AI chatbot or virtual agent, as well as get it to answer questions, create content, produce images, and summarise documents, including conversations, stories, videos, and music.
“Even better, a single generative AI platform can deliver solutions for multiple use cases, creating a network effect.
“As the number of users and applications increases, the model is exposed to more data and becomes increasingly accurate and useful, which in turn encourages more users. In a way, AI has the full potential to boost productivity and innovation in both the public and private sectors,” he told Bernama.
Karan said that, as a technology giant, Google is actively working with the leading businesses in Malaysia to adopt the latest AI technology from Google Cloud.
For example, Maxis Bhd is leveraging Google Cloud’s enterprise-grade generative AI capabilities to unlock its data’s full potential, while Gamuda Bhd is embracing digitalisation and generative AI to drive innovation across its operations.
Meanwhile, Bank Muamalat Malaysia Bhd is tapping into Google Cloud’s capabilities in modern infrastructure, security, data analytics, and generative AI to enhance its operational efficiencies and customer experience.
Google contributes to building a safe and inclusive digital society
Recently, Google announced an initiative to equip Malaysian youth with future-ready skills focused on AI and enhance public service delivery with the help of cloud-native, AI-driven productivity tools, a move aligned with Malaysia’s Madani Economy framework.
The initiative involves collaborating with the Higher Education Ministry (MOHE) to upskill local youth from diverse backgrounds. Until the end of this year, 161 public universities, polytechnics, and community colleges in Malaysia will receive up to 500 Google Career Certificate scholarships each.
This strategic initiative with MOHE marks a significant expansion of ‘Gemilang’, Google’s digital training programme launched in 2022 to help more Malaysians acquire digital skills—at no cost—for jobs in high-demand technology fields.
Karan said upskilling programmes like Gemilang and those offered by Google lead to benefits beyond just income level and higher revenues.
As AI technologies expand their capabilities, new AI-related jobs, like prompt engineers and AI research scientists, are emerging.
“We see AI as an opportunity to create new occupations, improve job quality, and generate significant benefits. In addition, the training programmes will enable organisations to get up-to-speed with the latest skills to help supercharge their productivity,” he said.
Karan added that those organisations using generative AI to speed up, automate, scale, and improve business processes stand to reap big benefits.
“Additionally, as the talent pool of highly skilled workers increases, homegrown companies are better positioned to innovate, develop cutting-edge products and services, and expand their reach. This contributes to the overall growth of employees and companies,” he said.
Since its launch, Gemilang has already provided 31,000 Google Career Certificate scholarships to benefit individuals in Malaysia, with 80 per cent of certificate graduates reporting a positive career outcome, like a new job, promotion, or salary raise within six months of completion.
Importance of training programmes to bridge the digital talent gap
Karan said Malaysia’s fast-growing digital economy is set to account for over 25 percent of the country’s total economic output by 2025 and potentially reach up to US$70 billion (RM331.1 billion) in gross merchandise value by 2030.
“Training programmes that target the digital talent gap are critical to reaching this potential, ensuring businesses of all sizes are well equipped and prepared to capture growth opportunities fully,” he said.
In 2022, businesses and households in Malaysia unlocked RM51.5 billion in economic benefits from using Google’s AI-powered products and services.
The company is aware that more people want to learn new digital skills and get jobs in high-demand fields.
“That is why our Gemilang programme aims to create opportunities for all Malaysians to do so at no cost,” he said, adding that Google is committed to supporting Malaysia’s digital growth ambitions.
AI is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to address some of the world’s most pressing challenges, like helping to reach climate goals, building sustainable growth, maintaining global competitiveness, and much more.
Karan said that running generative AI at scale will require massive data storage and computing power, which requires investments in technical infrastructure like data centres.
“With the support of the Malaysian government, Google is now exploring the potential establishment of an in-country Google data centre to address not only growing demand for AI services but all the digital services that Google offers in Malaysia,” he said.
— Bernama
