Malaysia pushes AI upskilling courses to ‘future-proof’ economy: ‘data is the new oil’
- Malaysia could generate as much as US$113.4 billion – a quarter of its GDP – through the embrace of generative AI
- Renewable energy and AI are key themes of PM Anwar Ibrahim’s administration to wean Malaysia off its reliance on its depleting oil reserves
That is despite the Malaysian government’s Khazanah Research Institute estimating half of all current jobs are at risk of automation by 2040.
Alongside renewable energy, AI has been one of the key themes of Anwar’s administration to wean Malaysia off its reliance on its depleting oil reserves, as he seeks to show his government is farsighted in the face of major changes to the labour market.
At the launch at a Kuala Lumpur university, Anwar said it was important to dispel fear of new technology, and recounted his experience introducing personal computers to his rural constituents in the 1990s by showing them that it could be used to recite the Koran, and not simply as a gateway to vice as some feared.
“We don’t want to be left behind,” he said.
The starter course provides four hours of learning materials, presented in Malay, English, Mandarin and Tamil to reach most of Malaysia’s multiethnic population.
