The AI-Rmap National Survey

The Malaysian Artificial Intelligence (AI) Roadmap Survey was carried out in 2021 to assess the state of AI use and development across Malaysia's economic sectors and to inform the roadmap. It examined readiness across governance, infrastructure and data, talent and technology, R&D, and innovation.

Who responded

The survey received 173 valid responses from quadruple-helix organisations: industry/private companies (77, 45%), government (66, 38%), academia (24, 14%) and others (6, 3%).

What it found

• Governance — more than half of organisations had a security policy in place, but only about half of those considered their programme well established. AI-governance initiatives were mostly at an initial stage, with the public sector notably behind.
• Infrastructure & data — generally good computing infrastructure, but most organisations were only at the initial stage of the data capabilities needed to support AI.
• Talent — high projected growth in demand for AI roles to 2025, with the AI Architect role showing the steepest projected increase; talent shortages and insufficient hiring budgets topped the list of challenges.
• R&D & innovation — the most common R&D areas were big-data analytics, smart applications and IoT; most organisations had no incentives to promote AI R&D.