This page preserves a reference summary of Strategy 6: Kick-Starting a National AI Innovation Ecosystem from the National AI Roadmap 2021–2025, published by MOSTI (ISBN 978-967-19025-5-4) and reproduced for research and citation with attribution. The full text is in the Playbook PDF; the official copy is at mastic.mosti.gov.my. Independent four-year analysis of how this strategy fared is in Roadmap vs Reality.
The final strategy was where everything was meant to come together. Strategies 1–5 built the foundations — governance, research, infrastructure, talent, adoption. Strategy 6 was the engine that would convert those foundations into real, deployed AI solving national problems, and into a self-sustaining ecosystem that kept producing them.
Its centrepiece was the AI-Catalyst — a virtual hub hosting 11 AI Catalyst Consortia, each a partnership of government, academia and industry assembled to deliver one of the roadmap’s flagship National AI Use Cases. Around it sat an alliance, a directory, and international linkages designed to give the ecosystem reach and longevity.
What Strategy 6 set out to do
- Operationalise the AI-Catalyst and establish the 11 AI Catalyst Consortia in the first year.
- Deliver the 11 National AI Use Cases — seven for the priority areas of agriculture, healthcare and smart-cities/transport, plus four for education and public services — backed by challenge and matching-grant funding.
- Build the wider ecosystem — a Malaysia AI Alliance (MyAI-Alliance), a national AI directory (AI-DI), a regional centre of excellence, and investment guidelines for AI start-ups.
- Engage internationally — impactful global AI discourses and partnerships with overseas AI centres.
Targets at a glance
| Target | Horizon |
|---|---|
| AI-Catalyst administration established in year one | H1 |
| 11 AI Catalyst Consortia established | H1 |
| Deliver 7 use cases (agri / health / transport) + 4 (education / public services) | H1–H3 |
| Secure 50% of project funding from the Malaysia Grand Challenge Fund | H1–H3 |
| Establish the Malaysia AI Alliance (MyAI-Alliance) & AI-DI directory | H1–H2 |
| A regional AI-in-Supply-Chain Centre of Excellence | H3 |
| 5 MOUs with international AI centres; 5 global AI discourses | H2–H3 |
The 11 use cases, in brief
The consortia were organised around concrete projects: AI-driven palm-oil supply chains and autonomous oil-palm harvesting (agriculture); personalised learning, automated assessment and graduate profiling (education); autonomous vaccine distribution, proactive healthcare, the “A-eye” system and AI-Nasoalveolar (healthcare); and AI-driven mass public transport (smart cities). Each was meant to prove AI’s value in a domain that mattered to Malaysians — and to seed an industry around it.
The AI-Catalyst and its 11-consortia model did not become Malaysia’s operating structure for AI; that role was effectively assumed by the National AI Office’s working groups from 2024. Public reporting on the fate of the 11 flagship use cases is scarce. Track what happened to the 11 use cases →