Axrail, a leading Malaysian IT solutions provider, has taken a groundbreaking step towards accelerating AI adoption in the region. The company, in collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Phison, has launched the first-of-its-kind Generative AI (Gen AI) Lab in Southeast Asia.
This state-of-the-art facility signifies a major leap forward for Malaysian businesses looking to leverage the power of AI. Here’s how the Gen AI Lab empowers innovation and shapes the future of tech skills in Malaysia:
A Hub for Cutting-Edge Solutions
The Gen AI Lab brings together the expertise of three industry heavyweights. Axrail’s proven track record in AI implementation combines with AWS’s industry-leading cloud solutions, including Amazon Bedrock – a service offering access to high-performing AI models. Phison’s innovative aiDAPTIV+ technology adds an on-premise dimension to the mix. This collaborative environment fosters the development of comprehensive, end-to-end generative AI solutions, catering to both cloud and on-premise needs.
Fast-Tracking AI Adoption for Businesses
The Gen AI Lab isn’t just about showcasing cutting-edge technology; it’s designed to be a practical resource for businesses. The “sandbox” environment allows companies to experiment with AI applications and explore their potential to transform business operations. This hands-on approach helps companies to build the capabilities needed to extract value from data and increase efficiency across various functions.
Empowering Malaysian Businesses, Big and Small
Axrail is particularly focused on accelerating AI adoption among Malaysian SMEs. The upcoming AWS Region in Malaysia will provide crucial benefits like data residency, low latency, and robust cloud services, making AI solutions even more accessible. With the Gen AI Lab serving as a launchpad, Malaysian businesses of all sizes will have the opportunity to reimagine their operations using AI and achieve future-proof growth.
Boosting Malaysia’s Tech Skills Landscape
The Gen AI Lab isn’t just about technology; it’s about people. By fostering a collaborative environment for AI development and experimentation, Axrail is contributing to the growth of a skilled AI workforce in Malaysia. This aligns perfectly with the country’s Digital Economy Blueprint, which prioritizes digital transformation and establishing Malaysia as a regional leader in the digital arena. The complimentary half-day sharing session planned for July 18th is a testament to Axrail’s commitment to knowledge sharing and empowering Malaysians to navigate the exciting world of AI.
The Gen AI Lab: A Springboard for the Future
Axrail’s Gen AI Lab marks a significant milestone for Malaysia’s tech landscape. This collaborative effort positions the nation at the forefront of AI innovation, empowering businesses to thrive and nurturing a future generation of tech talent. Malaysia’s focus on building a digital economy that is not only focused on the needs of an increasingly digital market but also on the skillsets needed to adopt and adapt to a rapidly evolving market aligns with the efforts that we see from the country’s digital pioneers like Axrail. The Gen AI Lab aligns with the recent rhetoric and push by the government to adopt and upskill to make the country a competitive lifeline for the Southeast Asian Region’s digital development.
Malaysia is poised for a digital revolution, and at the forefront of this transformation is a powerful combination: a world-leading 5G network and a collaborative program designed to unlock its potential for businesses.
Digital Nasional Berhad (DNB) and Ericsson have joined forces to launch a groundbreaking initiative that will catalyze the digitalization of enterprises across Malaysia. This program, formalized through Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) with industry leaders like eMooVit Technology, Scania, SKF Malaysia, and Intel, paves the way for advanced technologies to empower businesses of all sizes.
Leveraging World-class Infrastructure with Wide Coverage
Malaysia boasts one of the most impressive 5G networks globally, with over 80% population coverage and exceptional performance. This robust infrastructure, as Datuk Ahmad Zaki Zahid, DNB’s Chief Strategy Officer, highlights, positions Malaysia uniquely to accelerate its digital journey.
“The network already covers more than 80% of the population and has one of the best experiential and consistent performances in the world,” says Zahid. “To further drive the adoption of 5G amongst enterprises, DNB and Ericsson have initiated this program.”
Creating “Lighthouses” to Propel Digitization and Adoption
This program focuses on establishing “lighthouse” projects across key industries. These projects will showcase the transformative potential of 5G integration, acting as catalysts to inspire and guide widespread digitalization efforts.
Intel, a leading technology provider, brings its expertise to the table as a partner in this initiative. Ms. AK Chong, VP of Foundry Manufacturing & Supply Chain and Intel Malaysia MD, emphasizes the crucial role of 5G in driving industry transformation.
MoU signing ceremony. (From left to right) Mr David Hägerbro, Head of Ericsson Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh; Mr Nunzio Mirtillo, Former Head of Market Area South East Asia Oceania and India; Mr Fredrik Jejdling, Executive Vice President and Head of Networks, Ericsson; Mr Andrés Vicente, Head of Market Area South East Asia, Oceania & India; Datuk Ahmad Zaki Zahid, DNB Chief Strategy Officer; Mr Börje Ekholm, Ericsson Group CEO; YB Gobind Singh Deo, Minister of Digital; Tuan Ma Sivanesan, Deputy Secretary General (Strategic Policy), Ministry Of Digital; Mr Nasution Mohamed, Chief Operating Officer, Digital Nasional Berhad; Ms AK Chong, VP of Foundry Manufacturing & Supply Chain and Intel Malaysia; Dr. Hairi Zamzuri, CEO of eMooVit Technology; Ms Heba Eltarifi, Managing Director of Scania Southeast Asia; Mr Vignesh Sakthinathan, Managing Director of SKF Malaysia
“As 5G becomes a catalyst for industry transformation,” says Chong, “Intel’s technology is at the heart of this change, catalyzing AI at the edge and breaking down barriers in the 5G core space.”
The program focuses on developing customized solutions for various industries. Here are some exciting collaborations already underway:
eMooVit Technology: This collaboration will explore the use of 5G for autonomous vehicles, a technology with the potential to revolutionize urban transportation. Dr. Hairi Zamzuri, CEO of eMooVit, highlights the significance of this partnership: “This exciting collaboration with Ericsson will be key to bringing these solutions to life through enterprise adoption, and in the long-term, revolutionize urban transportation together.”
Scania: With Scania, the focus is on optimizing assembly lines and fleet management systems using 5G’s Enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB) capabilities. As Ms. Heba Eltarifi, Managing Director of Scania Southeast Asia, explains: “With 5G technology, Scania Malaysia aims to explore further optimizing our assembly and our fleet management system to deliver greater efficiency and effectiveness to our customers.”
SKF Malaysia: This collaboration will leverage 5G to enable wireless digitalization on the manufacturing shop floor. This will allow for real-time data collection and analysis, leading to increased efficiency and innovation. Mr. Vignesh Sakthinathan, Managing Director of SKF Malaysia, expresses his enthusiasm: “We are thrilled to embark on this journey… As the world’s leader in Bearing, Seals, Lubrication systems and technologies, SKF Malaysia’s manufacturing arm is committed to embracing digitalization to drive innovation and deliver value to our customers.”
This initiative by DNB and Ericsson, along with their industry partners, presents a significant leap forward for Malaysia’s digital transformation. By harnessing the power of 5G, businesses across the nation can unlock new levels of efficiency, productivity, and innovation. As David Hägerbro, Head of Ericsson Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, concludes: “The digitalization of industries in Malaysia will enable the country to leapfrog as a Digital Nation. But they need to begin planning and investing in their digital journey now.”
GDS, a key player in high-performance data centres, inaugurated its Nusajaya Tech Park (NTP) Data Centre Campus in Johor, Malaysia. The grand event, attended by dignitaries like YB Senator Tengku Datuk Seri Utama Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz, Minister of Investment, Trade, and Industry, marked GDS’s strategic entry into Southeast Asia.
GDS takes a huge step in expanding to Southeast Asia with the Nusajaya Tech Park Data Center Campus, the region’s first. The campus, featuring Nusajaya 1, 2, and 3 data centres, covers 22,500 square metres and boasts an impressive 69.5 MW IT power capacity. This move positions GDS to address the growing demand for robust digital infrastructure in Southeast Asia as digitization becomes more imperative with the advancement of AI-driven digitalization.
GDS’s strategic categorization of industry players and its customer-centric approach set it apart. With a 22-year track record, GDS has developed an understanding of the diverse needs of its customers and the budding ecosystem of digitized services. This has enabled them to foster an ecosystem that is able to meet these requirements. An example of this is the innovative Smart DC product that utilises AI and IoT for efficient data centre management.
As digitization continues its rapid deployment across businesses in Southeast Asia, GDS’s Nusajaya Tech Park Data Centre is being geared to address the need for rapid deployment. GDS will employ cutting-edge prefabricated technology, enabling the swift construction of data centres. The NTP Data Center Campus currently hosts 40 employees, with ambitious plans to expand headcount significantly. As the move into Malaysia – and particularly into Johor – will necessitate the expansion and hiring of a workforce with relevant digital skills, GDS will be actively collaborating with colleges, nurturing future talent and contributing to the local tech ecosystem. That said, the company will also be working on hiring skilled talent and upskilling talent to meet the demands of its business.
GDS envisions a robust expansion of its data centre footprint across Malaysia and Southeast Asia in the next decade. The launch of GDS NTP Data Center Campus Phase 1 signifies a strategic focus on SIJORI locations, actively building an ecosystem to meet the region’s growing data centre demands.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is preparing to go live with its Malaysia AWS Region. The eagerly awaited AWS Region in Malaysia is now confirmed to go live in 2024. This is part of AWS’s RM25.5 billion (USD$5.39 billion) investment pledge, which aimed to construct a brand-new AWS Region in Malaysia by 2037. This monumental step will provide a slew of benefits for developers, startups, enterprises, educational institutions, and various organizations.
The forthcoming AWS Region is set to play a crucial role in driving Malaysia’s digitization efforts and meeting the surging demand for cloud services. It will also be a hub for innovation in Malaysia and Southeast Asia. An array of cutting-edge technologies such as generative artificial intelligence, machine learning, and the Internet of Things will be at the fingertips of startups, small to mid-sized businesses, enterprises, and public sector organizations. The announcement also aligns with the Malaysian government’s recent strategic Madani Economy Framework, which strives to enhance the well-being of all Malaysians by 2030.
The new AWS Region also brings a significant advantage for customers with data residency preferences, enabling secure data storage within Malaysia, faster response times, and catering to the escalating demand for cloud services in the region.
In-Person Support for Local Visionaries & AWS Partners
To further support Malaysia’s digital transformation, AWS opened a new office in Kuala Lumpur on June 1, 2023. This state-of-the-art facility spans over 32,000 square feet, designed to encourage agile work, lifelong learning, and collaboration. It is primed to serve as an innovation hub, deepening relationships with customers and partners.
The Malaysian team is diverse and features experts from different fields who are able to support the company’s Malaysian clientele remotely and in person. Their focus is on empowering customers and AWS Partners of all sizes. Some prominent names include Al Rajhi Bank, Bank Islam, Cancer Research Malaysia, the Department of Polytechnic and Community College Education (DPCCE), the Department of Statistics Malaysia, Maxis, and PETRONAS.
Having a diverse team, AWS has been able to help its clientele and partners drive innovation and transformation in their respective fields. For instance, Pos Malaysia Berhad (Pos Malaysia), the nation’s postal and courier service provider, has embraced AWS as part of its ambitious transformation plan. This includes migrating its IT infrastructure to AWS, which has streamlined operations, reduced IT costs by 50%, and introduced new, customer-centric solutions.
The partnership between PETRONAS, Gentari Sdn Bhd (Gentari), Amazon, and AWS is set to accelerate sustainability and decarbonization efforts. Their plan includes the construction of a state-of-the-art facility incorporating advanced technology, robotics, and automation, similar to what’s used in Amazon’s facilities. PETRONAS will continue leveraging AWS technologies to improve and expand existing solutions like SETEL and STEAR.
Generative AI, with its ability to create new content and ideas, is making significant inroads in Malaysia. One of AWS’s partners, 123RF, a major digital image stock agency, has introduced an AI image generation service in collaboration with AWS. This service allows users to create custom images from text prompts and has led to a 20% increase in licensing rates for AI-generated content.
Creating a More Diversely Accessible Launchpad for Malaysia’s Digital Ambitions
The launch of the AWS Malaysia Region in 2024 is set to become a catalyst in Malaysia’s journey toward becoming a regional leader in digital technology. AWS’s commitment, stretching back to 2016, underscores its dedication to supporting Malaysia’s digital transformation, fostering innovation, and building a brighter future for Malaysians.
The company has also been instrumental in the upskilling of Malaysians. They have trained over 50,000 individuals in cloud skills since 2017. Through initiatives like the AWS re/Start program and AWS Academy, they offer free cloud computing skills development and job training. This equips learners for essential roles in the cloud computing industry, connecting them with employment opportunities.
Malaysia’s national postal and courier service is going full monty with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to achieve its digitization goals. The drive for digitization and agility comes as a multi-year plan that was initiated back in 2019. Plans were put into high gear with the sudden onset of the pandemic later that year. However, the pandemic also saw an increase in parcel deliveries driven by increased transaction volumes on e-commerce platforms.
Source: Pos Malaysia
With that in mind, Pos Malaysia has already rolled out a number of customer-facing and internal digital initiatives to provide better service for their customers. Having already experienced the effects of an estimated 24% growth in the e-commerce sector during the COVID lockdown, the company is looking to further improve their service further. To date, the company has already migrated 60 critical applications which include parcel tracking, point-of-sale retail, SAP, supply chain, mail tracking, and human resources to the cloud with Amazon Web Services. They are now in the process of migrating the remaining workloads and applications to AWS by 2023.
Pos Malaysia’s digitization efforts will utilise Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (ECC) which provides secure, resizable compute capacity. Most importantly, it will allow Pos Malaysia to dynamically scale to meet customer needs during periods of increased demand. It will also allow them to more efficiently manage resources for day-to-day operations. The scalability will be a cornerstone of Pos Malaysia’s ability to provide frictionless deliveries during peak periods.
Source: AWS
“Pos Malaysia’s digital transformation with AWS is a great example of how a traditional last-mile logistics business can simplify, modernize, innovate, and scale. Using AWS, Pos Malaysia can capture growth opportunities in e-commerce as demand for online shopping accelerated across Southeast Asia during the pandemic. Pos Malaysia is delivering goods into the hands of customers in a cost- effective, efficient, and agile manner, especially during peak periods with high parcel volumes.”
AWS is will become the home of Pos Malaysia’s central data repository for an integrated data platform. This data will be able to provide insights which will enable them to better understand customer demands, find delivery efficiencies and improve operations across the country. They will be able to do this using AWS services like SageMaker which will allow the company to build, train and deploy machine learning models for virtually any use case. This will allow Pos Malaysia to build data-driven models that will be able to predict peak periods. This will allow the company to proactively deploy more staff and vehicles to ensure smooth delivery.
Last year, Red Hat shared our plan to evolve our global Telecommunications, Media and Entertainment (TME) organization to better suit the needs of our partners and customers. Since then, we’ve been connecting and building within our ecosystem to deliver solutions that answer our customer’s biggest needs, one of which is helping navigate the global shift in the way services are delivered across both the TME industry and society as a whole.
Industry-leading partners and connected organizations are working together with the telco ecosystem to build on each other’s innovations in new ways, working together to accelerate the pace of industry change, with a focus on building frictionless customer journeys. For example, service providers are helping banks meet the demands of customers for real-time digital services like hyper-personalization, real-time fraud detection and next-gen connectivity – while also giving the unbanked access to financial services. From mobile banking and payments, connected vehicles, public safety monitors, private 5G and more, service providers are fundamental in providing the many technologies that are driving a completely new landscape for improved societies and global transformation.
How Cloud Independence Can Drive Change
However, this does not happen overnight. Service providers are rethinking their cloud approach by transitioning to a hybrid and multi-cloud environment to help them become more flexible, agile, scalable and competitive in a constantly evolving market. In a TM Forum Themes Report, sponsored by Red Hat, we found that this pivot can lead a service provider to decide which hyper-scale cloud provider meets their needs best.
Which cloud-native solutions have the flexibility and functionality at the scale my organization requires?
Can I balance these benefits against customer choice, disparate cloud silos, increased costs and limited flexibility?
To help mitigate this risk, we found that service providers are working to maintain cloud and container independence – especially if they want to remain competitive as these new technologies begin rapidly rolling out. This TM Forum Themes Report explains this need for independence, highlighting how service providers are increasingly taking a hybrid multi-cloud approach to maintain supplier diversity while expanding their own telco cloud (operator-as-a-platform) skills and technologies.
Customers at Transformation’s Epicentre
Underpinning these efforts are 5G networks that provide innovative ways for service providers to monetize their investments. We see this in areas like enterprise multi-access edge computing (MEC), open and virtualized RAN, 5G core and more, with real-world successes from our customers including Bharti Airtel, Verizon and VodafoneZiggo.
Red Hat can help service providers successfully compete with new services and business models, boost revenues and meet rising customer expectations by providing strategic expertise and a rich portfolio of products and services for their hybrid cloud deployments. We provide the flexibility for their projects across this vast landscape, from proofs-of-concept to production environments, helping providers select what works best for their own specific needs.
In addition to this shift, we’re excited to see service providers taking advantage of cloud services managed by third-party experts like Red Hat including Red Hat OpenShift Service on AWS (ROSA) and Microsoft Azure on Red Hat OpenShift (ARO). This helps organizations offload the underlying infrastructure work and focus on their core business, providing additional flexibility and driving tangible business benefits.
We are also seeing Red Hat customers increase artificial intelligence (AI) deployments, or providing AI-as-a-Service, over the past year, from Turkcell AI to NTT East (in Japanese). It is clear that the practical deployments of AI – from new consumer apps and social engagements, to enterprise B2B apps and AI at the edge, are making a significant impact by enhancing customer experiences, driving greater business efficiencies and creating new revenue streams.
The Partner Ecosystem is Expanding
In order to deliver these customer-centric solutions, Red Hat is working with Ericsson, a leading provider of 5G software and hardware to lower the barriers to 5G adoption and build an open platform for 5G connectivity and innovation. We are doing this through active collaboration across Ericsson’s portfolio, including packet core, IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) and operations support system (OSS), as well as Cloud RAN in Ericsson’s Open Lab – a space for fast and interactive co-creation of innovative solutions with communications service providers and ecosystem partners.
Things do not stop there – other software providers such as Baicells, Casa Systems, MATRIXX Software, Mavenir, Nokia, Rakuten Symphony and Samsung work closely with Red Hat to modernize 5G and RAN workloads across the open hybrid cloud. Additionally, with Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Intel and Lenovo, we are able to build full-stack hardware and software solutions on top of a reliable infrastructure to support customer deployments from the data center to the edge.
The unprecedented disruption the world faced during the past two years forced governments to rewrite the rulebook on how they serve their citizens. During the COVID-19 pandemic, public sector organizations across Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ) had to act quickly to find digital solutions to everyday challenges to keep citizens safe and productive. Enabled by cloud technology, digitized government agencies became better equipped to offer citizen, educational, and healthcare services, which helped improve and even save lives.
As we emerge from the crisis, the experience, momentum, and lessons learned have heightened potential for leaders to drive digitization as a priority to deliver their national agendas. Public sector organizations across APJ are pivoting from the pandemic and looking ahead to how digital transformation enabled by cloud can help to seize opportunities to deliver faster, more innovative, and modernized citizen services.
Scaling Digitization for Public Sector Organizations
According to a Gartner survey in 2021, digitally advanced government organizations realize more benefits of modernization, including higher efficiency, cost reductions, greater workforce productivity, compliance, and transparency. Research by Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud Economics shows that AWS customers in ASEAN – across commercial and public sectors – who migrated to AWS are seeing an acceleration in innovation, with an approximate 29% reduction in time-to-market for new features and applications, about 41% increase in employee efficiency, and an improvement of about 37% in operational resiliency through less downtime of services.
In the last year, AWS has signed six government cloud services agreements across APJ to boost digitization, supporting these governments with our network of local partners as they move their customers and themselves to the cloud, including Malaysia, and Thailand in ASEAN. These initiatives help governments save lives, provide critical citizen services, and support learner outcomes – ultimately changing the way society engages, educates, and does business for good. They also enable opportunities for local businesses on the AWS Partner Network to work closely with public sector customers to solve some of the biggest community challenges.
Enabling Security, Resilience, and Continuity through the Cloud
Aside from accelerating the speed and scale of digitization, leveraging the cloud also ensures security, resilience, and continuity. This creates a safe and reliable environment for students to learn, employees to work remotely, and citizens to access government services and healthcare.
In Indonesia, when the Bali Provincial Government launched its Smart Island initiative to transform the Indonesian island into a digital province, the Communication, Information, and Statistics Agency of Bali (Diskominfos) migrated its data to AWS cloud from an on-premises infrastructure. Launching an attendance system using machine learning technology, it enabled 19,820 public service employees to sign in to the office virtually, saving almost 69% in monthly costs for its attendance system. Many of Bali’s other critical applications are also built using AWS solutions, including a traditional village census system, a health facility oxygen monitoring system, and an asset management system.
By digitally transforming on the cloud, the public sector can rapidly scale services to meet spikes in demand, wind-down operations to reduce costs, and innovate widely using the latest cloud technology.
More Digital Skills Needed to Support Digitization
As the digitization momentum accelerates, governments across APJ will also need to prioritize digital skills training for their workforce in order to unlock the cloud’s full potential. The recent “Building Skills for the Changing Workforce” report produced by AWS and AlphaBeta shows that Australia, India, Indonesia, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, and South Korea will need to train an estimated 86 million more workers in digital skills collectively over the next year to keep pace with technological advancements – equivalent to 14% of their current total workforce. The report also noted that three of the five most demanded digital skills by 2025 will be cloud-related.
In Thailand, the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society is collaborating with AWS to train more than 1,200 public sector employees with cloud skills, so they can implement cloud technologies at scale, make better data-driven business decisions, and innovate new services to drive improved outcomes for citizens. In Indonesia, its Information and Communication Technology Training and Development Center (BPPTIK Kominfo) worked with AWS to get its employees up to speed on cloud knowledge, in support of Indonesia’s goal of creating a pool of about 9 million digital professionals by 2030 as part of its national digital information agenda. And in Malaysia, AWS has worked to provide cloud training for the Malaysian Administration Modernization and Management Planning Unit (MAMPU) to help accelerate their cloud use and fulfil mission-critical needs. This is in addition to the training of over 3.5 million users across Asia Pacific since 2018.
Looking ahead, we will need to move beyond business as usual to close the skills gap and create conditions for successful digitization. Governments, educators, and industries across APJ will need to collaborate more closely than ever to give all individuals the opportunity to build and deepen their digital skills that will support digitization momentum now and in the future.
Closer Collaboration Needed to Unlock the Potential of APJ
As societies and communities across APJ continue to evolve, organizations of all kinds – from governments to industries to non-profits – will need to come together to solve some of the biggest issues we are facing, from helping marginalized communities to addressing climate change.
This is why AWS launched Cloud Innovation Centers (CIC), to serve as a platform for public and private sector organizations to collaborate, solve challenges, and test new ideas with AWS’s technology expertise. In Singapore, AWS is partnering with East Coast Town Council and Accenture on a six-month pilot to deploy cloud-powered sustainability solutions in municipal estate management, to support Singapore’s move towards its net zero carbon emissions goal by 2040.
We encourage collaborations between governments, industry, and cloud services providers to enable long-term scaling of digital programs. The momentum has been established, so let’s continue to ride the wave and work together to keep digitization at the forefront of the region’s push for progress as we pivot from pandemic to prosperity.
Google Cloud is stepping up its services for Malaysia with plans to roll out a new region in the country. The new region joins Thailand and New Zealand as Google Cloud continues its expansion throughout the Asia Pacific Region. With the addition of the three new regions, Google Cloud expands its total regions to 14 within the Asia Pacific region and 37 globally.
The rollout of the Malaysia region will bolster the government’s plans to accelerate the country’s digital economy to contribute 25.5% of the national GDP by 2025. According to reserach by AlphaBeta that was commissioned by Google, the country is poised to reap the benefits of an MYR257.2 billion (USD 61.3 billion) annual economic value by 2030 if digital transformation is properly leveraged.
The rollout of these regions will bring world class connectivity and compute to the quickly expanding number of ccompanies depending on the cloud. In addition to access to high performance compute and access to Google’s Tensor capabilities, better latency will help accelerate workflows. Google’s new Cloud Region will also be complemented by the existing Dedicated Cloud Interconnect locations. In Malaysia, these are located in Cyberjaya and Kuala Lumpur. Organisation on Google Cloud will be able to leverage interconnectivity and access on-premises and through direct connections via Google Cloud.
Source: Gooogle Cloud
Being one of the foremost in the industry, data security, data soverignty and privacy is paramount when it comes to rolling out new regions for Google Cloud. When asked about data privacy and sovereignty when it comes to rolling out a new Region in Malaysia, Google Cloud Managing Director for Southeast Asia, Ruma Balasubramaniam, had this to say, “We will work with local customers to ensure that each local cloud region, including the one that’s coming soon to Malaysia, fits their specific needs. Our aim is to provide solutions that help customers meet their local requirements for data security, privacy, and sovereignty – without compromising on considerations like functionality, cost, and the developer experience.The Malaysia cloud region will ultimately give local organizations more options regarding where they would like to run their workloads and store their data, whether this is in-country in the Malaysia cloud region or in another cloud region that is part of our global network. Ultimately, it is solely up to the Google Cloud customer to choose where they would like to run their workloads and store their data.“
In addition, she emphasized Google’s commitments to data security and privacy even internally. Google Cloud has ensured that all data on their service is securely encrypted and that no Google employee will be able to acceess it. They also have strict guidelines and tools for customers to ensure data security including preventing Google decryption access. This includes government requested access which require valid legal processes. Government requests for data is also reported in their transparency report.
Google Cloud hasn’t announced any timelines just yet when it comes to the rollout and availability. The new regions will join Google Cloud’s 11 existing regions across Asia Pacific and Japan including ones in Jakarta and Singapore. In total, Google Cloud currently has 34 regions and 103 zones worldwide. The company has been working public sector agencies, large corporations and even small and medium entrerprises across the world. In Malaysia alone, Google Cloud is working with Capital A (Airasia Aviation and airasia Super App), Hong Leong Bank, JB Cocoa, KPJ Healthcare, Malaysia Airlines, Mass Rapid Transit Corporation, Maxis and Media Prima.
A lot of what we do now is underpinned by the cloud, and “cloud” has increasingly become a tech buzzword. There are many reasons there is buzz around the cloud, and I will expand on some of them here.
Cloud democratises access to the kind of computing power that was previously only accessible to large corporations with deep pockets. What used to require a $100 million investment can now be achieved on the cloud for as little as $26 a year. And, by not spending time and resources on traditional IT infrastructure, companies using the cloud can build faster, better, and cheaper – in more sustainable ways. Cloud is flexible, agile, scalable, and has the potential to impact all industries in ways that were unimaginable just a few years ago across healthcare, finance, agriculture, education, and sustainability, to name a few. And as the demand for cloud computing grows, so does the demand for cloud-skilled workers. It has been predicted that there will be a significant skills gap by 2025 unless more is done to train, retrain, and upskill the region’s workforce.
Driving digital transformation and harnessing data
In today’s digital economy, it’s hard to find an industry that doesn’t use cloud applications. From accelerating medical research, improving crop yields in developing economies, and driving sustainability, to tracking bush fires, the cloud is changing the way we live, work, and play. Digital transformation is both an agent of change and a facilitator of it, and some of the biggest disruptions have been in the banking sector as we change the way we bank. There are more than 50 digital banks across Asia, with more on the way, helping drive financial inclusion in developing countries using the cloud. Today’s digital bank customers have high expectations for convenience, enhanced user experience, and personalisation, and access to the cloud has enabled these banks to innovate to meet these demands quickly and at low cost.
The pandemic has accelerated disruption and cloud adoption, and the volume of data produced as industries move to the cloud is growing rapidly. This data holds the potential for insights that can inform business strategies and is a resource that can’t be ignored. While some businesses are already leveraging data to drive decisions, gain competitive advantage, and fuel the next generation of innovation and success, more will do so in the coming year as business leaders start to understand the potential that cloud computing presents.
Data and analytics will become this decade’s priorities, and we must be ready with the necessary tools, skills, and expertise to tap into this resource to deliver efficiency and unlock experimentation. For many organisations, data is their most valuable asset, and we are helping them move data to the cloud, modernise applications, build next-generation secure data platforms, and build data lakes to collect real-time data. And, using Machine Learning (ML) algorithms, these organisations can gain real-time actionable insights, results, and predictions to improve decision making.
The digital skills gap
The rapid evolution of cloud technology and widespread adoption of cloud computing will require a workforce that has the right data and cloud skills, and across Asia, the supply of digitally skilled workers is nowhere near the demand. COVID-19 accelerated the adoption of cloud tech which meant the skills gap widened as the global talent landscape transformed. Digital workers in Asia today know they will need advanced digital skills – almost half believe cloud computing skills will be required in their jobs within just four years.
Broadening the skills base of workers globally is vital for economic growth, resiliency, and prosperity, and the social implications of failing to act include rising income disparity and more unemployment. Since COVID-19, there has been mass labour market displacement with job losses predicted to far exceed the Global Financial Crisis, and unemployment is forecasted to be at its highest since the Great Depression. With this in mind, governments around the world are implementing national policies on skilling and laying the building blocks for reforms, but more needs to be done by the private sector. Employers need to help current workers upskill, educational institutes need to adopt curricula that provide relevant skills, and workers across all fields need to seize the opportunity to learn new digital skills.
AWS is invested in the future
AWS is committed to a dynamic and entrepreneurial IT sector and supporting economic growth globally, and we hope to build resilience into the digital-skilled workforce and help bridge the skills gap. Globally, we are committed to helping 29 million people grow their technical skills with free cloud computing training by 2025. We have made over 500 free, on-demand, courses available online, with many courses available in local languages such as Bahasa Indonesia, Japanese, Korean, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, as well as interactive labs and virtual day-long training sessions through AWS Training and Certification. We are also working with educational institutes around the region to develop programmes that provide students with relevant in-demand cloud tech skills.
The world’s workforce needs a sustainable future, and Amazon is committed to helping provide this by making more than 91 renewable energy investments around the world and committing to Amazon’s Climate Pledge to be a net-zero carbon business by 2040, 10 years ahead of the Paris Agreement, and to be on 100% renewable energy by 2025.
The cloud has the power to do a lot of good, but we must be prepared to harness that power with a skilled workforce that can meet the challenge to innovate at exponential speed. As the world emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic with new ways of operating, working, and living being adopted, cloud will remain at the forefront of our digital lives.
When I was a young boy growing up in Jersey in the British Channel Islands, I’d turn on the grainy TV to warm up so I could watch sports with my father and brother. FORMULA 1 racing was the most exciting sport for us, even though the cars often sped by faster than the camera operator and the technology could keep up.
Now, racing is covered in a far richer and more engaging way, especially since F1 launched F1 Insights powered by AWS in 2018, bringing data analytics as a live feed to my screens. Watching on my phone in Singapore, I love the real-time Car Performance Scores, which include thousands of data points streamed every second from every car on the track, giving me a much better understanding of where my favorite car ranks in the field – and what’s driving its performance.
It’s exactly this type of real-time information that businesses need to understand their performance, so they can make decisions rapidly and keep up with market changes. During the pandemic, we have learned that speed matters, whether you’re a digital native or a more traditional organization. As all businesses faced social distancing measures, those who survived the pandemic adopted new ways to do business, and they adapted fast using the cloud.
Some moved faster than others. Some enterprises with legacy systems seem resigned to moving slowly. Even today, I often hear comments like, “It’s just the nature of our size and heritage.”
We must debunk that myth. Speed is not preordained by heritage. Speed is a choice that any organization can make if it is prepared to harness the cloud. As a recent McKinsey article put it: “For CEOs, cloud adoption is not just an engine for revenue growth and efficiency. The cloud’s speed, scale, innovation, and productivity benefits are essential to the pursuit of broader digital business opportunities, now and well into the future.”
Culture Change
Many organizations can look for ways to change their culture and embrace speed, creating an environment that values urgency. In a culture designed for speed, people are actively encouraged to experiment and are rewarded for it. Although, flipping a switch won’t suddenly deliver speed – companies have to build muscle while they learn how to innovate at pace, all the time.
Amazon has been around for nearly 27 years, and to this day we maintain what we call a “Day 1” culture – approaching everything we do with the entrepreneurial spirit of being on the first day of your organization. We do this by giving our teams autonomy, on the understanding that they operate within the guardrails of our culture.
We believe the more we can equip people to make high judgment decisions at all levels, the better off we, and our customers, are. We encourage employees to make high-velocity, high-quality decisions by setting the vision and context for teams. Since Amazon was founded in 1994, we’ve consistently operated based on three big ideas that every employee knows. The first is to obsess over customers. This is cemented in our mission statement to be “earth’s most customer-centric company.” The second is that if we focus on the customer it will force us to innovate – to look at new ways of solving problems on behalf of our customers. The third is to be stubborn in sustaining our long-term vision while being flexible in how we get there.
As Jeff Bezos explains, “In a traditional corporate hierarchy, a junior executive comes up with a new idea that they want to try. They have to convince their boss, their boss’s boss, their boss’s boss’s boss and so on – any ‘no’ in that chain can kill the whole idea.” Systems and processes that identify, validate, and approve new ideas from within the business are invaluable in democratizing company-wide idea exploration and driving experimentation in business as usual. For example, at Amazon, we make it easy for those closest to our customers to raise ideas for speedy review. Imagine a time-wasting process or one that results in a poor customer experience. People complain about it regularly, but they know that it can be so hard to implement change, that it’s not worth the effort. The problem is put in the “too hard” basket and no one says anything. Now, imagine actually rewarding teams for suggesting a fix. Imagine if the process was fast and painless and resulted in change. How many great ideas would happen every week?
Thinking Big and Acting Small
Thinking big is the hallmark of innovation. But, as we look to move quickly and embrace greater experimentation, we should also look to de-risk the process. This means recognizing that the most powerful innovations often come through simplification. One small, seemingly insignificant cost or time-saving can drive enormous benefits for both companies and their customers when applied at scale. Thinking big also means starting big ideas with very small, reversible experiments. At Amazon, we look for “two-way doors.” If an experiment fails (as they often do), we can back out of the decision rather than being committed to moving ahead through a “one-way door,” which can be expensive and difficult to undo. This way, you learn quickly with very low stakes.
A great example of innovative thinking in the face of legacy technology is FashionValet. As the modest fashion brand grew, its multi-environment hybrid technology infrastructure was unable to keep up with demand during product launches. In 2019, FashionValet went all-in on AWS to optimize processes and meet growing demand. With Auto Scaling Groups and RDS Aurora features, FashionValet can now run 10x more servers during product launches to meet demand, then scale down automatically with no downtime. Using this technology, FashionValet has also accelerated their product development timeline by 200% and reduced their infrastructure management costs by 75%.
Companies don’t have to bet their business on innovation, but they shouldn’t let legacy thinking hold them back. By actively empowering teams, clearing the path to “Yes,” and using small experiments, companies can build capability to promote high-velocity decisions – helping them operate at the speed of F1.
