By Santhia Panjanadan
KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 8 — Malaysia must strengthen its ability to build and commercialise solutions by moving Malaysians up the tiers from mere users of technology to builders, innovators and creators, said Digital Minister Gobind Singh Deo.
He said this required stronger links between the Government, industry, universities, researchers, start-ups and global technology companies.
Gobind said Malaysian companies must have a meaningful place in the artificial intelligence (AI) value chain, not simply as vendors but as partners developing products, intellectual property (IP) and solutions that can scale across ASEAN.
“This is where partnerships with companies such as ZTE (ZTE Corporation) matter,” he said in his speech at the ZTE Global Summit and User Congress 2026 here today.
He said global technology companies brought technology, experience and scale, while Malaysia brought talent, established industrial bases and access to a growing regional market.
“A successful partnership should leave something valuable behind: skilled Malaysians, stronger local companies, transferred knowledge, intellectual property and new markets,” he said.
Gobind said Malaysia had built strong digital foundations through connectivity, cloud, data centres, digital platforms and computing power, but the goal of digital transformation did not lie in infrastructure alone.
“The question is no longer simply how much infrastructure we build, but how well we turn it into value and how much of that value remains in Malaysia,” he added.
–WE