THE national artificial intelligence (AI) framework will be ready for presentation to the cabinet by year-end, said Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation Sdn Bhd (MDEC) director of data economy Karl Ng Kah Hou.

The framework aims, among others, to drive industry growth by implementing AI systems and pushing for greater awareness and adoption, he said.

“Awareness and promotion is quite critical. We’re going to highlight and amplify the benefits. There are not a lot of use cases for what is happening,” he said.

Ng said this after the launch of a study today by Microsoft and IDC Asia/Pacific, entitled “Future ready business: Assessing Asia-Pacific’s growth potential through AI”.

“We’ve conducted focus group discussions with academia, associations, start-ups, industry players and government stakeholders.

“Having programmes such as hackathons is something we are doing as well.”

Ng declined to answer when pressed on when the framework will be ready for implementation, saying that it depended on the cabinet.

The framework is built on six building blocks, namely developing data ecosystems, ensuring infrastructure and cybersecurity, driving awareness and adoption, fostering talent, boosting innovation and research and development, and nurturing AI governance.

There are more than 60 start-ups in Malaysia dealing with AI, with 72% being AI users and 28% being solution providers, he said. – April 2, 2019.