Malaysia’s race to build a homegrown AI workforce has entered a new phase with Huawei pledging to train 30,000 local professionals. The tech giant is expanding its commitment to growing the local AI ecosystem in the country. Its announcement comes as Malaysia develops its domestic, broad-reaching digital strategy framework
Digital Minister Gobind Singh Deo spoke at the Huawei Cloud AI Ecosystem Summit APAC 2025 last week, emphasising that the Malaysian AI talent development initiative has to be inclusive and comprehensive, and ensure every part of society will benefit from technological advancement.
“AI-driven productivity must benefit every Malaysian, with no one left behind, and we must be inclusive and work together,” Gobind said during his keynote. The Huawei Cloud AI Ecosystem Summit was part of the ASEAN AI Malaysia Summit, held concurrently.
Whether through cloud-based platforms for small and medium enterprises or AI-assisted diagnostics for remote clinics, technologies must deliver tangible value in all sectors, The minister said.
Huawei’s infrastructure leadership drives talent strategy
Huawei’s commitment to Malaysia AI talent development comes as the company solidifies its position as a leading cloud infrastructure provider in the region. In August 2025, Gartner positioned Huawei in the Leaders quadrant of its Magic Quadrant for Container Management, as recognition of the company’s expertise and strategic investments in Cloud Native 2.0.
Such recognition validates Huawei’s infrastructure capabilities that will underpin Malaysia’s AI ambitions. The company’s container products, including CCE Turbo, CCE Autopilot, Cloud Container Instance (CCI), and the distributed cloud-native service UCS, can each help provide a cloud-native infrastructure for managing large-scale, containerised workloads for public, distributed clouds, and hybrid clouds, as well as edge environments.
Huawei Technologies (Malaysia) CEO Simon Sun described the scope of the initiative, which targets a range of professionals that includes students, government officials, industry leaders, think tanks, among others.
“We have set the goal of nurturing 30,000 Malaysian AI talents, comprising students, government officials, industry leaders, think tanks, associations, and others under this initiative in the coming three years,” Sun said during the summit, which was attended by approximately 300 regional delegates.
Technical foundation for AI excellence
Huawei Cloud’s technical capabilities mean the company is in a prime position to support Malaysia’s AI workforce development. It operates a global network comprising of 34 regions and 101 availability zones, including five regions and 17 availability zones specifically in the APAC region, providing the low-latency infrastructure important to AI applications.
The platform supports more than 160 open-source models available through its AI Cloud Service, so offering flexibility for different industries. At its core is Huawei’s Pangu, a range of multimodal AI models. These form the backbone of the company’s “AI for Industries” strategy, delivering vertical-specific solutions for manufacturing, healthcare, transport, and other sectors.
Li Yin, CTO of Huawei Cloud Enterprise Intelligence, showed how the capabilities translate into real-world applications. During her session “Leap to Cloud, Heading to AI,” she shared examples of Huawei Cloud’s work with customers in over 30 industries, where AI was applied in over 500 scenarios.
The talent development programme builds on Huawei’s existing ICT Academy and AI Talent Development Plan, which the Digital Minister commended for “nurturing a highly skilled, future-ready workforce equipped with industry-relevant expertise.”
Beyond training, Huawei is also committed to nurturing 200 local AI partners through knowledge transfers and cloud solution collaborations with top AI companies. The initiative includes encouraging AI investments in Malaysia and supporting the inception of new Malaysian AI entities through partnerships with local players.
Cloud Native 2.0 and AI integration
Huawei’s advancement in Cloud Native 2.0 technology, which has been fully upgraded to incorporate intelligence, directly supports Malaysia’s AI ambitions. The company is building next-generation AI-native cloud infrastructure powered by advanced AI technologies.
Key innovations include CCE AI clusters that form the cloud-native infrastructure for CloudMatrix384 supernodes, offering large-scale supernode topology-aware scheduling, AI workload characteristic-aware auto-scaling, and ultra-fast container startups that significantly accelerate AI training and inference.
Huawei has also introduced CCE Doer, which integrates AI agents throughout the container use process, providing intelligent Q&A, recommendations, and diagnostics. The system can diagnose over 200 critical exception scenarios with a root cause accuracy rate exceeding 80%, enabling automated and intelligent container cluster management.
National policy framework supports AI growth
Speaking at the Huawei summit, the CEO of the country’s National AI Office (NAIO), Shamsul Izhan Abdul Majid outlined the country’s AI priorities and development trends to help private sector partners understand the national direction, while maintaining distinct public and private sector initiatives.
In fact, Huawei’s talent development announcement came as Malaysia unveiled its NCCP, establishing a comprehensive framework for cloud adoption that directly supports AI capabilities development. The policy targets Malaysia’s aim to become a world-class cloud computing hub by 2030, anchored on innovation, cybersecurity, sustainability, and inclusivity.
Gobind highlighted that building an “AI nation” under the 13th Malaysia Plan necessitates strengthening infrastructure, enhancing security, and developing local talent, with collaboration playing a pivotal role in achieving these objectives.
“While we speak of infrastructure, security and talent, there is much we can learn from industry and our friends in the region and globally about how other countries, sectors and industries have developed,” the minister noted.
Real-world applications drive adoption
The Malaysia AI talent development initiative aims to address existing applications where AI is already making an impact. Sun pointed to fraud detection in banking, predictive maintenance in factories, supply chain management, and personalised learning in schools as areas where skilled professionals are increasingly needed.
Huawei’s approach emphasises localised partnerships to ensure global expertise is applied in ways that suit ASEAN’s specific needs. The company showcased its AI-Native cloud infrastructure built in collaboration with local partners, demonstrating how such partnerships can drive intelligent, sector-wide upgrades.
Governance and security priorities
The Digital Minister emphasised the critical importance of governance and regulatory frameworks to ensure AI adoption remains safe and sustainable, particularly as Malaysia becomes more dependent on data-driven infrastructure.
“If you build a country that is fully dependent on data and data centres, then we cannot afford to have a breakdown that impacts all sectors that rely on them,” Gobind warned, highlighting the need for robust infrastructure and security measures.
The government’s approach includes preparing policies and legislation that can adapt to new technologies while ensuring safety and security are not compromised. The National AI Office, established in December 2024, has already worked with six sectors and identified 55 AI potential use cases.
Regional implications and future outlook
The Malaysia AI talent development initiative carries significant implications for the broader ASEAN region, where skilled AI professionals remain in short supply. Huawei’s investment in local capabilities, backed by its Gartner-recognised infrastructure leadership, could position Malaysia as a regional hub for AI expertise, potentially attracting additional technology investments and partnerships.
“The future is now. We need to start thinking today about how to build an ecosystem that will ensure that, in five years, when new technology is rolled out, Malaysia is ready for it,” Gobind concluded, emphasising the urgency of preparing for rapid technological change.
Huawei’s talent development commitment, alongside Malaysia’s evolving digital policy landscape, represents a significant step toward building indigenous AI capabilities while maintaining strategic partnerships with global technology leaders. Success will depend on effective implementation and ensuring the benefits reach all segments of Malaysian society.
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