SUBANG JAYA (May 14): There are opportunities for artificial intelligence (AI) companies and tech providers to provide systems that bring value to customers and build the ecosystem, especially for the mobility sector, where autonomous vehicles have the potential to bring major changes to Malaysia and the world. 

Mohd Azharuddin Mat Sah, an executive director at Sunway Group, said that autonomous vehicles and electric vertical take-off and landings (eVTOLs) can address two pain points Malaysians experience, involving the lack of first and last-mile public transportation, as well as road safety from the high volume of cars. 

To have an environment where autonomous vehicles are normalised, it will be important to establish trust alongside a system that is capable in handling the logistics and math for transportation in the city. 

Azharuddin said that to Sunway, the current state of eVTOLS presents a great opportunity for the group to become a pioneer in the space both locally and globally. 

Also at the conference, Michel Del Buono, an operating partner and the chief investment officer of Andreessen Horowitz, talked about the concept of software becoming cheap and making it easily disposable after being created for one-off uses. 

Softwares are also becoming increasingly quick to make with the accessibility of resources online. 

Another trend from Del Buono is on the verticalisation of AI, where large language models will start having specialisations, such as in areas such as coding or law.

“The question here is how do you keep a post around that, and I think that’s where open source type software will work better because people can in-house that and put their own proprietary knowledge in there,” he said. 

The conference also featured a panel on how healthcare can be reimagined with AI. Lau Shi Ying, a managing partner of Adaptive Capital Partners, said that if the healthcare industry were to start fresh, a mandate on a single open standard data platform would be helpful. 

“The public Ministry of Health hospitals use a very different platform than the private players. Oftentimes, the records of the patients do not synchronise and can’t follow the patient. When that scenario happens, the AI platform can’t bring [doctors] the full picture,” said Lau. 

She referenced Indonesia’s SatuSehat platform as a successful example of a consolidated platform with complete access to longitudinal patient data. 

Additionally, Tim Cruttenden, the chief executive officer of VenCap, commented on the global state of venture capitals (VCs) during his fireside chat and said that competition with Silicon Valley is present across both Asia as well as Europe, especially in regard to AI innovation. 

“You have got a lot of support for the way venture works in Silicon Valley, which means you then get spin-out founders, VCs, you get a genuine flywheel…so that's kind of what you're competing with,” said Cruttenden. 

He added that India is a good example of how to build a VC ecosystem, where it followed a similar journey as Silicon Valley where regulators adapted the rules of the ecosystem after a company that listed successfully on Nasdaq became a catalyst for the landscape. 

The conference was also graced by Digital Minister Gobind Singh Deo, who said that Malaysia is moving forward with confidence in its technology despite the ever-changing global landscape.