KUALA LUMPUR, May 15 — Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s government launched the region’s first centre “for the fourth industrial revolution” here today, betting it would shift entrenched mindsets and nudge industries slow to adopt internet-based technology to scale up.
The centre, to be spearheaded by the Ministry of Economy in collaboration with the World Economic Forum, is the 19th of its kind.
The WEF has played a central role in setting up the centres worldwide, many in the poor Global South, with the hope they could give these nations access to some of the best talents from the tech world, as well as technological and digital capital that usually only big companies can tap.
Anwar said in a pre-recorded message delivered at the centre’s launch here that the opening of the C4IR was a significant milestone for the country’s push to make internet-based technology more inclusive.
“The WEF has established the Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution as a platform to support leaders not only in realising the benefits of the ever-evolving and growing trajectory of technology,” he said.
“It is also to support the government efforts for new policy frameworks, agile governance models and flexible regulation to spur innovation while providing adequate social security and protection for our rakyat,” the prime minister added.
“With over 60 initiatives, 300 policy and government experts and more than 450 innovators and technology pioneers available in this ecosystem, this partnership comes at the right time as Malaysia grows its digital economy.”
Policymakers in Putrajaya believe technology such as artificial intelligence or big data could be “the game changer” that could spur mass upscaling of micro and small enterprises, now one of the country’s biggest employers. In 2020, SMEs also accounted for close to 40 per cent of gross domestic product.
Yet the sector has been slow to leverage internet-based technology and remains predominantly labour-intensive, but usually because such technology tend to be costly.
Rafizi Ramli, the minister of economy, said the WEF centre could change that.
“Mastering technology and innovation is a gamechanger to our society as more people will be able to access high-quality solutions at lower cost, and an uplift to our economy so that we move up the value chain with better products, processes, and jobs,” he said at the launch.
“To do this, we need to create as many collaboration channels as possible.”
