Malaysia has turn out to be a focus of AI-related funding from international tech giants.
Final month, Google revealed a $2 billion plan to construct a knowledge heart and cloud hub within the Southeast Asian nation.
Additionally, final month, Microsoft introduced a $2.2 billion funding available in the market “to gasoline Malaysia’s cloud and AI transformation”.
Now, ByteDance, the China-headquartered mother or father firm of social video app TikTok, is betting on Malaysia with a large-scale funding of its personal – and it’s additionally centered on the booming AI enterprise.
As reported by Reuters, a social media publish final week from the nation’s Funding, Commerce, and Trade Minister Tengku Zafrul Aziz, indicated that ByteDance “plans to take a position in AI and make Malaysia an AI hub for the area with a proposed funding of about RM10 billion”, which converts to roughly USD $2.1 billion.
Aziz wrote final week that he met with TikTok Vice President Helena Lersch to debate the event of TikTok in Malaysia. He added within the publish that ByteDance plans to take a position a further RM1.5 billion to broaden its information heart in Johor.
As famous right here by CNBC, coaching and deploying AI fashions makes use of giant quantities of knowledge and computational energy, and the increase in AI companies globally has led to an elevated demand for giant facilities that may home all of this information.
Citing DC Byte’s 2024 World Information Centre Index, CNBC reviews that the Malaysian metropolis of Johor Bahru has turn out to be the fastest-growing marketplace for information facilities in the entire of Southeast Asia.
Synthetic Intelligence is a serious precedence for ByteDance. The corporate was hiring for 252 machine learning-related roles globally as of Wednesday (June 19).
The corporate runs the in style Doubao AI chatbot in China and operates a spread of different AI-driven merchandise, from its AI video-making app Capcut to its flagship social video app TikTok.
TikTok’s highly effective advice algorithm powers its “For You feed” – which, in response to TikTok, “is among the defining options” of the platform.
The algorithm is so priceless to ByteDance that it will reportedly want to close TikTok within the US than promote the app if its authorized problem towards the nation’s ‘divest or ban’ regulation fails.
In music particularly, ByteDance has carried out intensive analysis into AI-generated music by way of its Speech, Audio & Music Intelligence (SAMI) crew.
As reported by MBW in a pair of extensively learn articles in March, ByteDance has locked down a number of AI music-related patent and trademark filings within the US, a few of which cowl subjects together with “information mining” and “music era”.
ByteDance additionally launched a machine-learning-driven music-making app referred to as Mawf previously couple of years, in addition to Ripple – an AI-powered music-making app that may flip a hummed melody right into a tune.
Extra just lately, TikTok has been testing an AI Track function that makes use of a big language mannequin to energy lyric era.
In the meantime, again in Malaysia, the place TikTok’s mother or father firm is about to pump greater than $2 billion into an AI hub available in the market, the federal government’s Ministry of Science, Expertise, and Innovation (MOSTI) desires to make Malaysia a key participant within the international AI market.
In April it launched the AI Sandbox 2024 Pilot Programme that goals to create 900 AI startups by 2026.
This system is supported by the world’s Most worthy firm, Nvidia, which, by way of the AI chips it manufactures, has turn out to be a key participant in AI mannequin coaching. In December, Nvidia additionally struck a $4.3 billion AI infrastructure improvement deal within the Malaysian market.
The Malaysian authorities is reportedly planning to publish an Synthetic Intelligence (AI) Code of Ethics on the finish of this month.Music Enterprise Worldwide
