Huawei to train 30K Malaysian AI pros, boosting local ecosystem

Malaysia is poised to significantly accelerate its ambition to cultivate a robust homegrown artificial intelligence (AI) workforce, following Huawei’s recent commitment to train 30,000 local professionals. This substantial pledge underscores the tech giant’s deepening investment in the nation’s expanding AI ecosystem, aligning with Malaysia’s overarching digital strategy framework.

Speaking at the Huawei Cloud AI Ecosystem Summit APAC 2025, Digital Minister Gobind Singh Deo emphasized the critical need for this talent development initiative to be both comprehensive and inclusive, ensuring that the benefits of technological advancement extend to all segments of society. The Minister stressed that AI-driven productivity must serve every Malaysian, from facilitating cloud-based platforms for small and medium enterprises to enabling AI-assisted diagnostics in remote clinics, ultimately delivering tangible value across all sectors.

Huawei’s commitment arrives as the company strengthens its standing as a prominent cloud infrastructure provider. In August 2025, industry analyst Gartner recognized Huawei in the Leaders quadrant of its Magic Quadrant for Container Management, acknowledging the company’s profound expertise and strategic investments in what it terms “Cloud Native 2.0” technologies. This recognition validates Huawei’s foundational infrastructure capabilities, which are set to underpin Malaysia’s ambitious AI agenda. The company’s advanced container products, including CCE Turbo, CCE Autopilot, Cloud Container Instance (CCI), and the distributed cloud-native service UCS, offer the optimal infrastructure for managing large-scale, scalable software applications in public, distributed, hybrid, and edge cloud environments.

Simon Sun, CEO of Huawei Technologies (Malaysia), detailed the expansive scope of the AI talent development initiative. Over the next three years, the program aims to nurture 30,000 Malaysian AI talents, encompassing a diverse range of professionals including students, government officials, industry leaders, think tanks, and various associations.

Underpinning this initiative are Huawei Cloud’s extensive technical capabilities. The company operates a global network of 34 regions and 101 availability zones, including five regions and 17 availability zones specifically within ASEAN, providing the low-latency infrastructure crucial for high-performance AI applications. The platform supports over 160 open-source models through its AI Cloud Service, offering significant flexibility for development across different industries. Central to Huawei’s “AI for Industries” strategy are its Pangu multimodal models, which form the backbone for delivering tailored AI solutions across sectors such as manufacturing, healthcare, and transport. Li Yin, CTO of Huawei Cloud Enterprise Intelligence, further illustrated these capabilities during her session “Leap to Cloud, Heading to AI,” showcasing Huawei Cloud’s collaborations with customers in over 30 industries, applying AI to more than 500 scenarios worldwide.

Beyond direct training, Huawei is also dedicated to cultivating 200 local AI partners through knowledge transfers and collaborative cloud solutions with leading AI companies. This broader initiative includes encouraging AI investments within Malaysia and fostering the inception of new Malaysian AI entities through strategic local partnerships. Huawei’s advancements in Cloud Native 2.0 technology, which now fully integrates intelligence, directly bolsters Malaysia’s AI aspirations. The company is actively constructing next-generation AI-native cloud infrastructure powered by advanced AI technologies. Key innovations include CCE AI clusters, designed for robust cloud-native infrastructure, offering features like large-scale supernode topology-aware scheduling, AI workload-aware auto-scaling, and ultra-fast container startups, all of which significantly accelerate AI training and inference processes. Additionally, Huawei has introduced CCE Doer, which embeds AI agents throughout the container usage lifecycle, providing intelligent Q&A, recommendations, and diagnostics. This system can diagnose over 200 critical exception scenarios with impressive root cause accuracy, enabling automated and intelligent container cluster management.

The nation’s strategic framework provides a strong foundation for this growth. Shamsul Izhan Abdul Majid, CEO of Malaysia’s National AI Office (NAIO), outlined the country’s AI priorities and development trends at the summit, aiming to guide private sector partners while maintaining distinct public and private sector initiatives. Huawei’s talent development announcement coincided with Malaysia’s unveiling of its National Cloud Computing Policy (NCCP), a comprehensive framework for cloud adoption that directly supports AI capability development. This policy aims to position Malaysia as a world-class cloud computing hub by 2030, anchored on innovation, cybersecurity, sustainability, and inclusivity. Minister Gobind reiterated that building an “AI nation” under the 13th Malaysia Plan requires strengthening infrastructure, enhancing security, and developing local talent, with collaboration playing a pivotal role.

The Malaysia AI talent development initiative directly addresses existing applications where AI is already making a tangible impact, such as fraud detection in banking, predictive maintenance in factories, supply chain management, and personalized learning in schools—areas where skilled professionals are increasingly vital. Huawei’s strategy emphasizes localized partnerships to ensure global expertise is adapted to ASEAN’s specific needs, showcasing AI-Native cloud infrastructure built in collaboration with local partners to drive intelligent, sector-wide upgrades.

The Digital Minister also underscored the critical importance of robust governance and regulatory frameworks to ensure AI adoption remains safe and sustainable, particularly as Malaysia becomes increasingly reliant on data-driven infrastructure. The government’s approach includes preparing adaptive policies and legislation to embrace new technologies without compromising safety and security. The National AI Office, established in December 2024, has already collaborated with six sectors and identified 55 potential AI use cases.

This Malaysia AI talent development initiative carries significant implications for the broader ASEAN region, where a shortage of skilled AI professionals persists. Huawei’s investment in local capabilities, reinforced by its Gartner-recognized infrastructure leadership, could position Malaysia as a regional hub for AI expertise, potentially attracting additional technology investments and partnerships. As Minister Gobind concluded, “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,” highlighting the urgency of preparing for rapid technological change. Huawei’s commitment, alongside Malaysia’s evolving digital policy landscape, marks a significant stride toward building indigenous AI capabilities while fostering strategic partnerships with global technology leaders. Its ultimate success will hinge on effective implementation and ensuring the benefits truly reach all segments of Malaysian society.