Faster Internet for universities

PETALING JAYA: The tertiary education sector has much faster broadband speeds now – up to 100Gbps – under the newly rebranded Malaysian Research and Educa­tion Network (MYREN-X) which links more than 150 institutions nationwide.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said the previous cyber infrastructure faced challenges in terms of speed and big-data processing capabilities, which stifled scientists’ ability to launch high-impact projects.

He said the new initiative is part of the previous MYREN project which provided a dedicated high-speed network for subscribers across the country.

“With MYREN-X, we hope to further boost capacity to 3,200Gbps, which will really improve big-data processing and high-performance computing,” he said at Universiti Malaya yesterday.

The Prime Minister said the new initiative would also give the country a boost in education excellence by helping to widen knowledge frontiers and collaborations with scientists worldwide.

“We will continue to share our knowledge in areas that we are good at for the betterment of communities around the world,” he said.

He said that as the country embraces the fourth industrial revolution in the era of digital economy, it needed a cyber infrastructure that could provide easy access and information that is fast and effective, especially for research and education.

“In medical research into cancer, it is required to have high-performance computing systems that can process up to 26 billion character codes per second, with the aim of reducing the fatality rate among patients,” he said.

He said the Government would continue to gather feedback and input, especially from youths, via its TN50 dialogue series.

“One of the clearest aspirations in the series is to have high-quality education that is easily accessible to the people,” he said.

He said the Government was working hard to provide the necessary infrastructure to push our universities to top 50 positions in the world.

Also, Najib welcomed the Higher Education Ministry’s efforts to establish its own consortium – MYREN Network Sdn Bhd – which comprises 20 higher public universities.