PETALING JAYA: International Finance Corp (IFC), the World Bank’s investment arm, has purchased new shares in Zetrix AI Bhd to the tune of US$40mil (RM156mil), which will be used to build up digital infrastructure in the country.
Zetrix said in a statement that the equity injection will be put towards the development and rollout of blockchain-based digital public infrastructure (DPI) applications and artificial intelligence aimed at enhancing digital inclusion, access to services, and economic efficiency in Malaysia and the broader Asean region.
Under the equity investment, Zetrix will be issuing 199.5 million new shares to IFC, Zetrix group managing director TS Wong told StarBiz.
This would give IFC a stake of around 2.5% in Zetrix.
The agreement between IFC and Zetrix is expected to support initiatives in Malaysia, providing services that would integrate with the country’s digital ecosystem such as MyDigital ID and the Malaysia Blockchain Infrastructure.
“We are working on multiple initiatives in parallel, primarily in blockchain and artificial intelligence (AI),” he said.
“We will continuously enhance our Layer-1 blockchain operating system, which forms the core of Malaysia’s national blockchain infrastructure.
“This will cater to increasing usage of digital ID, blockchain voting, and the stablecoin ecosystem.”
Zetrix’s AI initiatives will focus on specialised agentic AI models trained on expert private data.
Another area of focus will be on AI which powers humanoids to reflect owners’ personality, according to Wong.
Zetrix’ DPI applications and products are designed to make services more efficient, secure, and cost-effective, from verification of digital IDs to the digitalisation of international trade and the tokenisation of real-world assets.
The investment from IFC will also serve to support Zetrix’s expansion of its DPI services into emerging markets in the region and beyond.
“Our most immediate focus is Asean, as we are already active in Indonesia and the Philippines,” he said.
“We hope to leverage the World Bank’s offices in 108 countries and their network of relationships with governments in these countries to replicate and scale our existing model.
”Zetrix also announced it will be pursuing a Nasdaq listing for its AI Foundation Lab subsidiary, with a target to complete the listing by year-end.
“We believe Nasdaq will provide a larger pool of global investors with an appetite to finance leading-edge technology development,” Wong said.
IFC is a member of the World Bank Group and the largest global development institution focused on the private sector in emerging markets.
