PETALING JAYA: Amid layers of criticism and scepticism, the evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) in today’s business world is a real phenomenon that is here to stay, industry players say.
While the economic returns and real-world productivity as a result of artificial intelligence (AI) remain somewhat heavily debated, AI is only just starting to make its impact felt at all levels of society.
Trident Analytics chief research officer Peter Lim Tze Cheng reckons AI is “creating a wave that is much bigger than the founding of Internet and 4G”.
“Take Anthropic and OpenAI as an example,” he told StarBiz.
“Just barely few years after both companies started charging for their services, they have generated revenue of US$100bil combined. This is the first time we are seeing businesses with such exponential growth in revenues.”
Lim, a keen follower of global developments within the semiconductor and related industries noted however that when it comes to AI, there are essentially two main cycles.
“First, is the AI usage cycle. This will not reverse or face a down trend, I believe.
“Second, is the AI data centre capital expenditure cycle. I think there will come a time when the invested capacity exceeds the demand but my view is that we are still very far off from this scenario as the demand remains massive,” Lim added.
Founder and chief executive officer of Capital Dynamics Tan Teng Boo said the AI Revolution is something that is “real and irreversible”.
“Its impact on Malaysia will be immense and will be felt at multiple levels including in politics, business, economics and investment,” he said.
The fund manager said semiconductors and AI-related sectors had become some of the main investment themes in global stock markets, including in Malaysia.
He pointed out that in the United States, Micron Technology, Inc’s share price had risen more than 260% year-to-date by late September while in China, AI and semiconductor-related fresh initial public offerings had been snapped up by investors.
On Bursa Malaysia, Tan noted that technology group MI Technovation Bhd
had seen a strong stock performance this year, underpinned by an unprecedented boom in the global semiconductor industry, with the International Data Corp (IDC) forecasting total semiconductor revenue to reach US$1.29 trillion this year from US$842.8bil last year.
Tan said driven by the AI revolution, semiconductor technology had been “turned upside down”.
“It is moving towards faster computing, higher memory bandwidth, smaller and more energy-efficient transistors, and greater integration of chips to meet the rapidly growing demands of AI.
“Consequently, semiconductor technology has undergone significant developments.”
According to IDC’s Worldwide AI and Generative AI Spending Guide, Asia/Pacific AI and generative AI investment, including China and Japan, is set to grow from US$121.5bil in 2025 to US$555.2bil by 2030, a compound annual growth rate of 35.5%.
In a statement, IDC said this growth reflects enterprises moving generative AI and agents beyond isolated pilots and into core, enterprise-wide operations.
“Agentic AI and orchestration platforms emerge as key catalysts, enabling enterprises to unify predictive, generative, and prescriptive capabilities within a single governance framework rather than managing them as separate initiatives,” it said.
In the statement, data and analytics, IDC Asia/Pacific senior market analyst Vinayaka Venkatesh said the next phase of AI adoption in Asia/Pacific will be defined by how effectively organisations can move from experimentation to scaled, operational deployments.
IDC said the pace of AI investment varies across markets, reflecting differences in enterprise AI governance maturity, local and sovereign compute capacity, financial services and public sector demand, and the ability of enterprises to scale AI across existing technology environments.
“These factors are shaping both the pace and composition of AI investment across the region, even as software and information services continue to account for the largest share of spending,” the research and data company said.
