KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s push to become Asean’s digital and artificial intelligence (AI) hub took centre stage at the CloudTech & DataCentre Conference 2026.
Held on Aug 12 and Aug 13 at Le Meridien Kuala Lumpur, the two-day event organised by Star Media Group Bhd brought together policymakers, technology leaders, cybersecurity experts and infrastructure providers to discuss Malaysia’s next phase of digital growth.
Digital Minister Gobind Singh Deo said Malaysia had the fundamentals to establish itself as Asean’s digital and AI hub, including its strategic location, strong connectivity, growing digital ecosystem and increasing investor confidence.
“Our task is therefore to build an ecosystem in which technology can be developed, adopted and trusted at scale.”
Gobind said Malaysia’s ambitions must go beyond building physical infrastructure, adding that the country needed to create greater value from its expanding data centre industry.
“The true measure of success is not how many data centres we build, but the value we create around them.”
He said Malaysia should focus on developing home-grown technology and intellectual property, producing highly skilled professionals and exporting digital solutions across Asean.
Gobind also thanked Star Media Group for bringing policymakers, industry leaders, technology providers and investors together through the conference for the third consecutive year.
The event, themed “Positioning Malaysia as Asean’s Digital & AI Hub: Policy, Trust & Infrastructure at Scale”, featured discussions on cybersecurity, cloud governance, data residency, AI, digital trust, hyperscale infrastructure, talent and sustainable data centres.
Yesterday’s programme included a panel on cloud governance, compliance and data residency in an AI-driven world, featuring Digital Nasional Bhd’s Mohd Khaidyr Abd Rahman, UnBound’s Natalie Loi, Informed Solutions’ G Saravanan and Asean CXO Association president Dr Carrine Teoh.
Another panel, “Hyperscalers, Telcos & Regulators – What’s Next for Malaysia?”, brought together Vantage Data Centres country managing director Fitri Abdullah, IBM Malaysia Sdn Bhd managing director Dickson Woo, Credence chief executive officer Mohamad Rejab Sulaiman and Senior Principal Assistant Director of Personal Data Protection Department Safairis Amat Noor.
The session was moderated by Star Media Group assistant news editor Keith Hiew.
The afternoon programme later was divided into two streams – Cybersecurity & Digital Trust, and AI, Cloud & Sustainable Infrastructure.
Among the speakers are CyberSecurity Malaysia chief technology officer Wan Roshaimi Wan Abdullah, Boost Bank chief technology officer Shankar Krishnan, Uptime Institute managing director for South Asia Patrick Chan, Huawei cyber security privacy officer Lee Han Ther and Schneider Electric Malaysia country president Eugene Quah.
Topics included protecting Malaysia’s critical infrastructure, AI in cyber defence, zero-trust architecture for cloud-native digital banks, Malaysia’s potential as an Asia-Pacific hyperscale hub and the industry’s outlook for talent, investment and competitiveness.
