KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian automotive component makers could find their next growth market in humanoid robots, with the Investment, Trade and Industry Ministry (Miti) looking to position local suppliers for the emerging industry.
Deputy Investment, Trade and Industry Minister Sim Tze Tzin said he had asked the Malaysia Automotive, Robotics and IoT Institute (MARii) to begin exploring opportunities in humanoids, given the technological overlap with the automotive sector.
“Moving forward, we hope that our components and critical components will move into the next frontier, which is humanoids.
“Humanoids, I think, are very closely related to the car industry because of all the motors and all kinds of components out there,” he told reporters at the Global Automotive and Technology Expo (GATE) 2026 here on Wednesday (Aug 26).
Sim said MARii did not yet have a clear plan for the sector but had been instructed to start looking into how Malaysian automotive suppliers could tap into the emerging technology.
“I’ve already asked MARii to look into humanoids. Right now, they don’t have a clear plan yet, but I already asked them to start work on this.
“How do our vendors, our critical component suppliers, also take advantage of the future trend, which is very, very revolutionary - humanoids,” he said.
Sim said the move was part of a broader effort to help Malaysia’s automotive supply chain move up the value chain, particularly smaller Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 suppliers.
He said Malaysia currently has about 730 automotive component vendors, while the wider automotive industry employs more than 700,000 people and accounts for about 5% of the country’s gross domestic product.
Rather than focusing solely on completely knocked-down (CKD) vehicle assembly and carmakers, he said Malaysia was seeking to develop its capabilities in components and critical parts for the global supply chain.
“A lot of people thought Malaysia is about CKD, that it is about OEMs selling cars. We are evolving into components, critical components and parts,” he said.
Sim added that MARii’s existing mandate already covered areas such as industrial robotics and smart factories, but said the agency now needed to go further as new technologies emerged.
