TikTok’s parent company ByteDance is taking its talents to Malaysia, pledging a huge $2.1 billion investment to develop an AI hub in the Southeast Asian nation. This latest big tech play reflects Malaysia’s rising reputation as a global focal point for artificial intelligence.
ByteDance VP Helena Lersch met with Malaysian Investment Minister Zafrul Aziz last week to discuss expanding TikTok locally. Aziz revealed ByteDance plans to invest around $2.1 billion to make Malaysia their regional AI base camp. They’ll also pump another $350 million into juicing their Johor data center.
As the demand for AI services worldwide hits a fever pitch, these state-of-the-art data sanctuaries are crucial for housing all the computations powering machine learning models. Johor Bahru has emerged as Southeast Asia’s fastest-growing location for these digital power plants thanks to initiatives like the AI Sandbox program launched by MOSTI earlier this year.
ByteDance knows AI is the name of the game, with over 250 roles related to machine learning currently open worldwide. They’ve used their skills to birth recommendations rockstar TikTok’s For You feed, develop music makers like Mawf, and even test lyric lyrically-gifted AI. Now they’ll channel that brainpower into R&D at their shiny new Malaysian AI home base.
It’s just the latest big tech giant to bet big on Malaysia’s AI ambitions – following Google’s $2 billion data center deal last month and Microsoft’s $2.2 billion cloud commitment. With support from silicon savants like Nvidia plus plans for an AI ethics code, Malaysia is gearing up to level up as a global artificial intelligence leader.
