PETALING JAYA: CelcomDigi Bhd is expecting strong growth from a new source of revenue stream following the launch of its CelcomDigi AI Experience Centre (AiX).
The country’s largest mobile network operator would like to further monetise the country’s 5G network by being a one-stop service provider for corporates and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in their aspirations to digitise their operations.
“This is a new growth area for us. The next leap of growth will come from digital services. Most countries are looking to the digital era and we are no different. In some European countries for example, the contribution from digital services is already quite significant.
“The time is right for this in Malaysia and we just need to forge ahead and leverage on our capabilities from the 5G network and the wider network, and artificial intelligence (AI) to take this forward,” CelcomDigi’s chief innovation officer T. Kugan said at a media tour of the AiX yesterday.
“The readiness among industries is there for such sort of solutions, just that perhaps the awareness is not there yet,” he added.
The AiX is located at the CelcomDigi Hub in Subang Jaya and displays a range of 5G and AI-powered real life technologies and robotics solutions that are catered for eight industries, namely manufacturing, logistics, energy, fleet, port, healthcare, education and agritech.
“This solution is actually relevant for many industries. Of course with Malaysia being a hub for semiconductor, agriculture and manufacturing – these industries will immediately see the benefits of this solution. This allows them to automate their warehouses or plantations for example, and not be dependent on foreign labour.
“It leverages on the 5G network, Internet of Things sensors, AI and robotics,” Kugan said.
“We have signed on with a major oil and gas firm to deploy such solutions at their offshore platforms, which will see drone deployments at their oil rigs. We are also engaging with large plantation companies as they would like to reduce dependency on foreign workforce,” he said.
AiX is based on a partnership model, whereby it is enabled by a strong, extensive and growing ecosystem of 40 global technology leaders, local partners and technology solution providers.
CelcomDigi is the one-stop end-to-end solutions provider by bridging the various partners to customers of these solutions.
According to CelcomDigi, its partners include Huawei and ZTE and other collaborative partners include AWS, Digital Nasional Bhd, Ericsson, Microsoft, SK Telecom, Softbank, Sumitomo, and Yinson , among others.
“We provide the connectivity and we do the system integration for them as well,” Kugan said.
Kugan said there are two ways corporates or SMEs can deploy these systems – the capital expenditure (capex) model or the leasing model.
“Larger companies would rather own and operate the service, so they are willing to invest. In Malaysia, we have close to 2,500 warehouses and some of them cannot afford the capex model so we also provide this as a service with a monthly lease (or similar). It is the right time for many more industries to deploy and adopt such solutions in their operations,” he said.
“We have designed AiX on a model of strong partnerships and constant evolution, enabling us to co-create use cases with great potential at an accelerated speed for Malaysia. Building with some of the most notable global tech and local ecosystem players, together we have invested RM55mil to support this ambition.
“We will continue to invest in the infrastructure, partnerships and competencies needed to support Malaysia through the rapid tech changes around us,” said CelcomDigi’s CEO Datuk Idham Nawawi.