Malaysian customers welcome new AWS Region

Source: AWS blog post. Kuala Lumpur skyline.

Malaysian organisations of all sizes and industries have been increasingly adopting and running every imaginable workload on AWS. These include enterprises like AEON Bank, Astro Malaysia, Axiata Group, Bank Islam Malaysia, Bursa Malaysia, CelcomDigi, Johor Corporation, PayNet, PETRONAS, and large public sector organisations like the Asia Pacific University of Technology & Innovation, Department of Statistics Malaysia, and Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE). 

Malaysian startups, independent software vendors, and small businesses, including Aerodyne, Carsome, QRRA, Silverlake, and Tapway are also building their businesses on AWS to rapidly scale nationally and around the world. A number of them spoke about their involvement with AWS at the launch of a new Region in Malaysia.

AEON Bank

AEON Bank, Malaysia's first shari'ah-compliant digital bank, has built on AWS to create a seamless and secure digital banking experience for Malaysian consumers. "Our strategic collaboration with AWS improves our operational efficiency by promoting collaboration, simplifying design, and deploying applications faster," said YM Raja Teh Maimunah, CEO of AEON Bank.

"Leveraging AWS has enabled us to build fully digital customer offerings through services such as data management, security, and Al/ML, while reducing our carbon footprint by not having to maintain in-house servers. Banking on the strength of the new AWS Region in Malaysia, we are poised to deliver a suite of compliant digital financial solutions that contribute towards the growth of Malaysia's fintech digital economy." 

Astro Malaysia

Malaysian broadcaster Astro Malaysia modernised its systems and infrastructure by migrating to cloud and adapting to a SaaS model to mitigate the risks of maintaining legacy systems as well as enhancing business agility and resilience. 

“Astro provides premier local programmes and a diverse array of international sports content, including football, golf, Formula One, NBA basketball, cricket, sepak takraw, and badminton, to keep sports fans engaged,” said Euan Smith, Group CEO, Astro Malaysia. 

“We are thrilled that the AWS Malaysia Region will accelerate our transformative journey by integrating new technologies securely and reliably across out platform. This will enable us to revolutionise how we produce and distribute shows, and offer high-quality, personalised content to a broader audience at lower cost.”

Bursa Malaysia

Bursa Malaysia, Malaysia’s national exchange, has recently launched its Centralized Sustainability Intelligence (CSI) platform on AWS to support Malaysia’s transition to a lower carbon economy. “Bursa Malaysia welcomes the launch of AWS cloud infrastructure in Malaysia as a positive step forward for the country’s digital economy, bringing continued innovation to drive capital markets growth,” said Datuk Muhamad Umar Swift, CEO at Bursa Malaysia. 

“Our collaboration with AWS to launch a CSI platform gives Malaysian companies and their suppliers an impetus to standardise ESG reporting and decarbonise their supply chain. Cloud computing will continue to contribute to better sustainability practices among Malaysian companies and have a positive impact on the broader ecosystem.” 

CelcomDigi

CelcomDigi, a telecommunications provider, is using Amazon Bedrock to access a variety of high-performing foundation and purpose-built large language models, enabling an enterprise-wide AI sandbox for secure, rapid innovation across its consumer and corporate businesses.

“The new AWS Region in Malaysia presents exciting opportunities for CelcomDigi as we accelerate our transformation to be a leading telco-tech company,” said Datuk Idham Nawawi, CEO at CelcomDigi. 

“With the support of AWS infrastructure and AI services to power our business support systems and consumer applications, we strive to improve operational efficiencies and deliver better experiences to our customers. We look forward to strengthening our collaboration with AWS, anchored by a shared commitment in driving innovation and building Malaysia’s digital ecosystem.”

CTOS

CTOS, the credit reporting agency, empowers businesses with comprehensive company and individual credit reports to facilitate and foster a trustworthy commercial environment. Using AWS Outposts, CTOS was able to accelerate their move to cloud within two months and roll out applications within three months, while complying with security and data residency requirements.

“Going all-in on AWS helped us modernise our infrastructure, improve performance, resilience and sustainability, as well as strengthen security measures while supporting mission-critical workloads,” said James Mitchell, Group CTO, CTOS Digital. “With AWS’s expansion of cloud infrastructure in Malaysia, we look forward to improved performance and scalability, reaffirming our commitment to data integrity and leadership in our industry." 

ELSA Corp.

ELSA Corp. uses speech technology and AI to help non-native English learners speak more confidently and fluently through its app, ELSA Speak, which is used in over 100 countries. 

“Our collaboration with AWS has been instrumental in our work to help over 50 million English learners improve their speaking skills and has helped drive our global market expansion,” said Will Polese, VP, Revenue at ELSA. 

“With AWS's flexible configurations for compute, database, and storage of large volumes of real-time data, ELSA can effectively manage a surge in user growth and maintain high levels of user satisfaction. The new AWS Region in Malaysia will further enhance our capabilities, enabling us to deliver low latency, reliable, high-performing solutions to our clients and end learners. AWS’s investment underscores its commitment to supporting the digital economy and our efforts to improve inclusivity through technology."

GXBank

GXBank is Malaysia's first digital bank with a mission to empower every Malaysian to be financially resilient. 

"Building on AWS, we were operationally ready to launch GXBank within 16 months, serving over 750k customers with 13 million transactions in just eight months," said Pei-Si Lai, CEO at GXBank. 

"We are delighted to welcome the AWS Region in Malaysia, which will provide Malaysian businesses, entrepreneurs, and SMEs access to scalable and secure digital infrastructure to help them deliver seamless customer experiences. We are proud of our journey with AWS to help democratise access to financial services and foster financial inclusion across ASEAN, underpinned by advanced technology."

Maxis

Maxis, Malaysia’s integrated telecommunications provider, is collaborating with AWS to accelerate innovation in generative AI and 5G use cases for Malaysian customers. "As Malaysia’s leading integrated telco, Maxis is pleased to join AWS in marking this great milestone for the nation. Maxis has a proven track record as the first and only telco in Malaysia to be an AWS Advanced Tier Services Partner, and an AWS Direct Connect partner,” said Goh Seow Eng, CEO, Maxis.

“With the AWS Region, Malaysia will be able to benefit from the greater flexibility provided by features such as data residency, reduced latency, and enhanced security. Together with AWS, we look forward to helping more businesses leverage the power of cloud computing, accelerating their digitalisation and the growth of the nation’s economy.”

PayNet

PayNet, Malaysia’s national payments network and shared central infrastructure for the financial market, leverages AWS to run critical national payment workloads. 

“As the nation’s infrastructure operator for real-time retail payments, we rely on AWS to meet the stringent requirements of reliability, security, scalability, and compliance demanded by our customers,” said Teh Lip Guan, Chief Technology Officer, PayNet. 

“The real-time insights from analysing the over 20 million daily e-payment transactions have enhanced our fraud detection, uncovered new opportunities, and improved operational support. The launch of the AWS Region in Malaysia offers lower-latency access to cloud services, which will enable us to innovate quickly and ensure our customers enjoy a seamless payments experience.”

PETRONAS

PETRONAS, a global energy and solutions provider with a presence in over 50 countries, uses AWS for new and existing solutions such as Malaysia’s first e-wallet (SETEL) for purchasing fuel and a cloud-based logistics solution and services platform (STEAR) for the offshore industry. 

“Digital technologies play an important role in all our businesses. Cloud services enable our work in artificial intelligence, IoT, advanced analytics, robotics, and data governance,” said Ir. Mohd Yusri Mohamed Yusof, Senior VP, Project Delivery & Technology, PETRONAS. 

“AWS’s investment in Malaysia will facilitate our data residency needs, improve performance, and elevate the country’s digital capabilities. I am excited by the possibilities this investment can create for Malaysia to become a regional leader in the digital economy.”

RTM

RTM, the national public broadcaster in Malaysia, uses AWS to build and scale innovative applications for its millions of customers with its digital media delivery platform, RTMKlik. 

“The launch of the AWS Region in Malaysia means being able to leverage AWS generative AI services like Bedrock to bring transformative innovation to RTMKlik and tailor our content to align with the viewing preferences of each RTMKlik user,” said Datuk Suhaimi Sulaiman, Director General at RTM. 

“AWS has helped us enhance the inclusivity of RTMKlik, providing value-added services such as live captions to ensure our hearing-impaired audience can better understand and follow live broadcasts. Advancements like these elevate the user experience and help us engage with a broad audience. AWS has been pivotal in making RTMKlik a more dynamic, accessible, and user-centric platform.”

TNB

TNB, a leading utility company in Asia, serves over 9.5 million customers across commercial, industrial, and residential sectors in Malaysia. In collaboration with AWS, TNB is accelerating its digital transformation to enhance customer experience and develop innovative smart energy solutions. 

“As part of our 10-year Reimagining TNB Plan, we are collaborating with AWS to build digital capabilities and infrastructure that support decarbonisation efforts across our business entities,” said Azlan Ahmad, CIO at TNB. 

“Digital solutions are key to modernising the grid and expanding renewable energy capacity, while also empowering our customers through advanced digital platforms. Through collaborations like this, TNB is driving the future of sustainable and efficient energy, ensuring we meet growing energy demands and lead the way in the energy transition.”

Tapway

Tapway, a homegrown startup and an AI solution provider in Southeast Asia, uses AWS data analytics and machine learning (ML) technologies, including Amazon SageMaker, to transform images and videos into actionable insights for diverse industries. The startup’s SamurAI computer vision solution on AWS is available on AWS Marketplace.  

“The launch of an AWS Region in Malaysia provides us with even lower latency to access key cloud services that power and scale our fast-growing AI vision platform in a data-compliant way,” said Lim Chee How, founder and CEO at Tapway. 

“We’re excited to see how AWS’s infrastructure investment in Malaysia will pave the way for Tapway to allow even more people to build, train, and deploy AI vision technology solutions quickly and affordably with their big data stored locally.” 

The Credit Counselling and Debt Management Agency 

The Credit Counselling and Debt Management Agency (AKPK) enhances financial literacy among Malaysians through education, advisory, and debt management programs. AKPK leverages AWS to strengthen its security posture and drive innovations to improve Malaysians’ financial wellbeing.

“AKPK swiftly migrated to AWS as part of our Digital Transformation Roadmap to enhance cybersecurity resilience and minimise interruptions to our operations,” said Azaddin Ngah Tasir, CEO of AKPK. 

“Looking ahead, we plan to go all-in on AWS, leveraging the new AWS Malaysia Region as well as advanced technologies like generative AI and machine learning to deliver personalised financial advice and debt management programmes that meet the specific needs of Malaysians. 

"Our collaboration with AWS underscores our commitment to digital transformation, harnessing cloud technology to strengthen data security, deliver high-quality financial services, and reinforce community resilience nationwide.” 

The Department of Polytechnic and Community College Education 

The Department of Polytechnic and Community College Education (DPCCE) under the Ministry of Higher Education (JPPKK) is the first pilot public sector agency under the CFA to use cloud for online learning, teaching, and examinations.

“Built and run on AWS, data and information from the Centralized Information Document Online System (CIDOS) can be obtained easily and quickly 24x7, and be accessed anywhere by 100,000 students and 10,000 lecturers from 36 polytechnics and 106 community colleges throughout the country. We welcome the investment and launch of the AWS Region in Malaysia that will enable us to deliver more innovative digital and AI-led solutions for our student," said YM Tengku Besaruddin Shah Bin Tengku Yaakob, director of the Digital Instructional and Learning Division (BIPD), DPCCE.

"AWS’s substantial investment is a strong vote of confidence in Malaysia’s digital economy. This collaboration will enable us to harness cutting-edge technologies, positioning Malaysia as a leader in the digital era, especially as Malaysia hosts ASEAN in 2025,” commented YB Gobind Singh Deo, Malaysia’s Minister of Digital.

“AWS’s investment in Malaysia will further expand the ecosystem by fostering collaboration between public and private sectors using regional best practices, implementing skilling initiatives and increasing global competitiveness through AWS’s capacity building in the civil service. Additionally, it will inevitably encourage all sectors to adopt technology and innovation. This partnership is a catalyst for the digital transformation of our nation, fostering a thriving digital economy.”