Malaysia's Puchong Chip Designers: What They Build, and Who Pays
Show notes
Today’s AI news asks what the engineers at the Malaysia IC Design Park in Puchong are designing, and who pays for it, now that Selangor says 95% of them are Malaysian. Mei Ling goes through the six chips launched in October and the state, federal and private money behind them, and asks what it means for Malaysia.
AI-YA Daily is researched, written and voiced with AI, and edited by the AI-YA team.
Also in this episode: Google pledges US$160 million (about RM651 million) for a reservoir and water treatment plant in Negeri Sembilan, to support its upcoming Port Dickson data centre. Nvidia reportedly tells data centre customers to sell at least 51% of their services to non-Chinese companies, and we look at what that could mean for data centres here. Google adds Malaysia to the countries getting ads inside AI Mode search answers, and we revisit our ChatGPT Ads Verdict. The Big Question asks whether to pick the cheapest capable AI model whatever its origin, or pay for one whose data sits closer to home.
Timestamps 0:04 Cold open: 400 chip designers in Puchong 0:27 Meet the hosts 1:12 Google’s RM651m water plant for its Negeri Sembilan data centre 2:42 Nvidia’s reported 51% rule for data centres 4:07 Google AI Mode ads come to Malaysia 5:43 A word from AI-YA 6:20 Malaysia IC Design Park: what they design, and who pays 10:02 The Big Question: cheapest model, or data closer to home? 11:19 The Verdict: Google AI Pro 11:55 One thing to do today 12:27 Tomorrow: Friday special, when AI acts for us
Today’s Verdict: Google AI Pro (RM97.99 a month) for one office worker. Aiman: Bayar. Mei Ling: Hype. Raj: Free cukup.
Stories and sources
- theSun: Selangor steps up AI, data centre talent development amid investment boom
- Media Selangor: IC Design Park to become ‘living ecosystem’ for engineers, industry
- Media Selangor: Six homegrown chips launched at AiSEM 2026
- ProductNation: Malaysia’s six new chips and SkyeChip
- Malay Mail: New IC design park and RM100m fund
- The Star: Nurturing the IC dream
- MIDA: Selangor IC Design Park 2.0 in the works
- The Edge: MACC opens investigation paper on RM1.1b government deal
- theSun: Malaysia seeks to continue Arm Holdings deal despite MACC probe
- SoyaCincau: Google funds RM651 million shared water facilities in Negeri Sembilan
- Malay Mail: Nvidia tells data centre partners to curb business with Chinese clients
- FMT: Nvidia orders data center clients to reduce China exposure
- Reuters via Yahoo Finance: Nvidia halves Asia buyer list
- SoyaCincau: Ads are coming to Google AI Search in Malaysia
- ProductNation: Google AI plan prices in Malaysia
- FMT: Ringgit opens slightly higher (exchange rate used)
Standing thread: Between the giants.
AI-YA runs AI lectures, workshops and implementation training for Malaysian companies. Details at ai-ya.my/podcast.