Telekom Malaysia (TM) announced on Friday it has launched what it says is the country’s first sovereign GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS), which it also says will boost Malaysia's AI infrastructure.
The GPUaaS offering leverages GPUs from Nvidia, which are hosted in TM’s Tier-III certified data centres, to provide low-latency, real-time, high-performance AI computing capabilities.
TM said the offering integrates its GPU resources with high-speed connectivity backed by its nationwide fibre optic network and edge computing facilities to support AI-driven applications such as healthcare diagnostics, autonomous vehicles, AR/VR content and AI avatars for public services.
TM group CEO Amar Huzaimi Md Deris said the GPUaaS offering is modular and scalable to customer needs, and provides companies with scalable and on-demand access to GPU resources without having to invest a lot of capex in their own hardware.
“By offering cost-efficient access to high-performance computing for AI model training and inferencing, we enable businesses and the government sector to adopt AI-driven solutions with greater ease, ensuring both operational efficiency and scalability,” he said in a statement.
Amar also said TM has already secured its first international customer for the GPUaaS service, although he provided no further details.
TM added that its data centres are available to host other GPU provider services apart from its own.
Technically, TM isn’t the first telco to offer GPUaaS services in Malaysia. Rival telco Maxis launched a GPUaaS offering in August in partnership with Singtel. That partnership is part of a broader move by Singtel and Bridge Alliance to extend SingTel’s GPUaaS offerings to enterprises across Southeast Asia via alliance member operators, with Maxis being among the first onboard, along with Thailand’s AIS and Indonesia’s Telkomsel.
However, Maxis’ GPUaaS offering essentially resells Nvidia GPU capacity in Singtel’s data centres. TM says its offering is the first in Malaysia to be hosted entirely within the country, which it says ensures data sovereignty and security.
TM’s GPUaaS service was revealed during last week’s launch of the Malaysian government’s National AI Office (NAIO), which will operate under the Digital Ministry as a centralised agency for AI planning, R&D and regulatory oversight to drive Malaysia’s transformation into a regional AI development powerhouse, according to its official website.
