FEATURE

| September-October. 2025

communicate. It understands Bahasa Melayu, Manglish, and regional dialects such as Kelate( Kelantanese Malay dialect), making it more relatable and accessible to local users.

At the same time, it was developed with data safety and national governance in mind, and is hosted on YTL AI Cloud to ensure enterprise-grade performance while keeping data within Malaysia.

HOMEGROWN AI UNVEILED: The launch of ILMU marks Malaysia’ s entry into the global AI arena.

▶ Malaysia has developed ILMU, its first homegrown multimodal large language model, designed to understand and communicate in Bahasa Melayu, Manglish, and regional dialects.

▶ ILMU is positioned as a national capability to support industries, communities, and government initiatives, with benchmark performance comparable to global AI leaders.

▶ The AI is hosted on YTL AI Cloud within Malaysia, prioritising data security, safety, and adherence to national governance standards, reinforcing trust and sovereignty in the use of advanced AI systems.

BY ADELINE ANTHONY ALPHONSO

The system was unveiled at the ASEAN AI Malaysia Summit 2025 by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

Developed by YTL AI Labs in partnership with Universiti Malaya, ILMU, which stands for Intelek Luhur Malaysia Untukmu, is entirely homegrown and designed with Malaysian culture, values and language at its core.

BUILT FOR MALAYSIANS

More than a technological milestone, it is being positioned as a national capability to support industries and communities alike.

Each word in its name carries mean- ing:“ Intelek” highlights its contextual intelligence,“ Luhur” signifies its ethical foundations rooted in local values,“ Malaysia” underscores cultural and linguistic fluency, and“ Untukmu” reflects its commitment to serving all Malaysians.

Minister of Digital Gobind Singh Deo described ILMU as a model that reflects the country’ s broader ambitions.

“ The Ministry of Digital welcomes ILMU, a groundbreaking Malaysian innovation by YTL AI Labs that reflects our national vision for a future driven by technology, inclusivity, and cultural relevance,” said Gobind.

“ Built by Malaysians for Malaysians, ILMU showcases our ability to create world-class AI infrastructure while preserving our linguistic and cultural identity. This is more than just technology- it is a step toward empowering our people, our businesses, and our nation in the digital era.”

Unlike other AI systems, ILMU was designed to reflect how Malaysians actually

From virtual assistants to education and healthcare, ILMU is a flexible engine for digital transformation

DRIVING ADOPTION

Benchmark tests position ILMU on par with international leaders, such as GPT-4 and Llama 3.1. It achieved the highest scores in Malay language understanding, outperformed its rivals in practical problem-solving tasks, and matched leading models in complex instruction-following tasks.

YTL Power International Berhad Managing Director Dato’ Seri Yeoh Seok Hong stressed that ILMU was more than just an innovation showcase.

“ ILMU represents YTL’ s commitment to innovation, rooted in Malaysia’ s diverse cultural and intellectual heritage. As we introduce this advanced AI model, we aim to empower every Malaysian with accessible, reliable and culturally relevant knowledge.

“ ILMU is not just a technological leap, but a national capability that can power smarter systems, drive productivity and create progress that includes everyone – government, businesses and most importantly, the rakyat,” he said.

LOCAL ADVANTAGE

To build momentum, YTL AI Labs launched the ILMU AI Accelerator Programme, supported by the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation( MDEC). The initiative aims to help local startups, SMEs and international partners develop new products and services using ILMU.

Eligible participants will receive Malaysia Digital( MD) status, facilitation of work permits and visas, as well as RM5 million worth of ILMU API credits.

“ From virtual assistants to education and healthcare, ILMU is a flexible engine for digital transformation,” YTL AI Labs Chief Executive Officer Foong Chee Mun said, underlining the model’ s readiness to serve a range of sectors.

It performs on par with global models and is already powering real solutions across industries. When it comes to Bahasa Melayu, we are the best-performing LLM in the world.

“ With API access now available, ILMU is ready for business, and we welcome developers, start-ups and enterprises to build with us and shape Malaysia’ s AI future together.”

Several companies have already signed on as early partners, including Astro, Media Prima, Carsome, Ryt Bank, Aco Tech, and Swipey, demonstrating confidence in ILMU’ s capacity to meet real-world demands.

For consumers, the first product built on ILMU will be ILMUchat, a chatbot scheduled for early access on Malaysia Day, on Sep 16, 2025.

By placing Malaysia’ s cultural and linguistic strengths at the heart of next-generation technology, ILMU positions the country not only as an adopter of AI but also as a builder, creating systems that can compete globally while remaining true to its national identity. @ ND