Policy & Ecosystem / AI news for Malaysia
Sarawak's SDEC wins two WITSA global AI awards in Taipei
A Sarawak state agency won two of the thirty inaugural WITSA Global AI Awards in Taipei, one for an unmanned retail ecosystem and one for its investment pathway. Kuching is proposed for the next summit.
In brief
- SDEC said on 7 September 2026 that it won two WITSA Global AI Awards in Taipei, taking the public policy category for an unmanned retail ecosystem and the investments category for Sarawak's digital economy funding pathway.[1][2]
- Malaysian organisations won seven of the thirty inaugural awards, covering all seven judging pillars, and every Malaysian winner was nominated by PIKOM.[2]
- SDEC describes Kuching as the proposed host of the WITSA Global AI Summit 2027 alongside IDECS 2027, and neither release states how many unmanned retail units are running.[1][2]
SDEC won the WITSA public policy and investments AI awards for Sarawak
A state-owned Sarawak agency has come home from Taipei with two international AI awards. Sarawak Digital Economy Corporation said on 7 September 2026 that it won in the public policy and investments categories of the inaugural WITSA Global AI Awards, presented at a ceremony on 1 September during the WITSA Global AI Summit.[1][2]
SDEC chief executive Dato Ir. Ts. Sudarnoto Osman also delivered a keynote at the summit, which ran in Taipei on 1 and 2 September under the theme AI Alive, Beyond the Future. It was the second edition, and the first to carry the awards programme.[1][2]
Two awards, one for a shop with no staff
The public policy award is the more concrete of the two. WITSA's citation names an unmanned retail ecosystem built around Tap n Go Mart, an autonomous walk-in store, and SBox AI, a compact automated smart-fridge unit. Both use weight-sensing sensor fusion to work out what a customer has taken, and both are aimed at dispersed communities that a conventional staffed shop cannot serve economically.[2]
The investments award covers the funding machinery behind it. WITSA describes a connected pathway running from a Centre of Excellence for Digital Economy through digital economy testbeds, the SDEC Tech Accelerator, digital innovation hubs and a business angel network, all aligned to the Sarawak Digital Economy Blueprint 2030. WITSA positions it as a model other resource-based regions in ASEAN could copy.[2]
Nominated at home, judged abroad
The awards used a two-tier process. WITSA's member associations ran their own national selections and sent up to one candidate per category forward. A global judging panel then assessed every national nominee against four criteria: real-world impact and potential, scalability, innovative features and functionality, and whether the solution is proven.[2]
That structure matters for reading the Malaysian result. Alongside SDEC, PIKOM's nominees that won include TM Research and Development for infrastructure, PEOPLElogy Berhad for talent, MyPocketDoc for entrepreneurship, REDtone Digital for use cases and Infopro for data. Malaysia therefore took at least one award in each of the seven pillars.[2]
A keynote about building rather than buying
In his keynote, Sudarnoto said Sarawak is exploring how global developments can inform its own direction in areas such as AI grid models, tokenisation, sovereign AI capabilities and models that better reflect local knowledge and conditions. He framed that as strengthening local capability while staying open to international partners, technology providers and, where appropriate, open-source approaches.[1]
He described the state's path as moving from vision to investment, from investment to capability, from capability to application, and increasingly from adopting technology to creating it. The engagement is not new. In April 2026 WITSA and SDEC formalised WITSA GAIN at Sarawak, making the state the network's first ASEAN hub partner and its first founding hub partner for an AI ecosystem.[1][3]
Why Malaysia should care
Malaysian organisations took seven of the thirty inaugural awards, one in every category WITSA judged, and all of them reached global judging through PIKOM. That says something real about how Malaysian work is nominated, not that the systems behind it are widely deployed. Neither release publishes a unit count, a budget or a customer number.
Sarawak SMEs and rural retailers
An award-winning state programme is aimed at exactly the thin-margin, low-footfall locations where a staffed shop does not pay for itself.[2]
Practical move: Ask SDEC directly what a Tap n Go Mart or SBox AI unit costs to host and who carries the stock risk.
Malaysian technology companies
The route to this recognition runs through a PIKOM national selection that forwards at most one candidate per category.[2]
Practical move: Track PIKOM's nomination window rather than waiting for a direct WITSA call.
What Malaysians can do now
- Read the award citation rather than the headline: WITSA names Tap n Go Mart and SBox AI, and neither release publishes deployment numbers or cost.
- If you want the same recognition, work the PIKOM national selection, which forwards at most one Malaysian candidate per category to global judging.
- Treat the Kuching 2027 summit as proposed until WITSA confirms the host, because that is the word SDEC itself uses.
What we still do not know
An award citation is not an operating report
- How many Tap n Go Mart stores and SBox AI units are actually running in Sarawak, and in which districts.
- What the Sarawak investment pathway has committed or disbursed in ringgit, and to how many companies.
- Whether WITSA has confirmed Kuching and IDECS 2027 as the 2027 summit host, which SDEC describes only as proposed.
- Why WITSA's release counts thirty organisations in its opening but twenty eight in its chairman's quotation.
Sources
- 1.SDEC elevates Sarawak's presence on the global AI stage Sarawak Digital Economy Corporation, 7 September 2026
- 2.Winners of the WITSA Global AI Awards 2026 Celebrated in Taipei World Innovation, Technology and Services Alliance, 2 September 2026
- 3.SDEC Signs as WITSA Global AI Ecosystem Network Founding Hub Partner World Innovation, Technology and Services Alliance, 2 April 2026
