KUALA LUMPUR: The government will award Arm Compute Subsystem (CSS) tokens – access to Arm Holdings’ high-end chip design framework – to Malaysian semiconductor companies that meet selection criteria at the next KL20 Conference in the coming months, said Economy Minister Datuk Seri Rafizi Ramli.
He said that through the ecosystem partnership with Arm Holdings, Malaysia would work to develop complex design companies with Arm’s intellectural property expertise and to design based on Arm’s “crown jewel” offering – the CSS.
“For each of the CSS, we are looking to build a complete supply chain in advanced industries such as AI data servers, autonomous vehicles, IoT, robotics and others. An ecosystem perspective also means that we will prioritise local players as the first resort for every part of the supply chain,” he said in his speech at the launch of Silicon Vision 2025 with Arm Limited today.
Rafizi said it has put in place a collaboration structure with advanced foreign firms, proposed technology transfer and localisation requirements, so that it could uplift local players in a realistic and holistic way.
“In the next few months, we will show progress on this Arm collaboration: By launching the 10-year vision blueprint, announcing the recipients of the CSS tokens, highlighting the collaboration with local players, and showcasing these technology prototypes at the next KL20 Summit,” he shared.
Rafizi said Malaysia’s semiconductor industry must move from OSAT (backend) that captures 5-10% of the value, to integragted circuit design that captures over 60% of the supply chain value.
“Our economic strategy requires Malaysia to build local, indigenous technology for higher margin exports and supply chain resilience. We need to venture into new technology areas like AI, robotics, autonomous vehicles, and IoT,” he added.
According to media reports, Rafizi told reporters on Monday that Malaysia will pay Arm Holdings US$250 million (RM1.1 billion) over 10 years to acquire the firm’s chip design plans.
Malaysia aims to produce its own graphics processing unit chips within the next five to 10 years to meet the growing demand for artificial intelligence and data centres.
The agreement includes access to seven of Arm’s high-end chip design blueprints and a commitment to train 10,000 engineers in Malaysia.
The government hopes this deal will help local semiconductor companies scale up, with a target of creating 10 firms generating annual revenues of US$1.5 billion to US$2 billion each.
