The Malaysian state of Sarawak’s smart city development got a big boost last week. Communications and digital services firm Maxis of Malaysia has entered into a partnership with Sarawak Multimedia Authority (SMA) for collaboration on IoT and NB-IoT initiatives.
In a memorandum of understanding signed at the 3rd International Digital Economy Conference Sarawak (IDECS) in Kuching, the partnership between Maxis and the SMA will focus on three areas:
- Co-develop expertise and share experiences and knowledge on the proven applications of IoT and NB-IoT concepts.
- Foster partnership networking on the design, development and implementation of IoT and NB-IoT solutions
- Developing a strong ecosystem via lab setup support, with specialist support resources to build sustainable and smart solutions.
“At SMA, we have a very clear vision and strategy to accelerate the growth of Sarawak’s economy through the power of technology. A significant part of this strategy is about collaboration between the government and private sector,” Dr. Zaidi Razak, SMA general manager.
Maxis meanwhile lauded SMA’s efforts to do its part in driving the state’s digital economy agenda, by recognizing the urgent need to accelerate digital technology across many industries.
“We are committed to being a strong partner to the government through our network leadership, digital services and connectivity solutions. We want to play an important role in delivering NB-IoT services and solutions, especially for the State’s anchor sectors such as agriculture and manufacturing,” said Paul McManus, chief enterprise business officer, Maxis
Maxis launched the first commercial NB-IoT service in Malaysia in April 2019, with Kuching being one of the key IoT market centers where it activated its NB-IoT network. The launch enables businesses to deploy industrial IoT applications to form new data streams, enabling actionable insights by connecting simple devices such as sensors.
