Malaysia’s Ministry of Digital has activated the Government Innovation Initiative (GII), a national programme it says will push public-sector innovation from “concept” to measurable delivery as the country works toward its goal of becoming an “AI Nation” by 2030.
In a statement, the ministry said GII is designed to translate real government and citizen problem statements into deployable solutions, prioritising “Made by Malaysia” technologies to deepen the domestic AI and digital product ecosystem and help local solution providers scale nationally and internationally.
As an early flagship pilot, the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC), working with the Ministry of Health, delivered “RadioConnect” across three public hospitals, the ministry said.
The project aims to provide cloud-based connectivity with secure access across multiple providers via each hospital’s Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS), enabling electronic storage, retrieval and sharing of diagnostic images such as X-rays, MRIs and CT scans.
The ministry said RadioConnect is intended to allow authorised clinicians to access patient images across departments and, eventually, across hospitals nationwide, cutting delays in accessing imaging records and improving diagnostic efficiency and patient care.
The next phase of GII includes establishing “Citizen Labs”, which the ministry described as a collaborative channel for the public to submit problems and experiences that can be routed to relevant ministries so solutions can be built around the needs of the rakyat.
The ministry said the MyInovasi portal will serve as a central platform linking government, academia and industry by matching local innovations with real-world public-sector needs.
As part of a broader “whole-of-government” alignment, Futurise Sdn Bhd will transition to operate under MDEC and is expected to progress GII projects through the National Regulatory Sandbox framework.
“The GII is not just about adopting new technology but about building a future-proof public sector that is responsive, efficient, and deeply rooted in local ingenuity,” Digital Minister Gobind Singh Deo said, adding the initiative aims to break down silos and create a pipeline from citizen challenges to Malaysian-made AI solutions.
The initiative’s impact will depend on whether Malaysia can move quickly from pilots to scaled deployments across ministries—a step where many government innovation programmes stall due to procurement bottlenecks, legacy systems and data-governance constraints.