C-suite and senior leaders setting AI direction across the business.

Data and AI Strategy

1 day
HRDC claimable
Intermediate

In short

What is the Data and AI Strategy program?

A one-day executive program built on your own data and industry use cases. It shows leaders where AI moves the P&L, the governance they will be asked about, and how to sequence investment into a costed roadmap.

What you leave with

A costed, sequenced AI roadmap. Built on your own P&L, with the highest-return use cases first and the budget logic a CFO can defend.
A governance and sovereignty posture. What data stays in Malaysia, which vendors clear the bar under the PDPA 2024 amendment, and where a human stays in the loop.
A board KPI set. The metrics to report so the board can judge the return and the risk of every ringgit spent on AI.

We have shipped AI in banking, government, manufacturing, and telco across Malaysia and the region. Leaders leave this session with the same starting point our enterprise clients used: a costed roadmap tied to their own numbers. See a case study.

What the day covers

1. Where AI moves your P&L. Traditional AI and Generative AI, told apart in business terms. We size your use cases against your own numbers and rank them by return, not by hype.
2. Data governance and risk management. The rules your roadmap has to clear before anything ships: the PDPA and its 2024 amendment (the new cross-border transfer test, mandatory data protection officer, 72-hour breach notification), the national AIGE guidelines, and sector rules such as BNM’s RMiT for financial institutions. Then the sovereignty question: which workloads can run on global APIs, and which need local options such as YTL AI Cloud or ILMUchat to keep data inside Malaysia without giving up GenAI capability. Human-in-the-loop checkpoints are set here, before deployment, not after an incident.

For teams in banking, government, or healthcare that need the full treatment, the AI Sovereignty and Data Residency program goes a level deeper.

3. Model and infrastructure choices. A decision matrix your team will keep using after the day ends:

Option	Examples	Right when
Global cloud APIs	OpenAI, Claude, Gemini	General knowledge work and drafting, where the data is not sensitive and residency is not in play.
Sovereign cloud in Malaysia	YTL AI Cloud (Nvidia GB200 clusters in Johor, operational since November 2025)	Enterprise RAG on confidential data, regulated workloads, and anything that must stay under Malaysian jurisdiction.
Local and domain models	ILMUchat by YTL AI Labs	Bahasa Melayu and code-switching customer contexts, local nuance, and cost-controlled domain tasks.

We sell none of these. You leave with the decision framework, not a vendor pitch.

4. The costed roadmap. ROI modelled against a baseline before budget is committed, investments sequenced, and the metrics a board will track.

What your team will be able to do

Tell Traditional AI and Generative AI apart, and know which to fund for each use case.
Set a data governance posture with human-in-the-loop checkpoints before deployment.
Model the ROI of an AI use case against a baseline before you commit budget.
Leave with a sequenced, costed roadmap and the metrics a board will track.

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Who runs it

This program is run by industry practitioners who have shipped AI inside regulated enterprises across banking, government, manufacturing, and telco. It is led by Peter Kua, our AI and data science lead, a core contributor to Malaysia’s National Big Data Analytics Framework under MDEC and co-author of Malaysia’s AI Adoption Blueprints in 2019 and 2020. You are learning from people who have built this in production, not read about it. Peter’s commentary on AI adoption and workforce capability has appeared in The Star, theSun, Singapore Business Review, e27, and DagangNews, and on RTM Berita’s Tech Today.

This program runs for your leadership team on your own industry context. Bring a real strategic question and leave with a first-pass answer and a plan to pressure-test it.

Duration 1 day

Funding HRD Corp claimable (SBL/SBL-Khas)

Format In-house on your use cases, or scheduled cohort

Common questions

How does the program handle data privacy and sector regulation, such as PDPA and BNM rules?

It is built in from the start, not bolted on. We walk your leadership team through the PDPA 2024 amendment’s cross-border transfer conditions, the national AIGE guidelines, and sector expectations such as BNM’s RMiT and its 2025 discussion paper on AI in the financial sector. Where data cannot leave Malaysia, we show the sovereign options, including local cloud such as YTL AI Cloud and local models such as ILMUchat, so the roadmap is compliant before any tool is deployed.

Do we need sovereign or local AI, or will global tools do?

Usually a mix. Most workloads run fine on global APIs. The ones that touch customer data, regulated records, or anything the PDPA’s transfer test catches are where sovereign cloud or a local model earns its place. The decision matrix in this program tells you which is which. For a deeper treatment, see our AI Sovereignty and Data Residency program.

Who is Data and AI Strategy for?

C-suite and senior leaders setting AI direction: CEOs, CFOs, COOs, CIOs, and division heads. It suits GLCs and regulated enterprises as well as mid-market firms. No technical background is needed. Bring a real strategic question and leave with a first-pass answer.

Is this program HRDC claimable?

Yes. It is claimable through HRD Corp under SBL and SBL-Khas. GrowthPro Asia is an HRDC-registered provider, and we help with the claim paperwork. For most registered employers the levy covers most or all of the cost.

How is the cost set?

We do not publish a fixed price. Cost depends on in-house versus scheduled delivery, group size, and customisation to your industry and data. Tell us your group size and format for an indicative quote.

What it costs

We do not publish a fixed price, because this is built around your leadership team. Three things set the cost: whether you run it in-house on your own use cases or join a scheduled cohort, the size of the group, and how far we customise to your sector and data. It is HRD Corp claimable under SBL and SBL-Khas, so for most registered employers the levy covers most or all of it. Tell us your group size and format, and we will send an indicative quote and exactly what is included.

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AI Capstone, the pilot a roadmap leads into.
HRDC-claimable AI training, how the claim works.
AI consulting, strategy, governance and pilots.
AI Sovereignty and Data Residency, a related program.
Agentic AI for Leadership: Strategy, Governance and the Build-vs-Buy Decision, a related program in Leadership & Executive AI Strategy.
AI Change Management, a related program in Leadership & Executive AI Strategy.

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