Sarawak initiates a sovereign AI project to develop government LLMs and local AI infrastructure for healthcare and agriculture.
The Sarawak Government has announced a sovereign artificial intelligence (AI) initiative through a series of strategic partnerships with technical and academic institutions in the United Kingdom. During a working visit to Manchester, Cambridge, and Oxford, the Sarawak Artificial Intelligence Centre (SAIC) signed three Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) to establish a privacy-preserving AI infrastructure.
FLock.io has been appointed as the primary technical partner for the project. The collaboration aims to develop a state-wide government large language model (LLM) and distributed AI systems. The technical framework focuses on federated learning (FL), a method that allows models to be trained across multiple data sources without transferring raw data to a central server.
This approach is intended to support Sarawak’s roadmap towards a sovereign AI economy, with specific applications planned for the healthcare and agriculture sectors.
The initiative follows a proof of concept in which FLock.io used federated learning to fine-tune a language model on indigenous Sarawak Malay data. The experiment utilised in-country devices to improve local public sector services without sending sensitive data to foreign servers. By keeping data localised, the state aims to reduce reliance on international technology corporations while maintaining regulatory compliance and cultural values.
In addition to infrastructure development, a research unit will be established at the University of Cambridge’s Economics department. This unit is intended to study AI investment economics, green economy, and AI governance. These research outcomes will be used to inform the next generation of policy frameworks under Sarawak’s Post Covid-19 Development Strategy (PCDS) 2030.
Abang Johari, Premier of Sarawak, stated: “Artificial intelligence is the key. Over the past ten years, it has changed the entire economy. I believe it will go even further toward strategic intelligence.”
Prof Patrick Then, CEO of the SAIC, emphasised the technical requirement for domain-specific models within the state’s long-term development framework. The partnership also includes Unitas Global Advisory, which will provide delivery expertise for decentralised AI systems.
The MoUs represent a transition from technical experimentation to expanded real-life applications. By leveraging UK-based academic ties and FL infrastructure, Sarawak intends to position itself as a regional leader in the development of robust, governance-led AI ecosystems.
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