Huawei and enterprise AI company Skymind Al Berhad have signed a memorandum of understanding to develop a new cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) Innovation Hub in order to foster innovation and talent development in ASEAN.

The Hub will first begin in Malaysia and Indonesia, with the intention of creating a strong foundation for AI innovation across Asia.

Huawei Cloud South Pacific Region vice president Lim Chee Siong and Skymind AI Limited CEO Shawn Tan signed the agreement, marking the beginning of a collaboration between the two companies to develop a strong AI ecosystem including infrastructure and talent development in the region, as well as boosting the local digital economy development.

Skymind and Huawei Cloud will also develop AI training programs to bolster the local talent pool by enhancing ICT capabilities.

"We are excited to establish this groundbreaking partnership between Skymind and Huawei. The combined expertise and technical capabilities of the two companies will provide a strong foundation to position Southeast Asia as an AI innovation hub,” comments Tan.

“These are also exciting times for Skymind as we continue our international expansion plan. We are developing a strong foothold in the region and this agreement is an important step for us as we further establish our presence in Asia."

As part of the arrangement, both companies will set up a joint working group to develop smart city innovations by providing strategic and technical expertise. The collaboration will begin in Indonesia and the three states in Malaysia -- Penang, Kedah and Johor.

Siong Adds that, "Huawei Cloud provides a powerful computing platform and easy-to-use development platform to support Huawei's full-stack, all-scenario AI strategy.

“Through this partnership, we envision Huawei Cloud and AI as the platform enabler in nurturing local AI Developer ecosystem and foster collaboration with developers, partners, universities, and research institutions, with the ultimate goal of making AI more inclusive. In addition to this, Huawei Cloud and AI, coupled with 5G technology, will enable a future of ubiquitous computing and intelligence to deliver the best digital experience in this growing digital sphere ahead of the inevitability of today's digital wave to realize Digital Malaysia."

Skymind's Eclipse Deeplearning is an AI framework for Java and Scala, and serves as a bridge between the Python data science community and big data tools like Spark and Kafka.

Headquartered in San Francisco, Skymind serves dozens of Fortune 500 companies that use its software to turn their big data stacks into AI stacks.