MRANTI inks MOU with DNB, Ericsson to strengthen its technology clusters via 5G

• DNB, MRANTI, Ericsson collaborate on-campus 5G Development Centre
• Part of plan to revitalise park into a spark that accelerates innovation

Digital Nasional Bhd (DNB), the Malaysian Research Accelerator for Technology and Innovation (MRANTI) and Ericsson announced their collaboration to leverage 5G to accelerate the development of innovation clusters at the MRANTI Park campus in Bukit Jalil.

The collaboration entails the deployment of 5G coverage and capabilities at MRANTI Park, the creation of MRANTI’s on-campus “5G development centre” with support from DNB, as well as comprehensive knowledge sharing and education efforts for enterprises and the community in MRANTI’s innovation clusters.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed in Kuala Lumpur by DNB Chief Corporate Affairs Officer Zuraida Jamaluddin, MRANTI Chief Executive Officer Dzuleira Abu Bakar, and Head of Ericsson Malaysia, Sri Lanka & Bangladesh David Hägerbro. MRANTI is a convergence between Technology Park Malaysia (TPM Corp) and Malaysian Global Innovation Creativity Centre (MaGIC).

DNB will be working closely with MRANTI and Ericsson in the 5G infrastructure planning and execution, and in facilitating knowledge sharing sessions on 5G technology and related capabilities. This partnership is a testament of DNB’s support of MRANTI’s aspiration to have an on-campus 5G development centre for their innovation clusters, and for the creation of their 5G use cases and experiences. MRANTI Park (and the broader Bukit Jalil area) is among the first few areas in Kuala Lumpur to receive 5G coverage.

“Given MRANTI’s position as the national research commercialisation agency and key technology enabler, we are delighted to explore and enable the exciting possibilities that 5G has to offer. This empowers communities in MRANTI Park to avail themselves of 5G technology and capabilities, eventually building it into future products and services,” said Zuraida.

For its part, MRANTI will offer 5G technology capabilities across its facilities, promote its awareness and use, including facilitating its application in key development clusters, and other developmental and partnership programmes including the National Technology and Innovation Sandbox (NTIS), of which MRANTI is the lead secretariat.

Additionally, MRANTI will host Area 57, a centre of excellence for dronetech, and the first Artificial Intelligence Park in Malaysia with various facilities such as the aforementioned 5G development centre, Sustainable Urban Farming Incubation Facility, Biotechnology Incubation Hub and Autonomous Vehicle & Robotics Hub. All these services and facilities are interlinked and go hand-in-hand with the development of 5G technology.

“We continue to equip innovators, researchers and businesses at MRANTI Park with the latest infrastructure and expert capabilities for advanced technology development, with a view to driving returns on innovation across the ecosystem. The collaboration also serves to accelerate our position as the leading 4IR (Fourth Industrial Revolution) hub - in which we have the latest facilities and resources to support industry growth – including for dronetech, autonomous vehicles, agritech and more,” said Dzuleira (pic, left).

Further, MRANTI Park will be reinvented to make promising research and development and early technology products economically viable. In order to achieve this, MRANTI will need a strong foundation consisting of 5G infrastructure and data-driven services to strengthen its tech ecosystem and develop promising use cases to be accelerated for commercialisation.

“My immediate focus is the rejuvenation and revitalisation of the park into a hub that accelerates the commercialisation of innovation and technology,” Dzuleira added.

The MoU will see Ericsson leveraging its experience and technology leadership to provide input to contribute to the acceleration for the development of use cases to increase the uptake of 5G, as well as to support startups and technopreneurs on 5G development and readiness. Ericsson will also be participating in a 5G knowledge building program through activities such as presentations and seminars.

“To deliver the full value of 5G to Malaysia, we need to bring together partners to collaborate, innovate and incubate ideas to nurture a thriving ecosystem,” said Hägerbro. 

To deliver the full value of 5G to Malaysia, he added that it would be necessary to bring together partners to collaborate, innovate and incubate ideas to nurture a thriving ecosystem. This would be where the collaboration involving DNB, MRANTI and Ericsson will be a catalyst to accelerate the development of local skills and transfer of knowledge and contribute its industry leading expertise.

[Ed: Para edited for clarity.]