Red Hat: SMEs in Southeast Asia can have faster AI adoption through open source

“Whether you're Indonesian SME or Malaysian SME or Thai SME, there is a lot of common ground. So, this is something we look to see how we are going to scale this across the different countries,” said Albert Chai, General Manager, RoSEA at RedHat.

Red Hat recently unveiled a report detailing how SMEs can speed up their AI adoption through open source. The study, which was conducted by independent research firm Ecosystm and backed by Malaysia’s National AI Office (NAIO) and Red Hat titled surveyed 133 SMEs across industries in Malaysia, focusing on AI adoption trends, challenges and future plans.

While the study revealed the trends and opportunities in Malaysia, Albert Chai, General Manager for RoSEA (Rest of Southeast Asia) at Red Hat, stated that the findings can also be applied to other nations in the region as it demonstrates the strength and capabilities of leveraging open-source technologies for SMEs in their AI journey.

“So naturally, whatever we do here in Malaysia, we cut across Southeast Asia as well. During the recent AI summit in Malaysia, we had representation from all countries in the region and so I think the impact of this study is cut across ASEAN. The challenges that we face are common, whether it's cost, complexity, or flexibility. Whether you're Indonesian SME or Malaysian SME or Thai SME, there is a lot of common ground. So, this is something we look to see how we are going to scale this across the different countries,” said Chai.

Currently, the top three barriers in AI adoption are cost, talent, and governance. Chai believes these are similar barriers that SMEs in the region are also facing.

“If we address this with our open source AI narrative, SMEs can see how they can start small, and scale from there. We think the best option is to plow ahead, because you can start small and start simple and you can start anytime,” added Chai.

While the challenges of cost and return of investment (ROI) can be specific to some companies and the use cases they invest in, Chai also believes the local market industry can quickly figure out the advantages and the benefits of open source.

“The most interesting part is not so much initial cost or startup cost. It's a whole total cost of ownership, and that's where the power officers come in. SMEs need to mitigate the risk of vendor lock in. When you're not locking, you have choice to use a commercial open source or free open source,” he explained.

Looking at open source AI use cases, Chai pointed out that while they're very industry specific, a lot of SMEs are looking at driving top line using AI, but without incurring the corresponding cost.

“Whether it's a more personalized customer experience, more personalized product recommendations, or a more personalized service delivery, all of these can be enabled by open source AI. And this is driving the top line use cases in the different industries,” said Chai.

The role of partners

Chai also highlighted the role of Red Hat’s partner ecosystem that cuts across industry and business partners.

“Our distributors and resellers give us the go to market scale that we ourselves will not be able to master. We also have our academia partners like universities that adopt our academy programs. We have ecosystem partners, independent software vendors (ISVs), which many of them are big MNCs, but also, they are local ISV partners that build software on our open source software platform for us to be able to address a specific use cases and verticals,” explained Chai.

He added that these ISV partners are also a key element of scaling AI adoptions in the region.

“So yes, we have the business partners, industry partners, as well as the academia partners, the ISVs and the software vendors themselves who ensure interoperability with the open source tools. And there are government partnerships that play an important role in the adoption of AI,” he concluded.