KUCHING: Sarawak needs more experts in chip designing for the automotive and healthcare industries.
Premier Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg said without chips, the equipment will not work.
“Taking the automotive industry as an example, I was once informed by X-Fab that one car needs 150 chips. So if the engine no longer uses fuel, there is a possibility that the chip design will have to be different… and that is where the automotive industry is heading.
“However, for Sarawak, we will not be focusing on producing chips but we will focus on designing it.
“Moreover, as there are a lot of opportunities for the need for new equipment to come on stream that require new design and chips, we also can encourage students to venture into the field of chip designing,” he said.
He said this when officiating at the Sarawak Research and Development Council (SRDC) 5th anniversary dinner at Pullman Hotel here yesterday (Oct 10).
On a related matter, Abang Johari expressed his interest in creating a robot inspired from ‘Grace the robot’ that made its appearance at the 27th World Congress on Innovation and Technology 2023 and the 6th International Digital Economy Conference Sarawak 2023 (WCIT-IDECS 2023).
“I was also informed that Grace the robot has over 4,000 sensors in her head. For us to have our own, means that we have to engage with the Centre for Technology Excellence Sarawak (CENTEXS) together with Huawei for it to have that much sensor.
“Of course we will use another name that suits Sarawak’s personalities for it. And when we have it, it could be used for our healthcare here as it is programmed to do a certain difficult task,” he added.
