by Tan Aik Keong (AK)
While the world debates whether AI is replacing jobs, there's a more useful question to ask: is AI actually destroying opportunity, or is it creating an entirely new category of high-value work?
A recent set of numbers is worth Malaysia's serious attention. On Arena AI's model leaderboard, Anthropic's Claude currently ranks among the top text models globally, and many developers and businesses consider it one of the most capable AI tools available. Yet according to Visual Capitalist's Anthropic Claude usage index, Singapore's Claude usage intensity sits at 4.19x, the second-highest in the world. Malaysia's is 0.66x.
This isn't simply a question of "who uses it more." Behind the number is a deeper issue: Malaysia's AI talent and certification ecosystem is still at a very early stage.
What's genuinely scarce in the AI era isn't people who can "use ChatGPT to write copy" — it's people who can actually deploy AI into enterprise systems, workflows, data, compliance and production environments. One of the most closely watched new job titles in the US recently is the Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE). Industry hiring data shows FDE demand grew roughly tenfold in 2025. These aren't traditional programmers, and they aren't generic consultants — they understand AI architecture, understand how to land it in a real business, understand the problems that show up on a client site, and can take AI from proof-of-concept to real production.
That tells us something important: AI genuinely will compress some repetitive roles, but it's also creating new, high-paying specialist ones. What decides the outcome is whether a country has enough people who can move up from "AI user" to "AI builder."
This likely connects to national innovation capacity too. The 2025 Global Innovation Index ranks Switzerland, Sweden, the US, South Korea and Singapore at the top, with China entering the top ten for the first time. What these economies share isn't just investment in technology — it's how quickly they turn new technology into talent, enterprise capability and industry competitiveness. Singapore's high Claude usage probably isn't a coincidence; it reflects a culture of trying things faster, learning faster, and institutionalising faster.
In Singapore, the US and India, a growing number of professionals have already earned official Claude certification as a Claude Certified Architect (CCA). Anthropic launched the Claude Partner Network in 2026 and announced its first technical certification, Claude Certified Architect, Foundations, to certify solutions architects who can build production-grade applications on Claude.
Right now, publicly visible CCA holders in Malaysia are still few. I'm one of them — as founder and Group CEO of Agmo Holdings Berhad (Bursa: 0258), I passed the Claude Certified Architect exam with a score of 822/1000, making me one of the earlier certified professionals in Malaysia, and I'm also a founding member of Konsortium AI Negara (KAIN, the National AI Consortium).
"We're not losing on technology. We're losing on awareness and action," I'd put it. "While the rest of the world is running, we're still on the sidelines watching."
That's exactly why I've joined a group of Malaysia's first Claude Certified Architects on a bold goal: train 1,000 Malaysian Claude Certified Architects by the end of 2026.
This isn't about collecting another certificate. It's about giving Malaysia its own local talent pool for enterprise AI deployment, AI system design, AI agent development, MCP integration and Claude Code engineering. Businesses adopting AI shouldn't have to rely on foreign consultants every single time — Malaysia needs its own AI architects, AI FDEs, and AI solution teams.
To lower the barrier to entry, the Claude AI Malaysia team has also released a free CCA-F exam guide, covering the study path, exam focus areas, hands-on experience and lessons from my own pass. We've also set up a free Claude AI Malaysia WhatsApp community for anyone interested in sitting the exam, learning, and growing together: chat.whatsapp.com/EefHnhgxRkzFnV1OZIRlNM.
The AI era won't wait for any country. Today's 0.66x shouldn't be Malaysia's endpoint — it should be our wake-up call. The real question isn't whether Claude is powerful enough. It's whether Malaysians are willing to start learning, get certified, put it into practice, and get to the front of the next wave of AI careers.
Part of the AK AI Corner column. Originally published in Oriental Daily (东方日报) on Jun 26, 2026.