Home > Multimedia Super Corridor

Kuala Lumpur	Petronas Twin Towers
KLCC	KL Tower
KL Sentra	Multimedia Super Corridor - Cyberjaya
Kuala Lumpur International Airport	Multimedia Super Corridor - Putrajaya

TAKE ME TO CYBERJAYA

This page was intended to summarize the facts and figures of the MSC from the MSC homepage.

WIRED ARTICLE - "THINKING BIG"

WHAT IS THE MSC?
Malaysia has created the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) - a world-first, world-class act - which is a length of greenfield "corridor", 15 kilometers wide and 50 kilometers long (9 by 30 miles - roughly the size of Singapore) located 30km (20mi) south of the capital.

This corridor stretches from the Kuala Lumpur City Center (KLCC) - itself an intelligent precinct - which houses the world's tallest buildings, down south to the the future federal administrative city Putrajaya and the site of the region's largest international airport, the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA). The Prime Minister of Malaysia is scheduled to move his office to Putrajaya in June of 1999, and other departments will follow soon thereafter.

WHY AN "MSC"?
The MSC is an ambitious plan to transform rubber and palm-oil plantations into Southeast Asia's Silicon Valley bound by a fiber-optics network, providing high-speed computer links between Cyberjaya (see below), Kuala Lumpur, the KLIA and a new administrative capital under construction called Putrajaya. All in all, Malaysia has committed a massive RM48bn in investment for the MSC hailed as Malaysia's stepping stone to developed-nation status by 2020. The Malaysian government has set a target of attracting 50 world-class companies to the MSC by 2003.

Vendors from the information superhighway - from microchip designers and programmers to electric publishers, television and movie production houses and Internet service providers - can set up shop within the corridor. Malaysia's Prime Minister, Dr Mahathir, described the corridor as "a global test-bed" for the new roles of government, new cyber laws and guarantees, collaboration between government and firms, companies and companies, new broadcasting, new types of entertainment, education and delivery of health care.

WHAT GOES ON IN THE MSC?
There are 7 flagship applications slated for the MSC:

1. Electronic Government - Multimedia networked paperless administration
2. National Multi-Purpose Card
3. Smart Schools - Distance-learning Universities and wired schools
4. Telemedicine
5. R&D Cluster
6. World Wide Manufacturing Webs - remote manufacturing coordination and engineering support hub
7. Borderless Marketing Centers - multimedia customer service hub to provide electronic publishing, contnt localisation, telemarketing and remote customer care

SMART CITIES
Two Smart Cities are being developed in the Corridor; (1) Putrajaya, the new seat of government and administrative capital of Malaysia where the concept of electronic government will be introduced; and (2) Cyberjaya, an intelligent city with multimedia industries, R&D centers, a Multimedia University and operational headquarters for multinationals wishing to direct their world- wide manufacturing and trading activities using multimedia technology. Together, Putrajaya and Cyberjaya will form the nuclei of the MSC.

AltaVista, one of the world's premier search engines (ranked #2) has set up AltaVista Asiawide in the Multimedia Super Corridor! AltaVista Asia provides Asia its very own search engine and it is one of the very first major sites to be loctaed in the MSC.

BILL OF GUARANTEES
The Malaysian Government commits to:-

• Provide state-of-the-art physical and information infrastructure (see "AMENITIES IN THE MSC ZONE");
• Allow unrestricted and user-friendly employment of local and foreign knowledge workers;
• Ensure freedom of ownership within the MSC zone to accelerate the growth of the MSC and enhance its attractiveness to world-class companies;
• Allow freedom of sourcing capital globally for MSC infrastructure and freedom of borrowing funds;
• Provide competitive financial incentives including no income tax or an investment tax allowance for up to 10 years tax exemption, and umlimited duty-free importation of multimedia equipment;
• Protection for intellectual property rights;
• Become a regional leader in international property protection and cyberlaws;
• Ensure no censorship of the Internet;
• Telecommunication costs will compete with US telecoms rates and special time- or distance-independent tariff structures will be developed for MSC companies to ensure global competitiveness;
• Provision for gas, water and electricity supplies by reliable local utilities companies;
• Tender key MSC infrastructure contracts to leading companies willing to use MSC as their regional hub
• Provide a high-powered implementation agency, the Multimedia Development Corporation (MDC) to act as an effective one-stop shop;
• A dramatic increase in the number of technical and business professionals graduating from Malaysian universities;
• Multimedia University and the MSC campuses of top IT universities. Also, all schools within the MSC will be connected to the Internet;
• Creation of Cyberlaws covering electronic commerce, digital signatures, intellectual property protection, comptuer crime, telemedicine, and electronic government;

• Creation of university-company partnerships to educate and train potential employees in specific skills.

AMENITIES IN THE MSC ZONE

• 100% digital fiber-optic backbone by 1998 : 2.5-10 Gigabits per second (Gbps)
• High-speed fiber-optic links to rest of the country
• Fiber-optic links to ASEAN, Japan, EU and USA : 5 Gbps
• Menara KL or KL Tower - Tallest telecommunications tower in Asia
• KL Int't Airport (KLIA) at Sepang by June 1998 - Largest airport in Asia
• Kuala Lumpur City Center (KLCC) with the Petronas Twin Towers
• IT City by 1998 : working population 16,000
• South Klang Valley Expressway, Putrajaya Urban Motorway, and North-South Central Link Highway
• Express Rail Link (ERL) by 1998, a committed rail alignment linking KLIA, Putrajaya, Cyberjaya and the KL Sentral Station in Kuala Lumpur within 15-20 minutes

WHO'S IN?

• Since 1996, some 279 companies have applied for MSC-status and 216 have been approved. Some are located in the Petronas Twin Towers in the capital as the towers are considered part of the MSC.

• Pioneer Companies with MSC Status - Sun Microsystems, Telekom Malaysia MSC, MIMOS and NTT MSC.

• Others with MSC Status - Microsoft, Oracle MSC, HP, Netscape, Ericsson, Intel MSC, MEASAT, Sumitomo, NEC, NCR, Lotus, Digital Equipment, EDS, Nortel, Siemens, Fujitsu, DHL, Astro, ICON, Sapura, Sime, Motorola, Binariang, Newbridge, IBM, Lotus, ATI, BT Multimedia, Lucent Technologies, Bridgestone, Nokia, EDS, MCSB and Unisys are among the 136 well-known international and local companies that have been accorded MSC status. 39% - International,  35% - Domestic, 26% - Joint ventures.

• Who's eligible for MSC Status? - Companies seeking MSC status and eligibility for incentives will need to fulfill three criteria: firstly, they must be a provider or a heavy user of multimedia products and services; secondly, they must employ a substantial number of knowledge workers; and, thirdly, they should be able to outline how they will transfer technology and/or knowledge to Malaysia, or otherwise contribute to the development of the MSC and the Malaysian economy.