Name: Innovation Without Borders: Scaling Ideas for Global Impact
Uploaded: 2025-11-17
Duration: 20 min 42 s

As chief executive of JCorp, the investment fund for the state of Johor, Datuk Syed Mohamed Syed Ibrahim is a key leader in the effort to build and develop Ibrahim Technopolis (aka IBTEC), a sprawling, 7,000-acre “innovation corridor” strategically positioned next to the Johor-Singapore Economic Zone. IBTEC aspires to create a vital economic gateway that attracts high-impact industries from around the world—including data centers, advanced manufacturing, and the life sciences— to a master-planned “smart city” that embraces the principles of sustainability and the “circular economy.” It is an undertaking that is at once visionary and vast. How does one build an innovation corridor? More broadly, how do bold ideas move beyond pilots to become regional and global game-changers? What are the critical enablers that transform ambition into scalable success?

Innovation Without Borders: Scaling Ideas for Global Impact

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So thank you to our panel for those great insights. Hopefully you're all taking notes, uh, and you've got some practical, uh, to do lists when you leave, uh, today and go back to your offices. Um, moving on, innovation today not only demands scale, but the ability to connect ideas. industries and markets across borders. Johor's proximity to Singapore and the growing momentum of the Johor Singapore economic zone positioned it as one of the most dynamic frontiers for cross-border collaboration and investment. For more on this emerging innovation corridor and its tremendous economic potential, please welcome Jahor Corporation CEO Daok Sayed Mohammad Sayed Ibrahim. He'll be interviewed by Fortune's Clay Chandler. Thank you. Thank you. Doctor say, please, thank you. Well, it's a real privilege to have you here uh on the Fortune stage and uh it's uh with your support that we are here. um, we're really fascinated and, and interested to talk about, uh, what's going on at at IBTech. Can you, can you give us the kind of vision for IBTech and maybe sketch for us a sense of, of what this is gonna look like in 5 or 10 years' time. Uh, we have to reimagine. We're talking about uh new buzz of words that we have been using all this while. We have to reimagine in 5 years' time, if tech is not just going to be a blueprint on paper, it is going to be alive, it is going to be uh uh uh uh a fully operational living lab and uh there will be a lot of people who are actually working through a Uh, develop their products and it is actually a place for the products to be tested and launched in the real city environment. Uh, and I feel in the 5 years' time also, uh, it is going to be a place where uh researchers, global firms, uh, and also universities in fact can work together, together with the industries. Uh, to tackle the challenges of food security, green energy, digital future, uh, for them to come up in fact up with something that can be tested. Uh, in short, in fact, is going to be a test, a testbed of opportunities for the stakeholders you know, to work on. And um APEC is going to be in 10 years' time. Uh, I talked earlier just now in 5 years' time. Uh, in 10 years' time, IEC is going to migrate to become not just an innovation hub, uh, but a thriving innovation corridor where IEC is going to be uh the nexus of that corridor. This is a really interesting concept. So it's not just data centers, it's all forms of innovation across many, many sectors. I mean how, how did this uh plan originate and, and maybe you can sketch for us the strategic advantages that it that it offers. Uh, it started with a simple question, uh, that we ask ourselves, you know, how can we change your whole industrial base into an innovation hot bit. And when talking about innovation, we uh we look at what Singapore across the causeway, what Singapore has done in fact to transform from a small island trading hub, uh, in 60 years' time to become a global innovation powerhouse. Uh, it took a lot of great, uh, relentless experimentation and close partnership between the public and public sector. Uh, to make, uh, what they have achieved now. And coming to uh EEC, we see that there is actually an opportunity for both Malaysia and Singapore together with Johor, especially. Uh, to capitalize on the, the dynamics, the opportunities, uh, uh, the, uh, the building blocks, uh, in, in, in Singapore as well as in Malaysia, while Johor offers land and scale, uh, Singapore offers capital and speed. So this is the opportunity that I feel, uh, we need to impact to capitalize and where, uh, we, we, we can complement each other. And uh and in in tech, uh there is actually a big playground, so to speak, uh especially in fact for not just the industry, but for innovators to uh to work on. I like that term of a playground. I mean, so you, you've studied Singapore very closely, but I know you've spoken about studying other successful innovation hubs, uh, as well. Silicon Valley, Munich, the Knowledge Quarter in London, Barcelona's VCity. I mean, what have you learned from these other hubs, for example, in Shenzhen, when we look at Shenzhen. It is the power of infra policy uh and also capital when they move in one direction, in fact you can actually create that kind of spit and momentum which we have not seen in the history of the success of a global special economic zone, uh, and, um. Uh, London, knowledge quarters, um, and the Munich, uh, for instance, in fact can issue the collaboration between the university and the industry, uh, and it has created a spark of creativity and innovation and, um, and Barcelona, Barcelona is unique, in fact, it is um the Uh, livability and urban design is not an afterthought, uh, and it is, uh, it offers a place whereby, uh, people, they, they are able to get talent and retain talent, and, um, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley, it is not just about the economy, it is about the cultural phenomenon that has been able to uh track talent. Uh, and also, in fact, it, it, it creates a culture of tolerance for failures, uh, which is actually quite unique. And for ITech, we are not just copying and pasting and, uh, we are creating something that is actually unique within the context of, uh, uh, where we are in the in, in, in, in Johor in Malaysia, uh, and also in, in that region, uh, where we feel that in fact you know it has to be something different. Uh, it should be leveraging on the power of digital connectivity that we have. So we are mindful of the fact that, uh, uh, the critical building blocks, you know, in an innovation ecosystem, uh, is not really there, you know, in Johor in it. Uh, but in Singapore, they are, uh, in those innovation, global innovation hubs, they are, and we hope that uh the digital connectivity and it would be able to bridge, uh, where we are and back with those global innovation hubs, and that to me, in fact, you know, it is actually something that is exciting and also at the same time, Etech is an open source for innovation. You know, it's students of these, these other hubs and, and of innovation, uh, there's a bit of a debate among people about whether innovation hubs can actually be built or whether they need to just Naturally evolve and so for example with Silicon Valley, you know there is a very large group of people who argue that the reason that it works is because there was no master plan. It just kind of organically formed itself, but there's a there's another debate that says no, that's ridiculous if not. From substantial leadership from even the US Department of Defense, there wouldn't have been the business for them to get going in the first place. So there's this kind of back and forth. I mean, where do you come down on this debate as to whether you know something like an innovation corridor has to be planned or organic? Well, Silicon Valley is the first generation, you know, of science or innovation park and it evolved and we learned the evolution has given us in fact some lessons and um the short answer to your question is that in fact, yes, it can be built, but In order for it to be built and to be successful, it must have three interdependent foundations. The first is the physical infrastructure. The first, the, the physical, without the physical infrastructure, it will not be in fact. Possible to even think about building an innovation corridor or even uh what you call innovation hub. Uh talking about linkages, you talk about in fact the dig digital, you know, uh, or broadband infrastructure, data center. Uh, that's #1. Number 2, it must have an open digital infrastructure, so there should be interoperability, you know, of a system, uh, so that it operates in like an operating system environment and thirdly, uh, which is critical. Enabling institutional framework. Uh, we talk about, um, public-private partnership, you know, we talk about sandboxing, you know, of regulation, uh, and, uh, this is very important to ensure that the three interdependent foundations, uh, must in fact be in place, uh, so that the innovation corridor can be built and successful. Fascinating. So all of those three critical pieces. Involve large groups of stakeholders in various ways. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about, uh, JCorp's role in this and, you know, what it does to kind of provide leadership in in tech. OK, uh, Jaco came up with, uh, the idea of turning this vision into reality, uh, and, uh. We are not just the developer in this case because if tech is not positioned as a real estate project. Uh, we, we do not want this to become a pure in a property play. Uh, we understand even though it takes about 7000 acres, you know. Uh, a massive project, you know, that has, that has never been done, uh, in that kind of scale, uh, but quite focused in terms of the sectors, you know, that we are going to target because it represents the transition, you know, from the current economic structure, you know, to the new economy, uh, that is number one. we put our vision into plan and number 2, our role is the developer, you know. Uh, we can't run away from that real estate part, you know, uh, we have to put our money where our mouth is, uh, and, uh, number 3, we will not just develop it, but we are going to also put in, uh, our investment, uh, in catalytic projects, uh, which is quite key, because without this kind of anchor project. Um, there is some hesitance because we are operating in a relatively greenfield area, right? Uh, so, uh, in order to convince our potential investor, uh, we are going to put money, uh, in anchor projects that would be able to catalyze, you know, not just filling the gaps and or creating, in fact, you know, the building block in the supply or the value chain of each sector that we have identified to be developed at the effect. Interesting. So 7000 acres, I mean, it's, it's a vast, uh, you know, enormous swath of land, um, and, uh, definitely a huge opportunity at the, um, and this is, this is adjacent to the special economic zone, right? It's not inside it, but it's the proximity to the zone that gives it a strategic advantage. Um, I wanna ask you a bit of a different question, um, you know, innovation. I sometimes, I mean very frequently described as something that's a process that's inherently disruptive. Um, decades ago, the, uh, Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter wrote about this phenomenon of creative destruction. And this year the Nobel Prize in Economics went to 3 economists who empirically tried to prove his theories about uh creative disruption. What's your thinking about that? Is this, is this gonna be a smooth transition in in creating this, this innovation corridor, or is this, do you worry a little bit about the disruption that comes along with it? Well, disruption is inevitable when they talk about uh the dynamics of economic growth, uh, but, um. We feel that we need to be more humane. So it should not be destruction, it should not be destruction. It will be destruction, but I would in fact prefer at JO that we call it creative renewal. Because as we disrupt, as we disrupt, you know, we have to make sure that in fact, you know, there is still place, uh, an opportunity for those that are going to be disrupted, uh, from, uh, a new workflow, uh, for instance, uh, and that is why in fact we have set up uh our uh uh our Johor Skills Development Center, uh, which is actually part of the Johor, uh, Talent Development council. Uh, where the, um, the responsibility is to identify and what would be the kind of courses, uh, that would meet the requirements of uh the uh the industry as a result of digitalization. So you talk about rescaling, you talk about upscaling. Uh, and you even in fact you know, um, um, work together with partners to provide the courses in in data center management, uh, which is new, in fact, as far as you're always concerned. So, uh, we like to um think and also in fact um remind ourselves, uh, that when we move on with the technology, uh, it is, um, The right thing to to think is that you know, it will be creative renewal. Really interesting. I love that phrase, uh, creative renewal, um, you know, we, we've structured many of the, uh, discussion sessions and conversations in this program around the, the idea that there's a kind of duality in duality in the, in what's going on in the global. Economy right now that there's there is a lot of disruption there's a lot of change um some of the fundamental institutions of the global uh trade and investment system are, are being shaken, you know, redesigned, knocked down and destroyed in some cases, um. And that's on top of all this technological change, um, and I think it's easy to get really pessimistic about that and say, oh, you know, change is scary, um, what will we do, um, but I think that there is also this kind of underlying idea which is sort of a schumpeterian idea that it's that change that unlocks opportunity and, and the secret is to find where the opportunities are within that, you know, that churn and and and uh. And how to create renewal from, from chaos. I mean, I wonder if you could just reflect on that a little bit. Is that kind of how you see what's going on at this moment in the global economy? Does it create opportunities for Joe Horn? Well, in every chaos, it draws the map of opportunity. So as far as we are concerned, in fact, the Malaysia seem to be neutral, uh, and, uh, we, uh, we are located in this part of the world, uh, and recently, in fact, um, you have seen the ASEAN and APEC, uh, how we are able to navigate, uh, the geopolitical tension. Uh, by building bridges, uh, we built, in fact, uh, what we call bridges with the global North and South, uh, we also built, in fact, uh, what we call collaboration uh with uh. Uh, other, other countries in the world, and, uh, where we are located, I feel, in fact, you know, it is actually something that we are, we, we are grateful, uh, we are grateful because uh we, we connect in the those um north and south, east and west. Uh, while at the same time, uh, our region also offers a lot of opportunities when they talk about, uh, infrastructure, they talk about political stability, and, uh, these are in fact, uh, critical, uh, uh, elements and or or features that in fact, you know, is, uh, important to, to draw an investment in. Uh, and, uh, we are near to the east, uh, we are not that far to the west too, so we are blessed, you know, while at the same time, in fact, we would like to make use of what we have to capitalize on the opportunity so that uh there should be a collaboration for growth, you know, so this. It's actually a region. This is a region in fact, we would like to um to uh position ourselves, uh, by, you know, um having um this opportunity to, uh, all parties, uh, where you are, you know, that, uh, this is actually a place in fact where you can come in, uh, and uh you can make money, you know, uh, out of infection of your investment. Do you, do you envision that there will be a big increase in the, in the just the number of people who live within the, in the corridor? What are your thoughts about that and how many of them will be from Malaysia and how many of them will be from abroad? Alright, I feel in fact uh we we have been hearing about talent just now, yeah, yeah, uh, so talent mobility is critical, uh, so in order to get this place up and going. Um, that is, uh, one thing which in fact that we need to enable. So the current institutional framework needs to be, uh, forgiving and more accommodating, uh, so that, uh, there should be free mobility, you know, in terms of talent and uh where we have, in fact, you know, we have got a lot of people here in Malaysia, and so the immediate uh uh task is to retrain, you know, some of our people. Uh, to make sure that in fact they are given opportunities uh for the new, uh, industries that will be operating. Uh, at the same time, the, um, some parts of the, uh, uh, workforce, uh, where we are, uh, do not have, uh, what do you call that kind of skill. So this is where we are in fact kind of going to um work to. other and with the industries and also the government, uh, to be able to attract, you know, uh, this kind of people. Obviously, in fact, you know, ultimately, uh, there will be an increase in the number, you know, of, uh, that kind of workforce, you know, that will be working in this part of the world, huh, and I know you've, I mean we have a number of conversations in the program about about skills and how to train people, and I know that's a big priority for uh for Johor as well and then Jacob in this operation. Um, Well, that's about all the time we have. I wanna thank you so much. This has been really enlightening. Uh, I've been out to tech. It's, it's extraordinary. I've seen all the plans and it's, it's very impressive and very carefully thought through, and so we look forward with great interest and enthusiasm to see what you'll be able to accomplish. Thank you so much.