FLock.io Shows Sovereign AI is Possible via Federated Learning With Malaysia Case Study

FLock.io has demonstrated a sovereign AI technique, showing that governmental organisations can develop AI locally while keeping sensitive data secure.

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM, March 13, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- FLock.io has demonstrated a sovereign AI technique, showing that governmental organisations can develop AI locally while keeping sensitive data secure. FLock.io – the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)’s AI Strategic Partner and a leading privacy-preserving AI solution provider – ran a project with Sarawak AI Centre (SAIC) to show federated learning (FL)’s potency for the public sector.

Sovereign AI is when a region controls its own systems, prioritising local data security and infrastructure, cultural values and regulatory compliance, with less reliance on foreign tech giants. The landmark project showed that regions like Malaysia can train models via FL without relying on foreign tech giants. It showcased decentralised AI’s potency for the public sector using Sarawak as a use case.

FLock.io firstly showed that FL can collaboratively train a model without sharing the data; this is essential for supporting international public sector innovation without compromising data sovereignty and risking data breaches.

Secondly, it showed that distributed inference enables a large model to run efficiently on smaller GPUs instead of relying solely on centralised data centres which pose greater environmental challenges. This more sustainable technique involves sharding large models and deploying them across smaller, distributed hardware infrastructure, such as networked university labs and office computers.

The initiative trained models on the local language Sarawak Malay using distributed state hardware. In Malaysia there are over 100 indigenous languages, and over 40 in Sarawak such as Iban and Bidayuh. Such linguistic inclusivity is crucial for broadening access to a multilingual generation of developers and preventing marginalisation, as well as for improving local services with data from the same region.

Jiahao Sun, CEO of FLock.io, said: “Privacy is non-negotiable in the public sector. Governments hold highly sensitive data: health records, tax history, welfare, police and criminal files. Data breaches can be disastrous. There is significant appetite among governmental bodies – such as in Sarawak – to use data to improve public services through privacy-preserving techniques like federated learning.”

Professor Patrick Then, CEO of Sarawak AI Centre (SAIC), said: “We have so many indigenous languages which are not captured at all in most of these large language models – it’s a huge challenge.” He added: “Now, the vision in the next five years is for Sarawak to be a fully AI nation.”

The SAIC was launched in 2024 to drive digital transformation. The experiment forms part of the local government’s massive innovation agenda to transform the region into a developed, high-income and sustainable state by 2030. It was carried out with Dr Rui Sun from FLock.io on-site at the SAIC’s lab in Kuching. The project harnessed FLock.io’s FL Alliance platform to drive the state’s ambitions to become a regional AI leader with net zero emissions, receiving an award from the Ministry of Energy & Environmental Sustainability (MEESty) for pioneering sustainable AI techniques in Sarawak.

About FLock.io
FLock.io is an AI research and infrastructure company pioneering enterprise-grade federated learning and distributed AI solutions. Its decentralised federated learning architecture and production-ready platforms (AI Arena, FL Alliance, and FLock API Platform) enable organisations to train and deploy their own custom AI models on local hardware while maintaining full data privacy, model ownership, and regulatory alignment by design.

FLock.io is internationally recognised for its academic research, including the NeurIPS award-winning paper “FLock: Defending Malicious Behaviors in Federated Learning with Blockchain” and sponsors computer science PhD students at the University of Oxford. The company is the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)’s AI Strategic Partner.

About SAIC
Sarawak Artificial Intelligence Centre (SAIC) is a state-owned entity established in 2024 by the Sarawak government to spearhead AI development, research, and integration into the state's digital infrastructure.

Phoebe hennell
FLock.io
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Sarawak AI Centre x FLock: sustainable, sovereign AI with distributed and federated learning

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