- 5 hours ago
Malaysia’s semiconductor sector contributes close to 25% of exports and closed a record RM3.1 trillion in trade performance in 2025. But, despite strong growth and semiconductor exports rising 15.7% in Q1 of 2025, most of the value still sits in assembly and testing.
As global supply chains face rising pressure, from energy shocks to trade fragmentation, the real question is whether Malaysia can move upstream and own more of the technology stack.
Tehmina Kaoosji speaks to Dr Amani Salim (former NASA scientist) and Iqbal Shamsul (former Wall Street trader) of nanoSkunkWorkx, a Malaysian deep-tech company working on graphene applications in semiconductor manufacturing. If commercialised, this is the kind of shift that determines whether Malaysia can shape the next generation of chips.
What will it take for Malaysia to convert R&D into real economic leverage in a market heading toward a trillion-dollar global industry, while navigating rising geopolitical and supply chain risks?
As global supply chains face rising pressure, from energy shocks to trade fragmentation, the real question is whether Malaysia can move upstream and own more of the technology stack.
Tehmina Kaoosji speaks to Dr Amani Salim (former NASA scientist) and Iqbal Shamsul (former Wall Street trader) of nanoSkunkWorkx, a Malaysian deep-tech company working on graphene applications in semiconductor manufacturing. If commercialised, this is the kind of shift that determines whether Malaysia can shape the next generation of chips.
What will it take for Malaysia to convert R&D into real economic leverage in a market heading toward a trillion-dollar global industry, while navigating rising geopolitical and supply chain risks?
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NewsTranscript
00:07Hello and welcome to Nyaga Spotlight with me, Tamina Kaosji.
00:10Nyaga Spotlight takes us through the week in economic analysis and future affairs.
00:15Today on future affairs, our spotlight is on breaking the chip ceiling.
00:20Now, Malaysia's semiconductor sector sits at the center of the global tech economy,
00:25contributing close to a quarter of our annual exports.
00:28But much of the Malaysian market remains in assembly and testing.
00:33These segments are increasingly exposed to cost pressures,
00:37supply chain disruptions and also shifting geopolitical lines.
00:42So, this week alone, we have seen fresh signals of both opportunity and risk.
00:48Japan is stepping up semiconductor-linked investments into Malaysia,
00:52reinforcing our role in regional supply chains.
00:56So, at the same time, global tensions are starting to affect even the smallest inputs.
01:01We have energy prices crossing 100 USD a barrel due to the US-Israel war on Iran,
01:08to concerns around critical materials and trade routes.
01:11So, these pressures are actively shaping how, where and at what cost trips are made.
01:17So, the question for Malaysia is pretty straightforward.
01:20Can we move upstream into the part of the industry where technology is created,
01:25not just assembled?
01:27Today, we take a closer look at what that shift could actually require on the ground
01:31with a Malaysian deep tech firm, Nano Skunk Works, or NSWX.
01:37I'm joined in the studios, and it's an absolute pleasure, by Iqbal Salim, co-founder and CEO,
01:43and also a former Wall Street trader, together with Dr. Amani Salim, co-founder and CTO,
01:48and also a former NASA scientist, both with Nano Skunk Works, NSFWX.
01:54A very good morning to the both of you.
01:55How are you doing?
01:56Very good, thank you.
01:58All right, fantastic.
01:59So, it's so good to have the both of you with us here in the studio,
02:03especially at a pretty critical juncture when everyone is talking about energy prices,
02:08pressures on critical industries, and I think nowhere are we more concerned about it
02:13than when it comes to the semiconductor sector.
02:15So, related to all of that, I'd love for us to start off by the both of you perhaps telling
02:20us
02:20a little bit more, and perhaps explaining to us in, you know,
02:25slightly more approachable business terms, what is it that NSWX does,
02:31and the core problem which your proprietary technology is solving.
02:35Dr. Amani.
02:37Yes, so Nano Skunk Works, so Iqbal is the CEO, so he can talk more about it,
02:42but as a chief tech of the company, what we do is that we solve the bottlenecks of industries
02:49such as across semiconductor, right now we're doing semiconductor,
02:53we're doing also hydrogen, and we also do sensors, biosensors.
02:57And how we solve the bottlenecks of this industry is attacking at the core problem,
03:02which is, for example, semiconductor at the material side,
03:06and hydrogen also material side, and biosensor also the material side.
03:11And how we attack this problem is not just swapping and making a swapping material
03:17and making graphene and so forth, but actually how do you utilize new materials
03:24so that it is useful to be integrated into these industries.
03:29Okay, so that's what we are doing.
03:30And the power of the integration that Dr. Amani alludes to is how we de-bottleneck constraints
03:36in energy transfer, information transfer, signal flow,
03:41how, you know, you move electrons, right, which is, electrons carry power,
03:46electrons carry information, carry signal, and any of these systems that we take for granted today,
03:52computers, solar cells, batteries, microchips, obviously, but...
03:58We're used to our wearables, our technology, everything at the press of a button,
04:02but it's a complex framework behind it.
04:04Correct. And the underlying technological foundation of our economy and the world today is electronics.
04:11We, electrons basically dictate how we communicate, think, how we produce, move energy, etc.
04:20The bottleneck is that moving electrons, as they cross between materials or within the materials,
04:25you have, you are using energy to move them, you are using energy to move the information,
04:31it creates waste in terms of heat, because there's friction.
04:36Yes.
04:36Every time you do this, every time we talk, every time we generate power,
04:40use the battery power, there's friction, that's waste energy.
04:44Which also needs cooling, naturally, yeah.
04:46As a secondary effect, it creates waste heat, which requires cooling.
04:50But the work itself has to undergo friction, and that's what we solve.
04:57By assembling graphene, metal, silicon, etc., in different unique ways,
05:03through our proprietary process, we're removing these bottlenecks.
05:07And now that allows us to create totally new price performance points.
05:11You get higher performance, more lifetime, more reliability, and much lower cost.
05:16And the technology that Dr. Anamani and I have been working on since more than 10 years now
05:22has much lower capex.
05:23This is a totally new industrial manufacturing stack.
05:27It's far lower to deploy, far lower to scale up, far cheaper, I should say, lower energy.
05:33So it's also more sustainable in the long run,
05:36while still delivering better price performance for your microchips,
05:39hydrogen generation, diagnostics, etc.
05:42That's kind of the core value proposition that we are delivering.
05:45Yeah, setting the stage for that, right?
05:47Thank you, Iqbal.
05:48So Dr. Anamani, let's dig deeper into that technology stack,
05:51because on your side at least, that actually originates from your time at NASA.
05:56So tell us how that led to, 10, 15 years down the road,
06:00it developing into commercially applicable outcomes.
06:05Sure.
06:06So, very, very relevant question,
06:08because a lot of the work we do today in Nanoskunk Works
06:12stems from the insights I receive from my work at NASA.
06:16So, why these insights are important and how I acquired it through NASA
06:22is because NASA was answering at that time through a project called SporSat
06:26to answer a very, very fundamental question,
06:30which is, how does plant cells sense gravity?
06:33Okay, sure.
06:34Maybe not something that we were concerned about on Earth,
06:37but in space, if you want to grow something.
06:39Yeah, for the curious mind, this is something, you know,
06:41you will want to know, right?
06:43But stems from this curiosity,
06:45that fundamental questions is where imaginations are formed.
06:51Okay?
06:52To answer that, you can attack it multiple ways.
06:55But my team at SporSat, we attack it using sensors,
07:00which is electrochemistry.
07:02Fundamentals of how electrons are being moved and shuttled and transferred.
07:07Within the plant system.
07:08Yeah, exactly.
07:09So, to do that, I was the engineer.
07:12So, my old boss had to transfer to a bigger position at NASA.
07:16So, I was positioned to be the principal investigator.
07:18I was a postdoc at Purdue University.
07:20Okay, what an amazing time, right?
07:22That's not my PhD.
07:23I mean, but I was transferred into this role,
07:25and I was like, yeah, why not do it?
07:27This is a Malaysia Boleh attitude.
07:29That spirit, right, yeah.
07:31The Americans, a can-do attitude.
07:33Malaysia has it, the Malaysia Boleh.
07:34Yep.
07:35So, I said, you know, there's no harm trying.
07:37Let's do this.
07:38So, I took the role.
07:41I was trained, of course, by a good chief tech at NASA, you know,
07:45to understand, for example, how do you measure forms of different energy transfer
07:53between plants and your electronics chips.
07:57So, to do that, I, you know, as an engineer that builds the chip and design with my team,
08:03I had to look at things very, very closely.
08:07And that's what good engineers and scientists do.
08:10So, we look closely and we do observe how things work.
08:14So, I found out that electrons transfer from biological materials to something like
08:20electrodes or microchips have a lot of friction, like Ibal just said just now.
08:24When electrons move, heats are being, the byproduct, one of it is the heat is being generated.
08:30That's because it's friction.
08:31Say, if you want to move from one form of material to another, that crossing between
08:38those two materials creates the friction.
08:40That's right.
08:41The energy.
08:42Exactly.
08:42And that happens in your phone, for example, when you feel the heat and so forth,
08:47because electrons are being crossed through copper and through materials and so forth
08:51that generates the heat.
08:52So, I was like, how do you make sure that these electrons move seamlessly?
08:57In a predictable manner.
08:59I didn't solve that thing at NASA because NASA has a particular material they want to
09:03use.
09:04Right.
09:04But the insights I acquired from that, when I came back to Malaysia, I was like, how can
09:10this fundamental knowledge of, you know, I acquired, how do I make it useful?
09:15And that leads to what we do today at NanoScanWorks.
09:17Okay.
09:18I found that if you can manipulate material, such as graphene, for example, in a very controlled
09:25manner, by controlling how you arrange on the interface between, say, an electrode material
09:32and an electrolyte, say, in a battery, for example, you can basically make sure that the
09:38friction is less.
09:40And because of that, there is less heat being generated to that level.
09:45Which overall leads to the efficiency of the outcome.
09:47Efficiency of the outcome of the product itself.
09:51Yes.
09:51So, for example, if you look here, right, because of that, as I said earlier, we have three different
09:56applications.
09:56In a semiconductor, for example, if you arrange, you know, the graphene in a certain way on
10:04a semiconductor wafer, for example, this is a silicon wafer, and there's a copper on it,
10:09you arrange graphene with a copper, you can basically improve, for example, the property
10:14of copper itself.
10:16Exactly.
10:17But in a controlled manner.
10:17And this applies across, for example, in hydrogen, you can improve efficiency of a
10:22hydrogen.
10:22So this is for a hydrogen sample.
10:24Yes, and from the same core fundamental principles, physics, you can actually attack all these
10:32three domains.
10:32And this is in a biosensor.
10:34If you want to detect, for example, virus and bacteria that are so small, usually you
10:39use PCR and so forth for viruses.
10:41We're very used to that since the pandemic.
10:43And people are used to that.
10:44But in our chip, for example, you don't need to go through a PCR.
10:48You can get results, very accurate results and so forth, and sensitive results, because we
10:53managed to arrange these molecules on the electrode surface that do the measurements to detect
10:58this small, small little virus and bacteria.
11:00Got you.
11:01So these are all the various sort of applications.
11:05Iqbal, a couple of thoughts from your side about graphene as a critical material for all
11:09these next generation semiconductors that are just waiting in the wings, despite all the
11:14geo-economic and geopolitical fracas occurring right now.
11:18So I think stepping back for a moment, right, I think the semiconductor industry has identified
11:24the limitations of current materials, processes, you know, constraining how we are designing
11:32the microchips, how we are managing performance, how we're extracting the most.
11:37And I think particularly Malaysia is concerned about, you know, advanced packaging, heterogeneous
11:43integration.
11:44These are engineering workarounds when copper itself is your limitation and how copper interacts
11:50with your so-called dielectrics and your silicon wafer substrates.
11:55There's only so much you can do without attacking them and how they behave at a molecular level.
12:01And because the industry, you know, it's usually expensive, risky, and time-consuming to qualify
12:10new processes and new materials, the industry ends up engineering around it.
12:15Rather than actually innovating.
12:17Right.
12:18It's difficult to innovate materials, expensive and risky, and very capex-intensive.
12:23And it's already a very existing, strong assembly line that's churning profits, export value.
12:29And the knowledge base and expertise that has been built over the decades.
12:33And so, but these are not recent things.
12:35I mean, you know, copper, for example, we use copper nanowires in microchips only starting
12:41in the 90s, for example.
12:42That's right.
12:43Just, I'll budget there to just take a quick breather and we'll be right back with the rest
12:48of the interview.
12:48Don't go anywhere.
12:49Yeah.
13:08Welcome back to Niagara Spotlight.
13:09Still with me, Tamina Kausjian.
13:10Today, we're talking all things breaking the chip ceiling with Iqbal Salim and Dr. Amani
13:15in the studios with us from NSWX.
13:18So, Iqbal, you were telling us a little bit more about advanced chips and, of course, AI
13:25and how, basically, we are hitting our heat and efficiency limits already.
13:29Correct.
13:30So, the problem solving that comes in from the side of graphene.
13:33Tell us a little more.
13:35Sure.
13:35And so, we tend to engineer around these constraints of existing materials and existing processes.
13:42Nanos Cancworks takes a different approach.
13:44With the insights that have led to our proprietary process, we can now introduce cheaply, safely,
13:50scalably, new ways of assembling these atoms and molecules on the different materials
13:55for these devices that we're talking about.
13:57In particular now, our process allows us to manipulate graphene in synergy, in concert,
14:04to take advantage of the existing and well-understood properties of copper and how it interacts
14:08with silicon, but enhancing that with graphene.
14:11And we do this at a molecular level.
14:12We are creating repeatable, self-assembled structures, how the graphene molecules arrange
14:20themselves among, for example, copper molecules.
14:23Right.
14:24Because these form the wires and the transport layers on your silicon microchips.
14:28So, that's one simple example.
14:31So, by doing that, we can move heat, for example, twice as fast as copper alone in this composite,
14:38if you will, right?
14:38We are, we've shown in the lab, it's going to validation now.
14:42We can move electrons themselves 40% faster than copper alone.
14:46And we're just getting started.
14:46That's staggering.
14:47Yeah, 40%.
14:48And it's a non-linear impact because, you know, for the electrical engineers, for the people
14:52in physics, the amount of heat generated is a square of the current that you push through
14:58that system, through that wire, if you will, all as constant.
15:01So, reducing the heat by half, let's say, you get gains.
15:06It's a win-win all around, particularly considering that with data centers and the omnipresence,
15:11we are leading it to maybe about 10% of total electrical supply usage by 2030.
15:18Half of your, 40% of your power load in a data center is just cooling.
15:21So, if you reduce the cooling by half or more.
15:24And if you're using portable water for that, of course, the downstream impacts on communities,
15:28et cetera.
15:29Yeah.
15:29And this is the real impact here, not just to the cost and performance, which is real
15:33and staggering, but for all of these systems, you have non-linear, what we call cascading
15:39impact, right?
15:41You attack the problem of efficiency where the inefficiency occurs.
15:46Suddenly, your whole system, the microchip, the package, the server blade, the data center
15:52could be re-engineered.
15:55That's why deep tech is so important.
15:57You have to attack the problem where it begins, at the molecular material level.
16:03That's what we're doing.
16:05And Dr. Amani, I think that's a perfect segue for us to tell you, for you to tell us a
16:09little more about where exactly does Malaysia stand when it comes to the entire global semiconductor
16:15and also the advanced materials landscape?
16:18Yeah, sure.
16:20In terms of Malaysia, I think we, as Iqbal said earlier, is that we do a lot of the testing
16:27and so forth in the semiconductor chain.
16:29As you can see, the Penang ecosystem and so forth.
16:31But I think Malaysia has to move up the value chain.
16:33We always talk about that, right?
16:35Yes, we do.
16:35And if you look into the value chain of semiconductor, it's vast.
16:39And that's why the whole world, Taiwan and so forth, and Japan, it's not just one country.
16:46But for Malaysia to move up the value chain, and this is, as someone who's been doing research
16:51and engineering and building things, is that you can't, for you to move up the value chain,
16:56you have to do something that is grounded in, you know, things that solve industry problem.
17:01And it has to be not just incremental.
17:04Meeting those KPIs, ROIs.
17:06It cannot just be incremental.
17:08And to not be incremental, you can't forget the fundamentals.
17:13See, like I said about NASA, they ask that fundamental question because they don't want you to be incremental.
17:20They want you to think bigger, to solve problems, because industry won't adopt the problem if it's just incremental.
17:27For us at Nanuskan, we said, if it's not like, you know, 10x, if it's not minimum 2x,
17:31we're not stopping at 2x thermal conductivity compared to copper.
17:35If it's not 10x and beyond, forget it.
17:38Don't waste your time, you know.
17:40So trying to capture an idea rather than just a problem or a small micro issue.
17:45Exactly, because for a semiconductor industry, you know, they have the whole value chain.
17:48They have a standard processing semiconductor.
17:50For them to even adopt something, it has to be something compelling, right?
17:54If you give them something incremental, do you think they want to change, you know,
17:57all of the infra that they invest in, into building the microchips?
18:01So there's that fundamental structural mismatch.
18:04Yes, so this is why I keep saying even to the universities and to researchers, you know,
18:10that the fundamental is very key.
18:13Regardless of what people said, your ROI is not just dollars and cents.
18:17It's about building that knowledge, institutional knowledge for years.
18:22That has to keep continuing because that's what gives you the mode,
18:25the edge for you to be in the semiconductor, to be basically useful for industry, right?
18:33To move out the value chain.
18:34So for us to do that, Malaysia actually not just have to be hitting the KPIs.
18:39It's not just about numbers or papers.
18:41It's not just about how many patents.
18:43Even if you have one patent that can basically create that big impact,
18:47that one patent is more useful.
18:49More than enough, right?
18:49More than enough.
18:50And you may have to spend an incredible amount to get to that.
18:54Exactly.
18:55So R&D also needs to move beyond that valley of death of, you know, from the lab into actual
19:02commercial operation.
19:04Iqbal, I'd love for your thoughts on what are some of the challenges, but at the same time,
19:08the opportunity to further develop deep tech companies in the Malaysian ecosystem space.
19:14Perennial question.
19:16Thank you for it.
19:16I think the biggest challenge that we must begin to confront is that innovation,
19:22especially what Dr. Amini calls non-incremental, big leaps, these are non-linear processes.
19:28What does that mean?
19:29It means that just because I double my spending, do I necessarily double my probability of success?
19:35So you don't.
19:37And I think the, you know, the easiest model, mental model framework to think about,
19:42it's like venture investing.
19:44In venture world, you have this, what we call a power law, excuse me.
19:491% of your investments give you 10x of your portfolio returns, right?
19:54The 10x return that pays for your whole portfolio.
19:57And deep tech, and I would say, you know, these big leaps in humanity's understanding of the world,
20:03the fundamental world, is also similar to that.
20:06You have, you know, and there's a critical mass you have to hit.
20:09And therefore, you cannot impose this KPI ROI framework because it forces you to think about it in linear terms,
20:19where you're talking about a non-linear universe, non-linear process,
20:24which is why you could invest billions of dollars, but you get one Google, it pays for the rest of
20:30the spend.
20:30Turns out to be worth it, yeah.
20:32Turns out to be worth it.
20:33But you wouldn't know until you actually cross that line and find that winner.
20:37So we take a bit of a different approach.
20:40Conventionally, yes, deep technology is usually understood to require massive investments.
20:45And I think what we're blessed with is Dr. Amani's insights that she attained during her time at NASA
20:51allowed us to sort of deliver and scale up an innovation that is low cost, relatively, right?
21:00For the impact that we're creating, we're orders of magnitude lower cost, lower capex, lower TCO,
21:05much more sustainable in terms of environmental and energy consumption.
21:10Very rare.
21:10This is not even a once-in-a-lifetime.
21:12You could go through several lifetimes without discovering something of such magnitude.
21:17That's how we think about it.
21:18So we think of it as a custodian to this special knowledge, this insight from God, right?
21:22But so is there a strategy for it?
21:25I think the lesson that I draw from her NASA experience is that you have to find a big challenge,
21:32a big enough challenge that forces you to examine and throw out all your assumptions.
21:39And you must have that staying power and stamina to see that through.
21:43Then will you only have a chance?
21:45There's no guarantee, but only then will you have a chance to make these big insights, big leaps.
21:51Because otherwise, you're just dipping your toes into the pool, not going to the deep end.
21:58It's only by going to the deep end that you get the deep insights, the deep discoveries.
22:04And speaking about the deep end and things which have also helped enable NSWX,
22:09would you be able to tell us a little bit more about how Dana Impact's support has helped enable
22:14at least the structural parts of this issue?
22:18Yeah, yeah.
22:18Yeah. So, of course, Dana Impact, part of Kazanah, you said, you know, Kazanah is a sovereign wealth fund.
22:27So, for us, you know, it's all about, you know, creating technology and force a sovereign for the country.
22:34Okay.
22:35As you can see about knowledge, for example, that a lot of this knowledge, even though, you know,
22:42I got my insights from NASA, knowledge is actually not just two, three years, you know.
22:48It's cumulative of all the knowledge and interaction with the ecosystem and so forth.
22:53So, for Dana Impact to basically be on board, when you ask a scientist, they always say, oh, because of
23:00the dana lah,
23:01because of the money, you say, it's not just that.
23:03It's actually what the role that Kazanah Dana Impact gave us is actually, you know, that people look at you,
23:10you know, you are serious, you're credible because you're taken serious by the country.
23:13So, when you talk with other people outside of Malaysia, you know, people said you are backed by Dana Impact.
23:19And that brand there is very key.
23:21We're a small company.
23:22We're a startup deep tech, you know.
23:24So, having a big brother.
23:25Doing big things with small molecules, you know.
23:29Doing big things with us, you know.
23:30But having that backup, you know, from them, support from Dana Impact, it's not just the money.
23:35The most important is actually the ecosystem that Dana Impact brings.
23:39For example, in fact, programs, for example, you know, K-Youth program with the Silicon School,
23:45for example, that we are part of.
23:46It's also part of this, you know, Kazanah.
23:49Building the next generation of talent as well.
23:50Building the next generation of talent.
23:52And I think these are, you can't count this with dollars and cents.
23:56These are the things that, you know, that can build the country, sustain the country for years and generations to
24:01come.
24:01So, I think that's the purpose of the formula, the importance of Kazanah.
24:06And just to close out things pretty seamlessly, Iqbal, if I could ask you about the outlook for NSWX in
24:14the immediate to medium term,
24:16the next three to five years, where do you see the ecosystem taking you, especially in terms of growth and
24:22commercialization?
24:23Sure.
24:24Thank you for the question.
24:25I mean, it's a great time for us, you know.
24:27I think chaos is a ladder, as you know, from Game of Thrones.
24:31But I think the global situation has really, really done a great, you know, give us an opportunity and occasion
24:41to really reaffirm the thesis.
24:45Okay.
24:45When scarcity becomes apparent, when supply chains become stressed, when systems become, you know, reach adversity,
24:54that forces people to rethink, rethink their assumptions about what's possible with, you know, new materials, new ways of manipulating
25:02materials,
25:03what's possible about how we rethink and re-engineer products, energy, semiconductors, diagnostics.
25:09And so, when that need arises, that's when people are willing to rethink assumptions, re-examine their risk profile,
25:16which is that, and that's the environment we are entering into.
25:19With the support of Dana Impact, we're locking down our IP, we're scaling up our production,
25:24we are signing up, inshallah, more through international contracts.
25:28And so, momentum has been very, very good.
25:32We've gotten very good reception from all the different industries that we've been attacking, and it's still early days.
25:37And so, I think as the, you know, as the world evolves in the way that it's been evolving,
25:42I think it gives us far more opportunities than not to demonstrate the value, the proposition, and our ability to
25:49scale.
25:50So, thank you very much for the insights so far, Iqbal Salim, Dr. Amani Salim.
25:55Well, if Malaysia wants to move up the semiconductor value chain, the shift has to happen at the level of
25:59technology, not just policy.
26:01That's where the next phase of growth and resilience will be decided.
26:05That's all we have time for today.
26:06See you next Friday with more economic analysis and insights.
26:09Here's to a productive week ahead.
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