By: Dr Yogeeswari Subramaniam, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Management, University Teknologi Malaysia
Elon Musk, the billionaire behind Tesla and SpaceX, recently made a bold claim that by 2036, he says, money will stop mattering. Robots and artificial intelligence (AI) will be able to make almost everything we need so cheaply that buying and selling, as we know it, may no longer work the same way. It sounds like science fiction. But in Johor, a company called DayOne Data Centers isn’t waiting to find out if he’s right, it is spending RM28 billion, about US$7 billion, building AI infrastructure in Malaysia this year alone. That is one of the biggest single investments of its kind our state has ever seen. So, before we brush Musk’s idea aside, it is worth asking a simpler question: what is actually happening on the ground, and what could it mean for us?
The idea is not as strange as it sounds. Think about how cheap it already is to stream a song or send a digital file almost free, because once something exists digitally, making another copy costs next to nothing. Musk is betting that AI and robots will soon do the same for physical things of food, cars, homes, making them so cheap to produce that prices fall close to zero. If that happens, money matters less simply because there is far less need to ration things that have become plentiful.
This is not a brand-new idea, either. Almost a hundred years ago, the famous economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that as machines improved, people would eventually only need to work fifteen hours a week. He was early, not wrong that machines really have kept making us more productive, even if the shorter work week never arrived. What is different today is that AI is speeding up that same process far faster than Keynes ever imagined. So instead of asking simply, “is Musk right or wrong,” the more useful question is: what would actually need to happen for this to come true? In Malaysia, some of the pieces are already falling into place.
It all runs on electricity
AI and robots do not run on thin air. They need huge amounts of electricity. This is already playing out close to home: Johor now leads the entire Asia-Pacific region in new data-centre investment, and our national power company, TNB, has said this new demand is putting real pressure on the power grid. Whoever manages to build enough clean, affordable electricity over the next ten years will be building the real foundation that Musk’s prediction depends on and Malaysia is already part of that race.
Making sure everyone benefits, not just a few
Here is an important catch: even if machines can produce more for less, that does not automatically mean everyone benefits equally. History shows that new technology often makes a small group richer unless there is a deliberate plan to share the gains more widely. The good news is that Malaysia has already started planning for this. The government recently set up a body called AI Malaysia Bhd to run a national plan from 2026 to 2030, made up of nearly 30 initiatives covering skills training, infrastructure, and fair rules for AI, all aimed at making Malaysia an “AI Nation” by 2030. One example is the AI Untuk Rakyat programme, which is giving 100,000 young Malaysians free AI training. These are early, small steps toward making sure that if machines create more wealth, ordinary people get a fair share of it too.
What this means for businesses
Whether Musk’s exact date of 2036 turns out to be right, or the change takes twenty years instead of ten, the direction is the same: many things will get cheaper to produce, while things machines cannot easily copy — trust, relationships, good judgement, original ideas will become more valuable. Here are three simple things Malaysian businesses can start doing now:
- Look honestly at which parts of your business will likely get cheaper because of AI, and which parts depend on things only people can offer then invest more in the second.
- Keep an eye on Malaysia’s national AI plan over the next few years, since it will directly affect costs and opportunities across many industries.
- Start investing in your people’s skills and your customers’ trust now, before your competitors do.
Nobody can say for certain whether money will truly stop mattering by 2036. Big predictions like this rarely land exactly on the year someone names. But RM28 billion in investment in Johor, and a national AI plan aimed at 2030, are not just talk they show that Malaysia is already placing its bet on this future. The businesses that understand this early will be the ones shaping what comes next, instead of scrambling to catch up later.
