Act now, not after harm: Perak Sultan urges early AI regulation at global forum

KUALA LUMPUR, April 21 — Artificial intelligence (AI), genetic engineering and other modern technologies should be regulated before they are deployed, the Sultan of Perak, Sultan Nazrin Muizzuddin Shah, said today.

Sultan Nazrin cautioned that the cost of governing in retrospect could prove irreversible, particularly in the climate and ecological domains.

“In our own era, we have repeatedly learned, and then seemingly forgotten, the hardest lesson of all: that we tend to build first and govern later.

“The atomic bomb was detonated before the world had any framework for its regulation.

“We must not repeat that error with AI, genetic engineering or the other converging technologies of the centuries,” the Perak Ruler said in his royal keynote address at the Putrajaya Forum 2026 here today.

Sultan Nazrin also called on Asean member states to invest urgently in AI literacy to help communities combat deepfakes, synthetic media and algorithmically amplified disinformation campaigns.

He further advocated for AI to be prosocial in design, focusing on reinforcing the social bonds that keep societies together.

Stressing South-east Asia’s cultural and religious diversity, Sultan Nazrin said Asean should move beyond being mere consumers of AI to becoming architects of its application in the region.

Corporations should pay for environmental costs

Describing climate change as “the most under-acknowledged security threat of our era”, Sultan Nazrin urged that planetary health be formally adopted as a pillar of Asean’s comprehensive security framework.

“Climate change, biodiversity collapse, ocean acidification, water scarcity and soil degradation are not environmental issues that sit alongside our security agenda.

“They are security threats that belong at its centre,” he said.

With the number of data centres in South-east Asia set to triple by 2030, Sultan Nazrin said corporations benefiting from infrastructure in the region should bear a proportionate share of environmental costs, as such businesses place strain on energy systems and water supplies.

“A digital transition that merely displaces environmental harm is not progress. It is a reclassification.

“Environmental security is not a luxury agenda to be deferred until wealthier times. It is the foundation on which every other aspect of planetary and human security rests,” he added.