When Azhar K Mustapha, founder and CEO of Nervesis Sdn Bhd, sat down with Digital News Asia CEO Karamjit Singh at the Malaysia Digital Xceleration (MDX) Summit 2025, it wasn’t just two people having industry chit-chat.
It was the official unveiling of Zygy, a homegrown AI platform designed to help businesses transform everyday files - from spreadsheets to contracts - into intelligent insights. For Azhar, the launch signals Malaysia’s intent to compete with global tech giants on both performance and data sovereignty.
A deeply technical founder
Azhar is no stranger to the world of AI. Armed with degrees in computer science and electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he cut his teeth at SpeechWorks, the Boston company whose voice technology later evolved into Apple’s Siri. He returned to Malaysia in the 2000s, first as an academic at Multimedia University before venturing into entrepreneurship. By 2011, he was already building AI solutions with Telekom Malaysia.
That long track record underpins Nervesis and now Zygy - proof that this isn’t just another opportunistic pivot into AI, but a continuation of decades of applied expertise.
Smarter spreadsheets, better ingestion
So what makes Zygy different? Azhar points to the platform’s AI ingestion engine, which he claimed understands spreadsheets and contracts better than competitors, even global names like Salesforce.
“Ingestion is the first step. If you don’t get it right, the AI can’t respond intelligently,” he explained. Zygy’s system transforms raw files into AI-readable formats, enabling more accurate chatbot responses, analytics and decision support.
The product was born out of necessity: Nervesis’ early projects in Dubai revealed that existing tools struggled with complex spreadsheets. “We had to build our own ingestion engine and realised it was good enough to take to market,” he added.
From defence to banking
Though Zygy is officially launching now, Nervesis has already tested its technology with clients. A near-closed deal in Dubai uses Zygy for compliance checks, ensuring vendors meet contract requirements. In Malaysia, the AI powers a command and control centre for a defence contractor, while a local bank is piloting Zygy to help research analysts build financial indicators faster.
Far from replacing analysts, Azhar argued, Zygy gives them leverage. “There’s just too much to do. Without AI, they’d fall behind.”
Importantly, Zygy isn’t limited to big players. Small firms drowning in Excel files and scanned documents can subscribe to the platform at just US$9.99 per month, gaining light analytics and integration with Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive.
Data sovereignty at the core
Beyond spreadsheets, Zygy is pitched as a solution for AI sovereignty - the ability for governments and enterprises to keep apps, data, and even GPUs within national borders. Built on an orchestration of AI agents, the system is LLM-agnostic, meaning it can work with open-source models or region-specific providers like Mistral in France or DeepSeek in China.
“In Dubai, they want their data to stay in Dubai. In Malaysia, it stays here. That’s what we enable,” Azhar explained. Transparency is another selling point. Clients can see exactly how the models are trained and fine-tuned.
Global ambitions, local roots
With a lean team of 10 - seven of them technical - Nervesis is punching above its weight. The company generates RM4-5 million annually, but Zygy is its boldest bet yet. The biggest challenge? Convincing a global market dominated by giants.
“We’re not competing with local companies. We have to prove ourselves against the best. Our goal is to be in the top 20 globally, and that’s good enough,” said Azhar.
For now, Zygy is targeting early adopters through cloud subscriptions and social media outreach. With its technical expertise and bold vision, Nervesis is charting a path for Malaysia to build AI not just for local use, but for global relevance.
Learn more about Zygy and try it out at www.zygy.com.
