Malaysian artificial intelligence developer Zetrix AI Bhd has unveiled NurAI, a large language model tailored for Muslim users, built using open-source know-how from China’s DeepSeek.

The chatbot, launching in Malaysia on Tuesday, will provide guidance in Malay, Indonesian, Arabic and English on a wide range of topics — from dining rules and lifestyle advice to legal and financial guidance based on Sharia, the Islamic legal and moral code. Over the coming months, Zetrix plans to add AI avatars of Islamic scholars who will offer personalised advice across lifestyle, health, and banking.

NurAI’s responses are grounded in Sharia principles, which govern everything from meal preparation to commercial contracts. The model was developed with technical assistance from DeepSeek’s team of around 10 researchers, who helped optimise performance using a Mixture of Experts architecture. This method splits user queries across specialised “expert” networks within the model, speeding responses while reducing computational costs and memory usage.

Fadzli Shah, Zetrix AI’s head of AI development, said the collaboration demonstrates that advanced AI innovation is possible outside established tech hubs in the US and China. He credited DeepSeek’s open-source innovation with helping Zetrix build a more resource-efficient model that can compete globally.

The project was developed under the ASEAN-China AI Lab, a government-backed collaboration. While DeepSeek’s technology has been part of a broader wave of Chinese AI expansion abroad, Shah emphasised that NurAI aims to give Muslim-majority countries and communities a faith-aligned alternative to Western and Chinese commercial models.

Initially, Zetrix will release a free but limited version of NurAI, alongside paid subscription tiers ranging from $5 to $50 a month for more comprehensive features. The company plans to expand to Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East and Africa, with local data and cultural context shaping each national deployment.

Zetrix is already exploring applications for NurAI in Malaysia’s Sharia-based courts, including automating administrative functions. The model is being trained on a broad dataset that includes scans of ancient manuscripts.

Faith-based AI systems are not new, with products like Ask AiDeen and Anakin also catering to Muslim users. However, Zetrix claims NurAI is the first comprehensive large language model designed explicitly around Islamic values, supervised by a board of Islamic scholars and clerics from Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, and other countries.