Zetrix AI must justify RM3.7 billion development spending amid market collapse

Zetrix AI Bhd was once the kind of company that made investors feel smart. When it operated under its original name, MyEG Services Bhd, it held a genuine monopoly—the only platform through which Malaysians could renew their road tax, process foreign maid permits, and handle dozens of other government transactions online. At its peak, the company was worth more than RM6 billion. The market loved it. Then the monopoly ended, and everything changed.

The company's response was to reinvent itself. Out went the steady, comprehensible business of processing government paperwork. In came blockchain, artificial intelligence, digital assets—the vocabulary of the moment. The market, it turned out, did not follow. Today Zetrix AI trades at less than 20 sen per share, a penny stock in all but name, with a market capitalisation of RM1.55 billion. The collapse has been particularly steep in recent weeks, driven by the forced liquidation of millions of shares held by founder Wong Thean Soon, whose personal financial troubles have become entangled with the company's public ones.

But the real question hanging over Zetrix AI is not about its founder's personal finances. It is about RM3.7 billion. That is what the company has spent on development costs over just three years—a figure that demands explanation and has received almost none. In the financial year ending December 31, 2023, development spending was RM468 million. By 2024, it had jumped to RM662 million. In 2025, it reached RM1.02 billion. And in the first six months of 2026 alone, the company burned through RM970 million. These are not incremental increases. They are exponential ones.

The company has funded this spending spree through bank borrowings and RM2 billion in sukuk debt—Islamic bonds that carry fixed redemption dates. RM215 million of that sukuk debt comes due in March 2027, less than six months away. This matters because unlike a factory, which you can photograph and tour and point to as proof of investment, software development exists in abstraction. You cannot see it. You cannot touch it. You can only trust that it exists and that it is worth what was paid for it.

Zetrix AI has partnered with a Chinese company called Bubi Network Technology Co Ltd to build blockchain infrastructure, and the bulk of the development spending is believed to have gone toward this project. But "believed" is the operative word. The company has offered no detailed accounting of where the money went, who received it, or what tangible outcomes have emerged. Is the project complete? Is it still under construction? Has it generated revenue? These are not rhetorical questions. They are the questions that investors need answered before they can decide whether RM3.7 billion represents a visionary investment or a catastrophic misallocation of capital.

The situation grew more fraught when Zetrix AI's auditor since 2021, TGS TW PLT, resigned from the engagement. The auditor cited resource constraints and stepped away from 18 Bursa Malaysia-listed companies simultaneously. While the auditor's departure may be unrelated to Zetrix AI's specific circumstances, the timing was unfortunate. The market noticed. The share price fell further.

What Zetrix AI faces now is not a temporary loss of confidence but a structural credibility problem. The company must provide a full and transparent accounting of how RM3.7 billion was deployed, who received the funds, what has been built, and what the path to profitability looks like. Without that disclosure, investors have no basis for belief. With a major debt redemption approaching and the stock trading at penny-stock levels, the window for rebuilding trust is narrow and closing.