The Philippines and Malaysia plan to let their national digital IDs be verified across each other’s borders, under a memorandum of understanding that will see the Philippines’ public blockchain run on the Layer-1 protocol built by Malaysia’s Zetrix AI.
A Layer-1 blockchain is a base network that records transactions directly and provides the foundation other applications build on. The agreement was signed by three parties: Zetrix Philippines Inc.; My Blockchain Infrastructure Sdn. Bhd., a Zetrix AI joint venture with Malaysia’s national research agency MIMOS; and the DICT. It commits them to implementing and operating the Philippines’ public blockchain infrastructure on the Zetrix protocol, which the government would use to issue, authenticate, and verify digital credentials. The appeal of a blockchain for that task, in the company’s framing, is that it gives credentials tamper-resistant provenance and lets different systems check them without relying on a single central authority. Zetrix AI, formerly MY E.G. Services, has provided electronic government services since 2000 and already runs the Zetrix chain as the core of Malaysia’s national blockchain infrastructure, launched in April 2025.
The company frames the work as a way to make government-issued credentials verifiable across systems and borders. Beyond interoperability between the two countries’ national digital IDs, early use cases include the issuance and authentication of Philippine government credentials, and trade facilitation. Zetrix already operates across borders, running a supernode that links to China’s Xinghuo blockchain infrastructure, and has applied its chain to national identity at home, including a proof-of-age model tied to Malaysia’s national digital ID. Zetrix says its reach across these systems lets it enable verification for close to 20 percent of the global population, a claim tied to its China connection.
“The initiative is about making trust portable across systems and borders,” said Henry R. Aguda, Secretary of the DICT, adding that it would let the verification of government credentials work more securely across systems and reduce friction for citizens accessing services. Zetrix AI has operated in the Philippines for close to a decade as a digital government service provider, counting agencies including the Bureau of Internal Revenue and the Securities and Exchange Commission among its partners.
Sources: Zetrix
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By the ID Tech Editorial Team
