Research and development of low-cost microalgae production systems were started in early 2006 by Jagjit Singh Kaurah (Jag), the founder of AIB.
From 2006 to early 2007 work on the system resulted in the first patent filed in Malaysia for the Floating Bed Method FBM in Feb 2007. This patent was published by WIPO in September 2008. It caused a major sensation – large numbers of universities, research organizations including NASA and the Weizmann Institute and many private organizations tried out the system for themselves:
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/research/OMEGA/
In all, about RM 8 million has been spent on R&D for over 10 years. The Malaysian Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI) partly funded the R&D from December 2008 to December 2010 granting a total sum to this project about RM 946,000. In addition to that, SME Corp, a Malaysian Government Corporation granted around RM 400,000 for HIP-2 Program for commercialization.