GDS, a data center developer and operator, and Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB), Malaysia’s largest utility company, have signed a Supplemental Agreement to the Electricity Supply Agreement (ESA) to ensure that the GDS data centers in Johor Bahru receive a dependable and swift supply of electricity.
The agreement enables the GDS Nusajaya Tech Park Phase 1 Data Centers to commence operations in July 2023 with an interim supply of 16MW, followed by a permanent supply of 85.5MW to be established within the same year.
According to William Huang, the Founder, Chairman and CEO of GDS, TNB’s commitment in providing reliable electricity supply to their data center campus in Johor Bahru will help them to further strengthen Malaysia’s digital infrastructure and accelerate its digital transformation and growth.
Since GDS has committed to achieving carbon neutrality and utilizing 100% renewable energy by 2030 as part of its ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) goals, the collaboration with TNB in the adoption of renewable energy as part of their sustainable development efforts, such as a smart green solution, including rooftop solar with GSPARX, dark fiber connection with ALLO, and new green technology with TNB Renewables.
William also added that through this partnership, they can make significant contributions to support Malaysia’s ambition in becoming a data center hub and driving the regional digital economy.
In recent years, numbers of data center players have entered Malaysia, which helps in accelerating the growth of the nation’s digital economy, which is further driven by the increased usage of cloud-based services, IoT, big data analytics and the rapid pace of digitalization in the region.
Bridge Data Centres, one of the region’s key data center service providers, headquartered in Singapore, has built its data center (MY06), the largest of its kind in Malaysia, is underway in Johor.
YTL Power International Berhad (“YTL Power”), through its subsidiary YTL Data Center Holdings Pte. Ltd. (“YTL DC”) has also developed a 500MW data center campus in Johor, the first data center park in Malaysia to be powered by solar energy.
Moreover, in November 2022, Equinix has made a foray into the Malaysia market and plans to build a new International Business Exchange (IBX) data center located in Johor, called JH1.
And recently, YTL Data Center South Sdn Bhd has secured US$255M financing for another data center development in Johor.
