Artificial Intelligence was the hottest topic at this year’s SIJORI Cloud & Datacentre Convention 2025 with Oracle’s Dan Madrigal, Vice President – Cloud AI Sourcing, giving a compelling keynote on how AI is transforming the demands on cloud infrastructure—shifting from traditional compute to high-performance, low-latency, and sustainable systems. At a fireside chat with Paul Mah, Executive Editor at W.Media, Madrigal dived deeper into Oracle’s strategic approach, the evolving role of data centers in the AI era, and what the future holds for hyperscale infrastructure.
Oracle is getting all the attention now because of its long-term contracts for massive data centre capacity in the US and its expertise in AI data centers. AI data centers are the trend now among Big Tech which is pouring billions of investment into both digital infrastructure and AI talent. AI data centers are quite different from traditional data centers and few operators know how to design, build, and run an AI data centre as so few of them do full-on AI workloads, according to Mah. Some of the points discussed were supply-chain strategies to roll out AI data centres faster and challenges around deploying liquid cooling tech.
Another AI-related discussion focused on “From Training to Inference: Can SIJORI Emerge as the World’s First Cross-Border AI Data Centre Hub?” where Celina Chua moderated. The session tackled how the region can work as one, training powerful AI models in Johor and Batam, while delivering real-time inference in Singapore, unlocking new opportunities in digital infrastructure, regulation, and regional collaboration. “AI is fundamentally about compute, storage, and network. The demand for scalable digital infrastructure across these three pillars is accelerating,” the forum heard.
At Johor Interconnect World Forum 2025, the panellists of a discussion entitled “Johor’s Digital Leap: Southeast Asia’s Fastest-Growing Data Center and Connectivity Frontier” consisting of Jimmy Yan, Sylvester Wong, Weng-Yew Wong, Tze Meng Tan, and moderator Renee Ho took a deep dive into the often-overlooked but critical topics of data centers and connectivity. A key concern raised was how abrupt policy shifts have impacted investor confidence in Malaysia’s data center market. At the same time, less attention has been given to the government’s dual approach — while tightening certain policies, efforts are also underway to improve the nation’s connectivity infrastructure, a crucial enabler for the digital economy.
Meanwhile, DC Byte’s Vivian Wong delivered a very interesting keynote on: “Behind the Numbers: An Analyst’s View on Johor’s Data Centre Momentum” where she revealed the latest market trends, demand drivers, and what lies ahead for this fast-moving market.
Johor’s data center boom has been phenomenal. It’s on track to join the elite Gigawatt Club, surpassing cities like Mumbai, Seoul, and even Singapore in projected critical load capacity absorption. Despite that, Johor faces headwinds in rising electricity rates and potential AI chip curbs as well as increased tariff rates on certain exports.
At the SIJORI Cloud & Datacentre Convention 2025, Wong again spoke about “The Future of Network Acquisition”, as part of a panel on “The Growing Role of Subsea & Cross-Border Interconnects.” The panel explored developments in global subsea infrastructure and the evolving interconnection triangle of SG–JHR–BTM.
NeutraDC Nxera Batam shared insights on how AI is transforming the region, reshaping the way we connect, collaborate, and scale digital solutions across Southeast Asia. The company also highlighted the importance of fostering collaborative platforms and cross-border digital integration, rather than merely expanding capacity. “What we need is a shared space for innovation and an integrated data ecosystem,” it said.
The SIJORI Cloud & Datacentre Convention 2025, part of a week-long SIJORI Week 2025 organised by W.Media sparked bold conversations on transforming Southeast Asia into a global digital powerhouse, uniting Singapore’s world-class connectivity, Johor’s scalability, and Batam’s growing ecosystem. The unique strengths of each SIJORI region should be seen as complementary rather than competitive – Batam as the interconnection hub, Johor with its scalable capacity, and Singapore as the anchor of regulatory standards and sustainability. The SIJORI region refers to the strategic growth corridor comprising Singapore, Johor (Malaysia), and Riau Islands (Indonesia). This tri-nation zone is rapidly becoming one of Asia’s most important digital infrastructure clusters.
This year’s convention brought together tech leaders and policymakers to explore the future of AI-ready infrastructure, including sustainable datacentres, smart cooling systems, renewable energy, and intelligent workload distribution, all critical to the next generation of digital growth. Semianalysis, an analyst firm, views the SIJORI region of Singapore-Johor-Batam as the world’s second-largest AI data centre hub.
This six-day event, taking place from July 6-12, 2025, brought together over 3,000 digital infrastructure leaders from more than 10 APAC countries. Events included a Golf Open in Batam, data center tours and Interconnect World in Batam and Johor, networking drinks and SIJORI Cloud and data center convention.
