Investments valued at RM76 billion have flowed into Malaysia’s data center sector from 2021 until March this year.
The expansion is attributed to multiple contributing factors and aligns with the government’s strategic ambition to establish the nation as a regional data center hub, according to The Star.
Speaking at the launch of GDS NTP data center campus within Nusajaya Technology Park on Thursday, Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz, the Minister of Investment, Trade, and Industry, highlighted that government directives and incentives, specifically related to renewable energy, land allocation, and the digital economy, have been crucial drivers propelling the growth of the data center industry.
Among these efforts, the Malaysian government is focused on establishing a smart grid and aims to raise the share of renewable energy in the total power mix to 31% by 2025, with a further target of 40% by 2035.
In June, Malaysia Digital Economy Corp. Sdn. Bhd. (MDEC) and the International Data Center Authority (IDCA) entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to support and promote the growth of Malaysia’s digital economy. The goal is to establish Malaysia as a prominent global destination for digital investments and foster its position as a modern, green data center and cloud infrastructure hub. The collaboration aims to align with Malaysia’s objectives of reducing carbon emissions by 2023 and achieving net zero emissions by 2050.
The growth of the data center industry is evident in Johor, situated in the southern region of Malaysia, which stands as one of the emerging data centers hubs in the country. Johor is projected to attract RM17 billion (US$3.8b) in new data center investments in 2024 from players that include YTL Group, Yondr Group, AirTrunk, MN Holdings, GDS Holdings and Equinix.
GDS recently launched the opening of its Nusajaya Tech Park Data Center Campus in Johor on Thursday. The GDS NTP Data Center Campus is the first data center that GDS has launched in Southeast Asia. The phase 1 of the campus (consisting of Nusajaya 1, 2, 3 data centers or NTP1, 2, 3) has a total net floor area of 22,500 sqm, along with a total IT power capacity of 69.5 MW.
In April, MN Holdings Bhd announced its partnership with China’s Shanghai DC-Science Co Ltd to work together on building a high performance data center in Johor. The project is valued at an estimated US$600 million. The data center has been planned to include a 12,000-rack facility supported by a power load of 120MW, and dual power supply. The project will also have access to a daily average water supply of around 5,000 metric tonnes (MT) and network access infrastructure.
In January, AirTrunk, an Asia Pacific & Japan (APJ) hyperscale data center specialist, announced its entry into Malaysia with plans to develop a 150+MW data center named AirTrunk JHB1 (JHB1) which will be the company’s first in Malaysia and ninth in APJ, taking its data center platform to over 1.35GW of capacity.