Malaysia: Malaysia is well positioned to seize a first-mover advantage in ASEAN's second wave of hyperscale and artificial intelligence (AI) computing infrastructure, driven by its competitive costs, strong connectivity, and established semiconductor ecosystem. Juwai IQI global chief economist Shan Saeed highlighted Malaysia's potential to become a key player in ASEAN's infrastructure competition, focusing on compute capacity due to constraints in Singapore.
According to BERNAMA News Agency, Malaysia's appeal lies in its competitively priced land, extensive fibre connectivity, scalable industrial corridors, and proximity to Singapore. Johor is emerging as a hyperscale cluster, while Greater Kuala Lumpur is becoming an enterprise-computing and interconnection hub. These developments have placed Johor firmly on the global hyperscale investment map.
Shan Saeed disclosed that the Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA) had approved RM144.4 billion in investments in the data centre and cloud computing sector between 2021 and mid-2025. By August 2025, Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB) secured electricity supply agreements for 47 projects with a maximum demand of 6.7 gigawatts (GW).
Execution in Malaysia's data centre sector is accelerating, with AirTrunk investing US$3 billion in two Johor facilities, bringing its Malaysian portfolio to over 700 megawatts (MW) and total investment to US$6.8 billion. Equinix has committed over US$190 million to its fourth Malaysian facility, while Nvidia-backed Firmus will supply OpenAI with capacity from two domestic data centres.
Shan emphasized the strategic importance of data centres as instruments of national power. He noted that infrastructure creates durable advantage only when reinforced by talent, data, and organisational capability, with Malaysia's 13 per cent share of global semiconductor assembly, testing, and packaging providing valuable industrial adjacency.
However, he highlighted that electricity had become a decisive bottleneck in the global AI infrastructure boom, with Malaysia facing pressure from the rapid expansion of data centres. Data centres consumed 9.3 per cent of Peninsular Malaysia's electricity during the second week of August 2026 and could reach 31 per cent by 2035. The MIT Energy Initiative warns against overlooking power demands, noting that US data centres could approach nine per cent of national electricity consumption by 2030.
Shan pointed out Malaysia's plans to add approximately nine gigawatts of gas-fired capacity by 2032, while TNB has committed RM43 billion to grid modernisation. He stressed that power, water, talent, and regulatory speed must advance together. Malaysia's second-wave advantage depends on transforming investment momentum into reliable, sustainable, and commercially productive compute capacity, with strategic power determining where this capacity remains.