May 16, 2023 - The super-sizing of data center campuses continues to go global.
In a sign of rapid growth in emerging Asian markets, Vantage Data Centers plans to invest $3 billion to expand its footprint in Malaysia with a second data center campus (KUL2) in Cyberjaya. Upon completion, the KUL2 hyperscale data center campus will deliver 256MW of IT capacity to meet the growing customer demand for IT services.
Cyberjaya is a southern suburb of the capital city of Kuala Lumpur, and is a tech corridor modeled after Silicon Valley, featuring abundant science and IT parks. The city has about 20 data centers, including an NTT Global Data Centers campus with six facilities. But with its new campus, Vantage is building much bigger than previous projects, making a sizable bet that Malaysia will soon be a hub for larger hyperscale data centers.
The Vantage project continues the shift toward large campuses providing more than 100 megawatts of data center capacity. This have become common in the U.S. in recent years. But the 256-megawatt commitment in an emerging market like Malaysia suggests that these MegaCampuses will be a global phenomenon.
Vantage has an existing KUL1 campus in Cyberjaya, which was acquired through Vantage's $1.5 billion acquisition of assets of Agile Data Centers and PCCW. The KUL2 campus will include 10 facilities across 256,000 square meters (2.75 million square feet) on a 35-acre site strategically located to provide low-latency connectivity to major cities in the region, including Singapore, Bangkok and Jakarta. The first facility is planned to open its doors in the fourth quarter of 2025.
In addition, Vantage is expanding its KUL1 campus with a 16MW facility that is currently under development. Combined, both campuses will deliver a total of 287MW of IT capacity to meet the demands of hyperscalers, cloud providers and large enterprises.
A Strategic Project for Malaysia
“Vantage has been expanding our footprint in Malaysia since we entered the dynamic Asia-Pacific market," said Giles Proctor, chief operating officer of Vantage’s APAC business. "Our positive experience in Cyberjaya has encouraged us to take further steps to advance the city’s digital infrastructure by building our largest hyperscale campus in the region.”
The new project was also hailed by local officials as a major step in realizing Malaysia's ambitions to become a strategic data hub for the Asia-Pacific market.
“With Vantage Data Centers’ investment in Malaysia, we are one step closer towards our goal of firmly establishing Malaysia as the digital hub of ASEAN," said Mahadhir Aziz, chief executive officer of Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC). "The Malaysia Digital (MD) national strategic initiative aims to transform the nation’s digital capabilities, enhancing our value proposition to attract digital investments and boost the digital economy,"
Rapid global growth has been the theme for Vantage since 2017, when the company was acquired by DigitalBridge. Vantage opened a record 13 new data centers in 2022, and now has has 26 campuses spanning five continents, 12 countries and 18 markets with IT capacity totaling nearly 1.5GW once all campuses are fully developed.
Since becoming part of DigitalBridge, Vantage has been boosted by billions of dollars in investment, enabling it to both build and buy data centers and grow its data center network.
The super-sizing of the Cyberjaya campus tracks with Vantage's history of adding data center capacity in second-tier markets positioned for future growth. In Europe, the company is building data center campuses in Berlin, Warsaw, Milan and Zurich as well as London and Frankfurt. Cyberjaya is about 200 miles north of Singapore, an important data and business hub for the region that is facing constraints on data center development.
