January 31, 2024 - Service provider Telekom Malaysia is said to be exploring plans to build a new hyperscale data centre, expanding its capacity from the existing Klang Valley Data Centre (KVDC) and Iskandar Puteri Data Centre (IPDC).
The hyperscale data centre is likely to be a large facility offering at least 40 Megawatts (MW) of IT power capacity, catering to large cloud service providers and internet companies.
CIMB Investment Bank, which, according to the Edge Malaysia news service, announced the news, suggests that, by leveraging its extensive submarine and terrestrial networks as well as its strong local relationships, Telekom Malaysia may be able to attract strong strategic international partners to co-invest in the new data centre.
"Besides helping to partly fund the investment required, a strong strategic international partner could also share expertise in the design and operation of data centres that cater to hyperscalers and AI workloads," CIMB said in a note earlier this week.
If Telekom Malaysia proceeds, CIMB, a leading ASEAN-focused bank and one of the region’s foremost corporate advisors, expects the group to develop the facility in phases. It notes, "If kicked off in 2H2024, the first phase could be ready for service by 1H2026."
For the moment, this news awaits confirmation. However, data centre activity in Malaysia does seem to be ramping up. Among many similar announcements in recent months to appear in these pages, we reported last week that Malaysia’s Ministry of Investment, Trade and Industry (MITI) has formed a strategic partnership with the Ministry of Investment of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to develop data centres in Malaysia.
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