Winning the data centre gold rush in S-E Asia 

TO POWER multi-year trends in digitalisation and artificial intelligence (AI), South-east Asia has turned its attention to the build out of data centres. Over the next five years, key Asean cities such as Johor, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Bangkok and Manila are looking to increase data centre capacity by 1.5 gigawatts and doubling it by 2028.

Such pivotal developments will have a profound impact on the transformation of economies and industries. Those pursuing data centre opportunities include data centre specialists, infrastructure funds, conglomerates, telcos and large-scale data centres, also known as hyperscalers.

In this instance, beneficiaries of this data centre gold rush are likely to be the “picks and shovels” – investors and businesses that are enablers of data centres, such as utilities, construction, infrastructure and tech hardware companies.