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Who’s pulling ahead in South-east Asia’s data centre race?

Malaysia has emerged as the frontrunner to challenge Singapore’s dominance, but Thailand is fast growing as a potential competitor

Therese Soh
Published Tue, Dec 24, 2024 · 05:00 AM
    • Global tech giants such as Microsoft, Google and Amazon have committed to building data centres in Malaysia.
    • Global tech giants such as Microsoft, Google and Amazon have committed to building data centres in Malaysia. ILLUSTRATION: ADOBE STOCK AND SIMON ANG, BT

    THE start of the artificial intelligence (AI) boom has led to a global race among countries to build more data centres and ramp up their capacity.

    It’s no different in Singapore and the South-east Asia region, with billions of dollars committed to build data centres in the region this year. Singapore re-opened its doors to new investments in 2022, after imposing a moratorium on building data centres in 2019.

    Despite the three-year moratorium, the city-state still enjoys a wide lead in terms of total capacity of 1.4 gigawatts (GW) – and it wants to build up another 300 megawatts of additional capacity. Overall, Singapore has over 70 data centres.

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