Malaysia’s ambitious target to achieve RM3.6 billion in revenue from the data centre industry by 2025 is well on track, buoyed by positive signals from industry players and substantial investments.
Deputy Communications Minister Teo Nie Ching shared this optimistic outlook following a series of new investments and the expansion of operations by existing data centre companies. “We can see that more people from the data centre industry are coming in for this digital economy investment,” Teo remarked, highlighting the sector’s growth trajectory.
A notable example is GDS IDC Services (M) Sdn Bhd, which has pledged to double its investment in Malaysia. “Therefore, I believe that we are now on the right track, with the positive factors and the signals that we are receiving,” Teo stated after attending the CloudTech and Data Centre Conference 2024.
Malaysia’s goal is to significantly boost its data centre revenue from RM2.09 billion in 2022 to RM3.6 billion by 2025. Creating a robust ecosystem for data centres and cloud services is key to achieving this target, Teo explained. “When we have a sufficient number of data centre players in Malaysia, their suppliers would also be interested in coming to Malaysia as well,” she said, underscoring the potential for high-value job creation and economic leadership in ASEAN.
Earlier in her keynote address, Teo revealed that Malaysia approved RM114.7 billion worth of investments in data centres and cloud services from 2021 to 2023, resulting in over 2,325 high-value job opportunities in specialised fields. Furthermore, the Investment, Trade and Industry Ministry, through the Malaysian Investment Development Authority, approved RM76 billion worth of data centre-related investments from 2021 to March 2024.
“Google, Amazon Web Services, ByteDance Systems, Bridge Data Centres, GDS ICD, and Malaysia’s YTL Data Centre made significant investments in building data centres in Malaysia, further demonstrating their confidence in our potential,” Teo added, highlighting the international confidence in Malaysia’s digital economy prospects.
Source: The Sun
