Selangor Menteri Besar Dato Amirudin Shari said the state will not approve new data centre developments in areas without sufficient water and electricity capacity.
He said the state government had adopted a clear policy requiring data centre operators to demonstrate certainty of adequate water and energy supply before their projects could proceed.
“Data centres are not built arbitrarily. There must be certainty of sufficient water and energy supply. If there is no water supply, we will not allow it, even though a large number of data centres have entered the state recently,” Amirudin said.
Separately the MB also added that the Selangor government would introduce a 30% policy aimed at creating opportunities for local companies to become suppliers to the data centre industry.
He said the policy would initially define “local companies” more broadly rather than restricting participation exclusively to companies based in Selangor.
This, he said, would ensure that there was a sufficiently large pool of qualified suppliers while avoiding pressure on the data centre industry’s capacity to expand.
“We will not limit it to Selangor initially. We will start with local companies because if we restrict it to Selangor, the number would be quite limited and this could put pressure on the ability of data centres to continue operating,” he said.
The policy is intended to ensure that the rapid expansion of Selangor’s data centre industry also creates opportunities for Malaysian businesses to participate in the wider supply chain.
