JOHOR BARU: US-based digital infrastructure company Vertiv Group expects its Johor manufacturing facility to gradually ramp up production, with about 15 to 20 per cent of its production lines currently in operation.
Vertiv’s Asia vice president, operations and service operations, Andrew Whall, said the newly launched factory is expected to approach its technical production capacity by the end of the second quarter or early third quarter of 2027 (3Q 2027), supported by the introduction of new products.
"We’ve probably got about 15 to 20 per cent of the facility producing right now. I am expecting (technical production) probably towards 2Q or early 3Q 2027,” he told reporters after the launch of Vertiv’s Johor manufacturing facility today.
Whall said the facility has been fully operational since 1Q of this year, with shipments of its XDU (eXtreme Density Unit) product line already underway.
He said that the facility is currently in its first phase of development, and preparations for the second and third phases are already in motion to expand production capacity and broaden its product portfolio.
"The (current) factory floor is our phase one. Phase two is already in motion, with additional production lines for new liquid-cooling products as well as SmartRun capacity.
"We’re already in the planning stages for phase three, which will introduce new and different products onto the production floor,” he said.
Whall said the production floor is expected to be fully occupied with additional product lines by mid-next year, enabling the facility to serve both the Malaysian and regional markets, including Australia and South Korea, and to create up to 500 skilled jobs in the region.
When asked why Vertiv chose Johor as its regional manufacturing hub, Vertiv’s Asia vice president and general manager, Paul Churchill, said the decision followed a comprehensive evaluation of locations across Asia, particularly Southeast Asia, driven by growing customer demand and the need for local manufacturing capacity.
"We could see there was greater demand and a stronger requirement to have local capacity. We engaged external consultants to help us with that and carried out an evaluation throughout Asia, predominantly Southeast Asia.
"We had a set of criteria that needed to be met, and Malaysia was successful in meeting those criteria. It was really about connectivity, proximity to the marketplace, the work being done here in Johor, education levels, English language capability, and having a government agency such as the Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA) to help guide us through the process,” he said.
In a separate statement, Bernama reported that Vertiv said the Johor facility supports end-to-end manufacturing, assembly, and testing for advanced thermal and power infrastructure, enabling the delivery of high-density solutions with validated performance to help reduce deployment risk and accelerate time to capacity for customers across enterprise, cloud, and colocation segments.
It will manufacture large-scale thermal management, power and infrastructure solutions for artificial intelligence (AI) and traditional applications, including Vertiv CoolChip coolant distribution units (CDUs), Vertiv Power Module and Power Skid prefabricated power systems, as well as the Vertiv SmartRun integrated overhead infrastructure system.
Located in Senai, Johor, the approximately 236,000-square-foot facility is part of Vertiv’s expanded manufacturing footprint in Asia to support growing demand for AI and high-density computing infrastructure across Southeast Asia, North Asia, Australia and New Zealand.
Also present at the launch of the Johor factory were the chief executive officer of Invest Johor, Natazha Hariss, and MIDA Johor director Mohamad Reduan Mohd Zabri.
Headquartered in Ohio, USA, Vertiv does business in more than 130 countries and has 35 manufacturing facilities worldwide.
