KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia's data centre market is on track to become one of the largest in the Asia-Pacific region, with total capacity expected to reach more than quadruple beyond 2026.
JLL Malaysia's capital markets manager (data centre transactions), Sum Chun Kit, said data centres' capacity in Malaysia is currently about 835 megawatts (MW), which could surpass 4,000 MW beyond 2026.
"This will turn Malaysia into one of the biggest data centre markets in Asia-Pacific," he said at JLL Malaysia's third quarter (3Q) market report briefing here today.
Sum said the key data centre hotspots in Malaysia are in Greater Kuala Lumpur, with Cyberjaya maintaining the highest density of data centres in the country, showing significant growth in hyperscale deployments, reflecting the evolution as Malaysia's premier data centre destination.
Besides Kuala Lumpur, Johor is also one of the key hotspots for data centres in the country, with Nusajaya becoming a premium data centre location, while Sedenak Tech Park houses one of Southeast Asia's largest purpose-built data centre parks, featuring specialised power and water infrastructure.
He also identified Negeri Sembilan as an emerging hotspot for hyperscale developments, particularly in Nilai and Port Dickson, due to its location, which is near Selangor and significantly cheaper land prices.
Sum said Malaysia’s data centre demand is still primarily driven by traditional workloads such as cloud computing and data storage, but artificial intelligence (AI)-related workloads are expected to accelerate.
"Our research data shows that most of the data centres now are still being mostly driven by traditional workload, not so much by AI workload yet.
"But there will be a lot more AI workload in future and there will be a multiple flow of the current non-AI workload, so our data centres are here to stay and there is still a lot of room to grow,” he said.
On the power outlook, Sum said Malaysia’s data centres currently consume around three per cent of Peninsular Malaysia’s total installed power capacity of 27,000 MW, but this could rise to 15 to 20 per cent by 2035.
Sum highlighted that data centres consume large amounts of water for cooling and that only 18 per cent of water applications for data centres were approved last year due to resource constraints.
He said some data centres in Johor are developing their own wastewater treatment plants and utilising river and grey water, a trend that he foresees will continue across Malaysia. - Bernama
