KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s data centre market is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 33 per cent from 2025 to 2030, according to S&P Global Ratings.
S&P Global Ratings director of corporate ratings Ng Yi Jing said Malaysia has been a fast-growing data centre market in the region, benefiting from both strong underlying demand and spillover demand from Singapore, which has limited land and utilities.
"Now, after several years of strong growth, Malaysia's data centre growth has hit a reset mode because of tighter regulations,” Ng said in a webinar "Digital Infrastructure: Global Financing Trends and the Asia-Pacific Outlook” today.
She said several years of rapid data centre growth also strained Malaysia’s power and water sectors.
"Indonesia and Thailand will benefit from this spillover demand from Singapore, and increasingly Malaysia,” Ng said.
Meanwhile, S&P Global Ratings managing director and head of global infrastructure and project finance Pablo Lutereau said global artificial intelligence (AI) capital expenditure spending will exceed US$1.3 trillion in 2027 versus US$870 billion in 2026 and US$470 billion in 2025.
He said companies’ internal workloads, including Microsoft CoPilot, and multiyear contracts with AI labs such as OpenAI and Anthropic, AI-native companies and enterprises, have supported AI demand.
Lutereau said global data centre demand is expected to grow significantly through 2030, with AI inference projected to record the fastest growth at a 35 per cent CAGR from 2025 to 2030, followed by AI training at 22 per cent and non-AI workloads at 11 per cent.
He said hyperscalers’ off-balance-sheet debt is rising as major technology companies expand their data centre and AI infrastructure investments.
According to S&P Global Ratings, Microsoft recorded the highest future lease obligations at US$329.1 billion as of June 30, 2026, followed by Meta at US$279 billion, Oracle at US$260 billion and Amazon at US$137.2 billion.
As of June 30, 2026, Microsoft recorded the highest debt capacity at US$161.5 billion, followed by Alphabet at US$200.6 billion, Meta at US$109.2 billion, Amazon at US$80.7 billion, SpaceX at US$78.5 billion and Oracle at US$32.4 billion. - Bernama
