KULAI: A Taiwan-based cloud IT infrastructure provider has kickstarted its phase two development worth RM300mil at the Senai Airport City here.
The significant investment by Wiwynn Corporation was for a facility to manufacture printed circuit boards, which is set to create 1,100 job opportunities for the people, said Johor investment, trade and consumer affairs committee chairman Lee Ting Han.
This brings the total investment by Wiwynn to RM500mil. It invested RM200mil into establishing a server rack manufacturing facility some seven months ago, creating about 500 jobs in the market.
“The latest plant will be positioned as the corporation's regional hub in the Asia-Pacific region, putting Johor on the global map as a manufacturing hub for data centre-related infrastructure.
“Johor is becoming a hotspot for data centres and this is because we have companies that are able to cater to the needs of top tech companies in the world, apart from having sufficient utilities and land.
“Wiwynn’s investment and presence here will further bring up Johor’s exposure on the international level for more similar or related investments,” he said after representing Mentri Besar Datuk Onn Hafiz Ghazi at the plant’s groundbreaking ceremony on Monday (June 27).
Lee said he was personally impressed by the corporation’s aggressive development and that they are bringing in the highest gold standard of the Green Building Index technology to enable smart manufacturing and sustainable operations.
This would set a new benchmark in the industry, he said, adding that the investment and the groundbreaking ceremony also fell squarely within the state government’s visions when it set out to attract technological companies to Johor.
“While we welcome foreign investment and will facilitate their entry, we want to make sure that the investment is of quality and can assist to level up things in the state.
“In this regard, I am pleased that Wiwynn also plans to work with local higher education institutions such as Universiti Teknologi Malaysia to provide training opportunities for graduates so that they can realise their potential,” said Lee.
He added that despite the challenges brought by the Covid-19 pandemic, investment in Johor’s manufacturing sector has already shown a positive trend.
In 2020, RM6.78bil worth of investments were made in the manufacturing sector and the figure grew by 2.5% to about RM7bil last year.
In the first quarter of 2022, the state’s manufacturing sector recorded RM2.24bil in investments, up about 30% compared with the value of investments received for the same period last year, which was RM1.70bil, he said.
