Data centers create thousands of jobs for Malaysia but raise concerns over power and water shortages
- Google, Amazon, Nvidia, Alibaba and others are building data centers there
- Malaysia is building their capacity the fastest in the region
- For H1 2024, the potential electricity demand amounted to 850 MW
- For Johor, about 50 projects have been implemented in three years
- The capacity of data centers there has already increased 100 times in five years
- Data centers have created about 40,000 jobs for the country
- Malaysia has long aspired to become a global IT center
- 1.2 million people were employed in the country's digital economy in 2023
- The digital economy contributes about 25% of the country's total GDP
- The GDP of the SEA region could generate $1 trillion from AI as early as 2030
- Malaysia is expected to account for more than a tenth of it.
- Meanwhile, water and power outages can occur near data centers
- Widespread water shortages could happen in as little as five years
- Also due to climate change, aging infrastructure, etc.
- Demand for energy from data centers will exceed 5 thousand MW by 2035
- This is almost a fifth of the installed capacity for Malaysia