Malaysia heralds its data hub future

CGTN Europe

Malaysian Digital Minister, Gobind Singh Deo, says his country is looking to increase its data center growth in the next decade.   “We understand that data centres would require a lot of energy, so we have new policies to ensure that we are able to provide for that,” he told CGTN.  #wef25 #worldeconomicforum

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00:00If you look at the last eight months in Malaysia, we've been able to position ourselves as a

00:10destination for data investments.

00:14We've been able to speak to data giants like Google, Microsoft, AWS.

00:17They've now announced big investments into our country.

00:22And if you look at how things have developed from there, we've moved on to also develop

00:26a special economic zone between Johor and Malaysia.

00:30And of course, I think the idea is to position Malaysia as a hub for data centres.

00:34Now, in order for us to do that, there are two or three key areas that we have to look

00:37at.

00:38The conversation around data centres usually focus on whether or not we have enough resources

00:42in the form of energy.

00:44So Malaysia has looked at that.

00:46We understand that data centres would require a lot of energy.

00:49So we have new policies to ensure that we are able to provide for that.

00:54Looking ahead in the next five to ten years, we know that we'll be able to sustain this

00:57kind of data centre growth in our country.

01:00In addition to that, our Prime Minister has also taken it upon himself to push ahead with

01:05trying to build an ASEAN energy grid, which means that we come together as a region in

01:11which we have policies to ensure that there's sufficient energy to ensure that data centres

01:17are able to sustain themselves as we go along.

01:19So that's just one key area.

01:21Of course, the other thing that we look at is how it is we can ensure that processes

01:25are in place to fast-track applications.

01:27One of the things that you find is bureaucracy often gets in the way.

01:30So if a data centre wants to build in a particular country, it takes a lot of time for them to

01:33get approvals and what have you not, and that becomes a problem because other countries

01:37are faster than you, and you tend to lose out there.

01:41So I think what we have done is also we have looked at how it is we can ensure that there

01:44are fast-tracking systems available so that we can get around those problems.

01:48And I think that has worked, and I think that's one of the reasons why we have been

01:53successful in attracting these investments in the last eight months.

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