AirTrunk announces second data centre campus in Johor

AirTrunk today unveiled its plans to develop a second data centre campus in Johor, bringing its combined capacity in Malaysia to 420MW when completed.

This announcement comes in the wake of AirTrunk commencing operations at the 150MW JHB1 data centre just last year.

JHB2 data centre

JHB2 is located at Iskandar Puteri in Johor, which AirTrunk billed as a major availability zone suited for customers looking for "end-to-end cross-border connectivity."

JHB2 data centre campus will feature:

• Liquid-cooling for high-density workloads.
• Renewable energy options.
• Design PUE of 1.25
• 270MW capacity.

AirTrunk also says it is providing land for a new TNB substation to add resilience to the electricity distribution in the area - an industry hub with several data centres.

A focus on sustainability

Sustainability featured heavily in AirTrunk's announcement.

• The hyperscaler says it is studying using treated greywater to potentially supply its data centres. Greywater is domestic wastewater generated in homes or offices.
• AirTrunk also pointed to its renewable energy Virtual Power Purchase Agreement for 30MW of renewable energy under Malaysia's Corporate Green Power Programme.

Blistering growth

JHB1 data centre went live in July 2024, and AirTrunk announced its next phase with plans to deliver another 100MW over "the next 18 months" just a month later.

In a LinkedIn comment today, AirTrunk founder Robin Khuda noted that with JHB1 "nearing full utilisation", JHB2 will provide seamless expansion to customers.

Given that it is unlikely for AirTrunk to fully build out 100MW over 6 months - especially over Christmas and Chinese New Year, I interpreted Robin's statement as JHB1 being close to sold out.

This underscores the blistering growth that AirTrunk is experiencing with its data centres in Malaysia. For context, the data centre hub of Singapore across the border has just 1,400MW in total - built up over almost two decades.

The only question is: Are other data centre operators in Johor on similar growth trajectories, or is the growth unequally distributed?