GDS mulls RM10 billion loan for expansion in Malaysia

Data centre in Johor? It's either build big or go home, as GDS mulls staggering RM10b expansion.

According to The Edge Malaysia, GDS is considering raising RM10 billion (US 2.3b) in loans for its data centre in Malaysia.

It is also considering a potential IPO plan.

For expansion

To be clear, deliberations are at an early stage, so things could change.

GDS currently has a data centre campus at the Nusajaya Tech Park Data Centre Campus (GDS NTP Data Centre Campus).

Phase 1 of the GDS NTP Data Centre Campus was launched in August last year.

• Consist of 3 data centres: NTP1, NTP2, NTP3.
• NTP1 delivered in just 14 months.
• Total IT power of 69.5MW.

Buying GPUs?

GDS has separately signed a partnership to co-develop a 168MW data centre at the YTL Green Data Centre Park, with the first data centre expected to be ready this year.

Building the next phase of GDS NTP Data Centre Campus so soon does suggest that the first phase of its data centre campus is already fully subscribed, or well on its way.

But RM10 billion is still an incredible amount of money. One possibility is that a large portion could be earmarked to purchase tens of thousands of next-gen GPUs for AI.

So GDS could be building an AI data centre campus next. What do you think?

I'll be paying more attention to the Johor data centre market in the months ahead. Do ping me if you have any tips to share.