Malaysia working on new guidelines for data centres

As investors rush to build new data centres, Malaysia is working overtime to craft new, tighter data centre guidelines.

New guidelines are being worked on by multiple parties, according to my sources. Here's what I'm seeing and hearing so far.

Planning Guideline for Data Centre

The "Planning Guideline for Data Centre" was published by the Department of Town and Country Planning (PLANMalaysia) in Oct 2024 to:

• Eliminate potential confusion.
• Set out application procedures.
• Publicise the basic ground rules.

The guide explicitly addresses new data centres as well as brownfield data centres in existing buildings.

This way, state and local authorities, as well as agencies have a standardised reference that they can rely on to coordinate the development of data centres.

Setting PUE targets

I'm also hearing of a potential PUE target for data centres as low as 1.2.

A better PUE means better energy efficiency, which should slightly temper data centre growth and reduce the carbon footprint of data centres.

I personally don't think a guideline enforcing a PUE of 1.2 will happen soon, due to pressures from the industry and customers - it'll be costlier for colocation providers.

In addition:

• Where do we draw the line for implementation?
• What about older data centres - must they upgrade?
• There are many ways to fudge PUE figures.

Moreover, even Singapore is only aiming for an average PUE of 1.3 or better, and this is to be achieved over a decade.

Still, it's great that this topic is being raised.

Would you adopt a river?

It seems data centre operators are being encouraged to "adopt" and clean up existing rivers to reclaim some of the water for data centre operations.

Speaking at W.Media - Global's CDC in KL last month, Liew Chin Tong, the Malaysia Deputy Minister of Investment, Trade and Industry actually mentioned this.

He said in his address:

• "You may want to group together to form an association and advocate for policy and create potential investment into new water sources."
• "For instance, in the case of Johor, southern Johor has many rivers, [and] most of the rivers are very dirty. Whether we want to invest in reclaiming water from the river by cleaning up [the] river, apart from other solutions."

Read about it here.

I don't doubt that the Malaysia data centre market will continue to experience rapid growth as new players rush to market.

But the heady, easy days might soon be over, as the Malaysian government becomes more selective about new data centres.