Malaysia's Gamuda acquires enough land for 1GW of data centres

A new player recently announced the acquisition of land in Malaysia that could potentially support up to 1GW of data centres.

Just in case you think Malaysia's rapid data centre ascension is a fluke, Gamuda Bhd last week announced the acquiring of a 389-acre plot of land in Port Dickson for data centres.

Massive potential

Located at Springhill Industrial Park in Port Dickson, Negeri Sembilan, the land is massive at around 200 soccer fields.

• Currently freehold agriculture land.
• Situated along the North-South Highway.
• Part of the Malaysia Vision Valley 2.0 initiative.

Completion of sales and purchase is subject to:

• Shareholder approvals.
• Successful conversion of land application.

Assuming all goes according to plan, the expected completion is end-July 2025.

Large data centres

How nick data centre capacity can this land support? Depends on who you ask.

• Hong Leong Investment Bank estimates the land could support the development of data centre capacities of between 700-1,000 megawatts (MW).
• RHB Investment Bank estimates up to 730MW of data centre capacity.
• MIDF Research estimates 500MW to 600MW of data center developments.

Even the lowest 500MW estimate represents a huge amount of data centre capacity.

Of course, it is unlikely that the data centres will be built concurrently; development is likely to take place over multiple phases.

Rapid growth

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

I wrote previously about the "Planning Guideline for Data Centre" by the Department of Town and Country Planning (PLANMalaysia) to cut confusion, set up procedures, and establish basic ground rules for new data centres.

For now, expect Malaysia data centre market to continue experiencing rapid growth as new players rush to market.