Data Centres

Vantage breaks ground for 256MW campus in Malaysia

KUL2 data centre will be larger than firm's total footprint in APAC.

Paul Mah

Paul Mah

— 2 min read
Vantage breaks ground for 256MW campus in Malaysia
Photo Credit: Vantage Data Centers

Another data centre project just broke ground in Malaysia; this time a massive 256MW campus in Cyberjaya.

Vantage Data Centers says its new KUL2 data centre will support cloud and AI adoption.

New data centre

The KUL2 data centre campus in Malaysia is the 2nd most massive in Malaysia to date, only slightly behind Yondr Group's 300MW campus.

  • Built on 35 acres of land.
  • Vantage's second campus.
  • Adjacent to its KUL1 campus.

When KUL1 and KUL2 are fully developed, Vantage will have 287MW of IT capacity in Malaysia. Yes, KUL1 is "only" 31MW - that's how large the latest data centres are today.

Vantage has also signed an Electricity Supply Agreement (ESA) with TNB for 500MVA-rated power capacity via 275kV high-voltage substation for KUL2.

FYI: This isn't your friendly neighbourhood power substation. The substation needed to step down from such a high voltage easily takes up a football field.

Vantage Data Centers in APAC

Vantage's APAC data centres span five markets. Apart from Malaysia, they are:

  • Hong Kong (19MW).
  • Australia (48MW).
  • Taiwan (16MW).
  • Japan (68MW).

As you can see, its Malaysia presence is on a trajectory to dwarf the combined total of its other APAC data centres in MW.

Near vertical growth

After years of lacklustre data centre growth, Malaysia has over the last few years experienced exponential growth that is putting it on top of charts everywhere.

As I wrote previously, as of Dec 2023, there are:

  • 9 projects completed (635 MW).
  • 8 projects electricity supply signed (2,259 MW).
  • 50 projects at supply application stage (6,415 MW).

Read: Johor prepares for data centre hypergrowth.

Indeed, there are concerns that Malaysia's surging data centre growth could strain its power and water supplies in the coming years.

Read: Malaysia's breakneck data centre growth could strain resources.

There are even murmurs of a potential moratorium in Johor. For sure, policymakers are now scrambling to craft uniform planning guidelines for data centres.

Read: Johor scrambles to cope with data centre hypergrowth.

The road ahead

In the months ahead, I hope to visit some of the hyperscale data centres in Johor and report back on them.

Stay tuned.

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