Who will emerge as the top data centre operator in Johor?
Who will endure, and who will falter?
As more data centres come online in Johor, who will emerge the king of the new data centre hub? And who might fall?
I've previously written about the startling growth of the data centre market in Johor:
- How it went from 10MW to 1,500MW in 3 years.
- Its recent rejection of 30% of new applications.
- New data centre guidelines in Malaysia.
Read about it here.
Taking a closer look
While each data centre announcement looks the same from afar, the customer niche, business strategy, and holding power of each player is completely different.
Competition can change the game, too. For instance, NTT Data recently announced a massive 290MW data centre in Johor.
But it is not just another data centre operator. It is an incumbent with:
- Years of experience in Malaysia.
- Strong customer base.
- Proven track record.
Will its expanded presence affect customer decisions? You bet.
Holding power
As every data centre operator I know of - and many I don't - jump into the ring, who will be left standing when the music stops?
Demand must fizzle out at some point, even if capacity is currently being snapped up as soon as they are made available.
Data centre operators have a couple of tricks should demand slow.
- Hold the land but don't build.
- Build in smaller phases.
But financial backing matters and will soon become more apparent. I'm already hearing of some hiring slowdowns, though that might be only for certain operators.
A data centre "hyper" market
Malaysia is projecting 7.7GW of data centres by 2030 and it is hard to mentally visualise even half of this ending up in Johor, though the current growth rate makes it highly plausible.
There are less than 10 markets with more than 1GW of data centre capacity globally. Depending on how you count, Johor is already in this rarefied list.
Will Johor eventually top the charts in the Asia Pacific with as much as 5GW of data centres? What do you think?
