By South China Morning Post | Created at 2025-01-13 08:36:22 | Updated at 2025-01-13 11:41:40
3 hours ago
Led by Johor, Malaysia has surged to prominence thanks to proactive government policy and the decisions of its neighbours
For an indication of the strength of investors’ appetite for Asian data centres, look no further than the acquisition last September of Sydney-based AirTrunk. The largest data centre platform in the Asia-Pacific region was purchased by a consortium led by US private equity fund Blackstone for A$24 billion (US$14.8 billion).
The transaction was both Blackstone’s biggest investment in Asia and the world’s largest-ever data centre deal. According to MSCI, the transaction was game-changing for Asia’s data centre market as well as the sector globally which attracted close to US$11 billion in investment for the whole of 2023.
Yet even without the AirTrunk deal, data centres – the energy-hungry warehouse-like facilities that power all kinds of online products and services – were the most sought-after assets for cross-border real estate investors in Asia last year, along with Australian offices.
With its unique blend of large developed and developing countries, fast-growing digital economies and pivotal role in communications infrastructure, Asia is fertile ground for the development of data centres. The emergence of generative artificial intelligence (AI) has turbocharged demand as more data-intensive workloads – in addition to the rapidly expanding footprints of cloud service providers – drive development of new AI-specialised facilities.
According to Moody’s Ratings, Asia will be the world’s fastest-growing data centre market in the next four years. It expects the operational capacity of facilities across the region to grow at a compound annual average rate of 20 per cent through 2028 to 24.8 gigawatts (GW), more than double the current capacity and 30 per cent of the global increase in capacity in the next four years.
