Malaysian Digital Minister, Gobind Singh Deo, says his country is looking to increase its data center growth in the next decade.
“We understand that data centres would require a lot of energy, so we have new policies to ensure that we are able to provide for that,” he told CGTN.
#wef25 #worldeconomicforum
“We understand that data centres would require a lot of energy, so we have new policies to ensure that we are able to provide for that,” he told CGTN.
#wef25 #worldeconomicforum
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NewsTranscript
00:00If you look at the last eight months in Malaysia, we've been able to position ourselves as a
00:10destination for data investments.
00:14We've been able to speak to data giants like Google, Microsoft, AWS.
00:17They've now announced big investments into our country.
00:22And if you look at how things have developed from there, we've moved on to also develop
00:26a special economic zone between Johor and Malaysia.
00:30And of course, I think the idea is to position Malaysia as a hub for data centres.
00:34Now, in order for us to do that, there are two or three key areas that we have to look
00:37at.
00:38The conversation around data centres usually focus on whether or not we have enough resources
00:42in the form of energy.
00:44So Malaysia has looked at that.
00:46We understand that data centres would require a lot of energy.
00:49So we have new policies to ensure that we are able to provide for that.
00:54Looking ahead in the next five to ten years, we know that we'll be able to sustain this
00:57kind of data centre growth in our country.
01:00In addition to that, our Prime Minister has also taken it upon himself to push ahead with
01:05trying to build an ASEAN energy grid, which means that we come together as a region in
01:11which we have policies to ensure that there's sufficient energy to ensure that data centres
01:17are able to sustain themselves as we go along.
01:19So that's just one key area.
01:21Of course, the other thing that we look at is how it is we can ensure that processes
01:25are in place to fast-track applications.
01:27One of the things that you find is bureaucracy often gets in the way.
01:30So if a data centre wants to build in a particular country, it takes a lot of time for them to
01:33get approvals and what have you not, and that becomes a problem because other countries
01:37are faster than you, and you tend to lose out there.
01:41So I think what we have done is also we have looked at how it is we can ensure that there
01:44are fast-tracking systems available so that we can get around those problems.
01:48And I think that has worked, and I think that's one of the reasons why we have been
01:53successful in attracting these investments in the last eight months.