Billionaire Robert Kuok, Malaysian Tycoons Seek Profit From Data Center Boom
This story is part of Forbes' coverage of Malaysia's Richest 2025. See the full list here.
In the global race to build hyperscale AI data centers, Malaysia has positioned itself as one of the key contenders. A data center boom is underway, the epicenter of which is in the once-sleepy state of Johor in the south, close to Singapore, where palm oil and rubber plantations have made way for sprawling tech parks.
Since Singapore imposed strictures on new data center projects in 2021 (after lifting a moratorium that started in 2019), Malaysia has emerged as Southeast Asia's digital infrastructure hotspot, drawing investments of more than $23 billion, according to global property consultancy Knight Frank based on company announcements in the past year. That's more than half of the estimated $44 billion being invested in the region by the likes of Amazon, Google and Oracle.
As these global tech giants pour billions into expanding their data storage footprints, amid soaring demand for cloud computing and AI applications, several Malaysian tycoons, including those with roots in agribusinesses, have latched on to this new wave. Some have expanded into building data centers, while others are cashing in by selling land parcels to companies that are constructing them.
The country's richest person, Robert Kuok, has backed data center builder K2 Strategic, led by his Singapore-based grandson Kuok Meng Wei. The outfit is scaling up fast with plans to quadruple its data center capacity in Malaysia to 240 megawatts (MW).
Francis Yeoh's YTL, with interests in cement, utilities and hotels, has partnered with AI chipmaker Nvidia to build a 500MW data center hub in Johor, powered by an adjacent solar farm. Engineering and construction companies have also piled on. Billionaire Jeffrey Cheah's Sunway Construction, a unit of his healthcare-to-property conglomerate Sunway, has scooped up contracts worth almost 1 billion ringgit ($227 million) to build data centers, including for Kuok's K2 Strategic.
'Demand looks really strong,' says Hussaini Saifee, an analyst at Maybank in Singapore. The ongoing migration of enterprise data to the cloud as well as the proliferation of AI applications are the key drivers of demand for data centers, he adds. More than 2 gigawatts of new facilities are currently under construction in Malaysia between now and 2028, according to Maybank's estimates.
Among the landlords raking it in are palm oil-and-construction magnate Gooi Seong Lim, whose Crescendo has netted $137 million since 2023 from selling over 40 hectares of land to companies such as Microsoft, which in turn has earmarked $2.2 billion for its Malaysian data center projects. That includes its February purchase of a 59-hectare site in a business park owned by real estate magnate Leong Kok Wah's Eco World Development for over $150 million, which boosted shares of the Malaysian property development firm.
'Demand looks really strong.'
Since last year, Eco World has garnered over $180 million from such land sales, including to Warburg Pincus-backed Princeton Digital Group. Meanwhile tycoon Danny Tan Chee Sing's Tropicana made $140 million selling over 43 hectares of land to Japan's NTT Global Data Centers and China's ZData Technologies.
Vast tracts of affordable land plus ample electricity and water resources—which are critical for the business—make Johor in particular an attractive location for major data center players. By the end of 2024, Johor accounted for about 400MW of total data center capacity, according to estimates by Knight Frank. That exceeds the 107MW installed to the north in Kuala Lumpur and Klang Valley.
Billionaire Joseph Tsai, cofounder and chairman of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, recently warned at a talk in Hong Kong of a potential bubble amid the construction overdrive. But Maybank's Saifee says there's room to build more as demand has yet to peak. He cites social media companies such as ByteDance's TikTok, which is stepping up its data center outlays in the region. The usual constraints to growth, adds Saifee, don't apply—as yet: 'There's plenty of land and sufficient electricity and water in Malaysia.'
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