Malaysia Taps Chinese Investors to Build More Data Centers

Ram Anand, Bloomberg News

Rafizi Ramli, Malaysia's economy minister, during the KL20 Tech Forum in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on Monday, April 22, 2024. The forum runs through April 23. Photographer: Samsul Said/Bloomberg , Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- Malaysia is in discussions with potential Chinese investors to build data centers in the Southeast Asian nation as it seeks to attract more “high quality” investments, according to Economy Minister Rafizi Ramli.

The government will strengthen its infrastructure offering to take advantage of the artificial-intelligence boom, Rafizi said in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s Stephen Engle.

US tech giants Microsoft Corp., Google and Nvidia Corp. had already announced plans to build data centers in Malaysia in the past year, and Chinese companies are interested in developing more to serve the nation’s tech firms that want to enter the Southeast Asian market, he said.

“We are looking to expedite Malaysia’s transition from the back-end part of the semiconductor industry to the front-end,” with integrated-circuit design and data centers, Rafizi said.

The minister said he had not held discussions with Chinese companies on using their Malaysian operations as a base to circumvent US tariffs.

(Updates with additional comments by minister in fourth, fifth paragraphs.)