Kuala lumpur: Malaysia is set to witness a significant surge in data centre investments, with a total value reaching RM144.4 billion by March 2025. This comes as the country records 25 approved investment projects in the data centre sector from 2021 to March 31, 2025.
According to BERNAMA News Agency, the Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA) revealed that these projects were approved under the Digital Ecosystem Acceleration Scheme (DESAC). The investments are expected to create high-skilled, high-income jobs, contributing significantly to the nation’s workforce.
These projects are projected to generate 1,429 new jobs, focusing on roles that demand specialized expertise, including engineers, data scientists, big data analysts, cybersecurity engineers, and information technology (IT) engineers. Notably, more than half of these positions will be high-income jobs, with salaries exceeding RM5,000.
The Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) provided these details in response to a query from Aminolhuda Hassan (PH-Sri Gading) on job opportunities stemming from the expanding data centre sector. The ministry highlighted plans to conduct a survey to evaluate the economic spillover effects of the industry.
MITI has identified key parameters for data collection across four main segments within the data centre ecosystem. These segments encompass data centre companies and operators, major tech firms and content providers, telecommunications and mobile network operators, and equipment suppliers and service providers.
Furthermore, MITI noted that several leading global tech companies have pledged to create approximately 67,000 direct and indirect jobs, predominantly in the IT sector and related supply chains, once their projects are fully operational.
In addition to job creation, the government aims to foster vertical integration between the semiconductor industry and the data centre sector. This initiative seeks to maximize economic benefits by incorporating locally manufactured semiconductor products into the data centre supply chain.