Princeton Digital Group Buys Site for 150MW Malaysia Data Centre Campus

Princeton Digital Group has struck a deal to acquire 31 acres (12.5 hectares) of land in Malaysia’s southern Johor state, across the border from Singapore, to develop a 150-megawatt data centre campus.

Warburg Pincus-backed PDG on Monday entered a definitive agreement with state-owned JLand Group to develop the hyperscale campus at Sedenak Tech Park in Kulai, Johor. The 60MW first phase, with an investment cost of MYR 2 billion ($450 million), will start operations by the second quarter of 2024, the partners said in a release.

The project marks PDG’s entry into Malaysia, the firm’s sixth country after Johor’s next-door neighbour Singapore, China, Indonesia, India and Japan. The new data centre, dubbed JH1, is expected to be one of the largest server-hosting campuses in Southeast Asia.

“Our entry into Malaysia adds to PDG’s growing footprint in Asia, further strengthening our presence as the pan-Asia digital infrastructure leader,” said Rangu Salgame, the co-founder, chairman and CEO of Singapore-based PDG.

Johor’s Digital Park

Sedenak Tech Park, or STeP for short, is a 745 acre zone designated to attract the development of data centres.

Run by JLand Group, a wholly owned unit of state development vehicle Johor Corporation, the estate is expanding with a 640 acre data centre park, STeP 2, projected to open in September 2024. As part of the larger Ibrahim Technopolis development, STeP 2 will be powered by a solar photovoltaic farm, in line with the Low Carbon Cities Framework.

Asher Ling, chief technology officer and managing director for Singapore at PDG, said the future facility would benefit from STeP’s strong power and connectivity infrastructure.

“Our data centre will utilise next-generation, cutting-edge sustainable technology solutions,” Ling said. “We are also actively collaborating with local partners and regulators to integrate renewable energy initiatives for powering our facility.”

New Hire Gets Busy

The Malaysia project is the first announced acquisition by PDG under chief investment officer Matthias Vukovich, a former Morgan Stanley banker who was hired in April to lead the firm’s M&A activities.

In February, PDG had revealed a $1 billion investment plan under which the company would develop data centres in its home city of Singapore and in the nearby markets of Batam and Johor as an extension of its Lion City operations. Dubbed the Singapore-plus strategy, the expansion kicked off with development of a new 96MW campus in Batam.

Founded in 2017 and backed by global investors Warburg Pincus, Mubadala Investment Company and the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, PDG has an existing presence in five countries with a portfolio of 20 data centres and 600MW capacity.