Mingtiandi

Asia real estate and outbound investment news

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • RSS
  • Twitter
Remember Me

Lost your password?

Register Now

Loading...
  • Capital Markets
  • Events
    • Mingtiandi 2025 Event Calendar
    • Mingtiandi APAC Residential Forum 2025
    • Mingtiandi Singapore Forum 2025
    • Mingtiandi APAC Logistics Forum 2025
    • Mingtiandi APAC Data Centre Forum 2025
    • Mingtiandi Tokyo Forum 2025
    • More Events
  • MTD TV
    • Residential
    • Logistics
    • Data Centre
    • Office
    • Singapore
    • Tokyo
    • Hong Kong
    • All Videos
    • Post-Event Stories
  • People
    • Industry Moves
    • MTD TV Speakers
  • Logistics
  • Data Centres
  • Asia Outbound
  • Retail
  • Research & Policy
  • Advertise

Favourable Demographics, Policies Fuel SE Asia Data Centre Growth: MTD TV

2024/10/10 by Kevin He Leave a Comment


Southeast Asia is emerging as a primary market for data centre investment as the region benefits from a confluence of favourable demographics, abundant resources, lower costs, and supportive government policies, according to senior executives from Equinix, law firm Wong & Partners, and MSCI speaking at Mingtiandi’s 2024 Data Centre Forum on Thursday. Watch the full recording>>

With Singapore continuing to move slowly on data centre approvals following its lifting of a moratorium on new developments in 2022, and developers in markets such as Japan and Korea facing higher project costs, capital chasing the sector has increasingly shifted to Southeast Asia. A growing population, lower land and energy costs, and state initiatives promoting digital infrastructure are bolstering the region’s value proposition, according to Woon Teng Koh, director of corporate development at US-based Equinix.

“There are a lot of attractive macroeconomic and demographic factors that contribute to the growth and demand for data centres in Southeast Asia,” said Koh. “We see rising internet penetration. We see a growing young middle class population. Governments are providing policy support to make infrastructure investments easier…and on the supply side, we see that markets are very attractive because of the lower cost of land and energy prices, tax incentives, and options for renewable energy.”

The forum, which was sponsored by Yardi, saw Koh joined on the virtual panel by Ai Leen Tang, a partner at Baker McKenzie member firm Wong & Partners, and Benjamin Chow, head of Asia real estate research at MSCI.

Malaysia Boom

Within Southeast Asia, Malaysia has stood out as a major beneficiary of data centre investment, much of which has been deployed in the southern state of Johor. The country’s early stage IT capacity reached 2,702 megawatts at the end of 2023, representing a 240 percent year-on-year jump, while live capacity more than doubled to 280 MW over the same period, according to industry information provider DC Byte.

Woon Teng Koh, Equinix
Woon Teng Koh, Senior Director, Acquisitions, Digital Realty
Benjamin Chow MSCI
Benjamin Chow, Head of Real Estate Research, Asia, MSCI
Ai Leen Tang, Wong & Partners
Ai Leen Tang, Partner, Wong & Partners, a member firm of Baker McKenzie

Malaysia has seen a flurry of digital infrastructure investments announced recently by tech giants including Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Nvidia, Oracle, and ByteDance; and telecom providers Singtel, Telekom Malaysia, and Japan’s NTT; as well as data centre operators such as Princeton Digital Group, STT GDC, and Bridge Data Centres.

“What we are seeing is, real estate investors and infrastructure investors are getting more comfortable with investing in emerging markets,” said Chow. “Over the past five to ten years, data centre investments were almost exclusively within tier one markets, heavily dominated by Singapore, Australia. More recently, we still see a lot of interest in tier one markets, especially Japan and Korea, but investors are also going to many of these emerging markets…for many of them, their first port of call is Malaysia.”

Kuala Lumpur-based Tang, who is part of Wong & Partners’ real estate practice group, attributed growing investment in Johor to the government creating supporting infrastructure, tech-friendly policies; availability of land, power and water; as well as operators looking for alternatives to a restricted Singapore market.

“Because of the spillover from Singapore..you need somewhere to go,” said Tang. “Where is the most strategic location? Johor. We have the land. We are close to Singapore. We have the connectivity. The infrastructure is there. The Johor government has actually invested a lot of money in building the infrastructure to facilitate the data centre developments. I think that provides a lot of comfort for data centre investors.”

AI-Driven Growth

Outside of Malaysia, NASDAQ-listed Equinix identified the Philippines as an attractive market on the back of a growing e-commerce and digital payments, as well as state policies promoting digitisation and AI. The company in July entered the Philippines with the acquisition of three data centres, marking the country’s fourth market in the region after Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore.

“We see the Philippines’ digital economy growing at a compound annual growth rate of 20 percent,” said Koh. “It will reach $35 billion by 2025 and is driven by a couple of things: high internet penetration, booming e-commerce and digital payments, and government initiatives. And of course, AI. They are empowering the use of AI with the national AI strategy and AI roadmap.”

While data centre demand in the region is still mainly driven by cloud usage, growing AI adoption is fueling capacity expansion throughout the region, with Koh pointing to the technology as becoming a mainstream offering in the medium to long term.

That view was echoed by Chow, who sees Southeast Asia benefiting from the growth of AI, which has fewer location constraints than cloud applications.

“AI is probably more relevant for Southeast Asia as opposed to more mature markets like Japan and Korea, which are primarily driven by cloud much more than AI,” said Chow. “It’s much more expensive and difficult to build data centres in these markets compared to Southeast Asia, where you have a lot more government support and lower cost of land and labor. On top of that, the AI data centres need not be as close to the end users as cloud data centres. So broadly speaking, we think AI is much more relevant for many of these emerging markets, especially Southeast Asia.”

Mingtiandi’s 2024 Data Centre Forum continues next week with an interview with Digital Realty Asia Pacific managing director Serene Nah on Tuesday, 15 October before concluding on Thursday, 17 October with a panel focused on the Japan and Korea markets featuring speakers from ESR, DC Byte and Gaw Capital Partners.

Share this now

  • LinkedIn
  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Email

Filed Under: Events Tagged With: Baker McKenzie, daily-sp, Data centres, Equinix, Featured, Johor Bahru, Malaysia, MSCI, MTD TV, MTD TV Video

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Get Mingtiandi Delivered

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

MTD TV

Kelvin Lim LHN
Centurion, LHN, TAP, HOMA See Rental Demand Boosting Yields in Asia’s Living Sector
Alessandro Fiascaris Oxford Properties
Oxford, Ivanhoe, Savills, PropertyGuru Predict APAC Buying Opportunities at Singapore Forum

More MTD TV Videos>>

People in the News

Raymond Lee Paul Hastings
Law Partner Picks Up Hong Kong Home of Former Birmingham City Boss for $37M
Teo Chee Hean Temasek
Asia Real Estate People in the News 2025-06-09
Lincoln Pan Jardines
Asia Real Estate People in the News 2025-06-02
Donald CHOI Chinachem
Former Chinachem CEO Donald Choi Named Managing Director of Hong Kong’s URA

More Industry Professionals>>

Latest Stories

Stuart Gibson, ESR Group Co-founder and Co-CEO
ESR to De-List as Shareholders Approve $7B Buyout by Starwood, SSW, Sixth Street Consortium
Colin Lam Henderson
Henderson Signs US Trader to Record Lease in Hong Kong Waterfront Project
Dugald Marr
Nuveen Raises $421M for Australia Real Estate Debt Fund With Fresh Capital From CPPIB

Sponsored Features

How to Create a Win-Win for Investors and Occupiers
Lingeage Logistics Cold Storage Complex
Mount Maunganui Cold Storage Facility for Sale
7 in 10 Senior Directors Confident in Data Centres, but Talent Shortage Will Widen

More Sponsored Features>>

Connect with Mingtiandi

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Real Estate News

  • Capital Markets
  • Mingtiandi 2025 Event Calendar
  • MTD TV Archives
  • People
  • Logistics
  • Data Centres
  • Asia Outbound
  • Retail

More Mingtiandi

  • About Mingtiandi
  • Contact Mingtiandi
  • Mingtiandi Memberships
  • Newsletter Subscription
  • Advertise
  • Terms of Use
  • Privacy
  • Join the Mingtiandi Team


© 2007-2025 China Advertising Media Ltd (Samoa). All rights reserved.

We use cookies in accordance with our Privacy policy to provide the best user experience on Mingtiandi and to safeguard user data. By continuing to browse you consent to the policy. AcceptRefuse