AWS launches Infrastructure Region in Malaysia with US$6.2bil investment through to 2037

• Higher investment than the US$5.8bil first announced in 2023
• Add about US$12.1 bil to GDP, support 3.5k jobs at external businesses annually

It’s making a bigger commitment to Malaysia. Amazon Web services (AWS) an Amazon.com, Inc. company first announced the launch of its AWS Asia Pacific (Malaysia) Region in March 2023 and estimated the investment to be US$5.82 billion (RM25.5 billion) through to 2037.

Today however it announced that AWS is planning to invest an estimated US$6.2 billion (RM29.2 billion) in Malaysia through 2038.

Prasad Kalyanaraman (pic), vice president of Infrastructure Services at AWS said, “The new AWS Region in Malaysia enables organizations across Asia Pacific to unlock the full potential of the world’s most extensive and reliable cloud, helping customers deploy advanced applications with a broad set of AWS technologies like AI and ML. With today’s launch, AWS is proud to support Malaysia’s digital transformation and help accelerate its role as a regional hub for AI.”

AWS Regions are composed of Availability Zones that place infrastructure in separate and distinct geographic locations. The AWS Asia Pacific (Malaysia) Region consists of three Availability Zones located far enough from each other to support customers’ business continuity, but near enough to provide low latency for high availability applications that use multiple Availability Zones.

DNA can confirm that two of its three data centers are located in Cyberjaya and Technology Park Malaysia, both within the Klang Valley, with the third also set to be located in the Klang Valley.

[Ed: An earlier version incorrectly said the third data centre is to be located in Johor.]

According to AWS, starting today, developers, startups, entrepreneurs, and enterprises, as well as government, education, and nonprofit organizations, will have greater choice for running their applications and serving end users from AWS data centers located in Malaysia.

It already has a number of top tier companies as its customers including Bursa Malaysia, CelcomDigi, GX Bank Bhd, PayNet, Petroliam Nasional Bhd and Tenaga Nasional Bhd. Some government departments are users as well including the Department of Broadcasting Malaysia.

Just as how enterprise tech vendors such as IBM, Microsoft, HP, Cisco use partners in overseas markets to help them with sales, Amazon has adopted the same model with its AWS Partner Network (APN) which includes tens of thousands of independent software vendors (ISVs) and systems integrators (SIs) around the world. Currently two Malaysian startups, Aerodyne and Tapway, are part of the APN.

Sharing data from an economic impact study it commissioned, AWS said the construction and operation of the new AWS Region is estimated to add approximately US$12.1 billion (RM57.3 billion) to Malaysia’s gross domestic product (GDP) and will support an average of more than 3,500 full-time equivalent jobs at external businesses annually through 2038.

These jobs, including construction, facility maintenance, engineering, telecommunications, and others within the country’s broader economy, will be part of the AWS supply chain in Malaysia.

“The launch of an AWS infrastructure Region in Malaysia provides access to new and emerging technology for Malaysian entities and businesses of all sizes, boosting our country’s capabilities for digital innovation,” said Tengku Zafrul, Minister of Investment Trade & Industry (MITI).

“This milestone is a significant step towards fulfilling the vision of Malaysia’s New Industrial Master Plan 2030 to build a highly skilled, innovative, prosperous, inclusive, and sustainable economy. We recognize the transformative power of digitalization, cloud computing and AI as key drivers in Malaysia’s effort to become a manufacturing and services hub within Asia. As the largest investment made by an international technology company in Malaysia, the AWS infrastructure Region will help ensure Malaysia remains competitive on the global stage,” Zafrul said. 

Since its direct presence in Malaysia in 2017, AWS Malaysia claims it has trained over 100,000 individuals in Malaysia in cloud skills. AWS continues to invest in upskilling developers, students, and the next generation of IT leaders in Malaysia with cloud skills through AWS Skills to Jobs Tech Alliance and AWS Training & Certification programs like AWS Academy.

With the launch of the AWS Asia Pacific (Malaysia) Region, AWS has 108 Availability Zones across 34 geographic regions, with announced plans to launch 18 more Availability Zones and six more AWS Regions in Mexico, New Zealand, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Thailand, and the AWS European Sovereign Cloud.

Each Availability Zone has independent power, cooling, and physical security, and is connected through redundant, ultra-low-latency networks. AWS customers focused on high availability can design their applications to run in multiple Availability Zones to achieve even greater fault tolerance.

AWS offers the broadest and deepest portfolio of services, including analytics, compute, database, IoT, generative AI, ML, mobile services, storage, and other cloud technologies. Customers from startups and enterprises to public sector organizations and nonprofits will be able to use advanced technologies from the world’s leading cloud provider to drive innovation, meet data residency preferences, achieve lower latency, and serve demand for cloud services in Malaysia and across Asia Pacific.

The voracious appetite for power from the new crop of AI build data centres has also caused for demand for power in Malaysia to spike. In dealing with the high demand the Malaysian government is opening third-party access to Malaysia's electricity grid, with the launch of the Corporate Renewable Energy Supply Scheme (CRESS) from Sept. The focus is on green electricity supply.

Once introduced, buyers can negotiate directly with any renewable energy power plant for green supply, said the Ministry of Energy Transition and Water Transformation.

Amazon noted that is became the largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy in the world since 2020,

At the same time, it is working on ways to increase the energy efficiency of its data centers —optimizing data center design, investing in purpose-built chips, and innovating with new cooling technologies. A new report by Accenture, commissioned by AWS, estimates AWS’s infrastructure is up to 4.1 times more efficient than on-premises, and when workloads are optimized on AWS, the associated carbon footprint can be reduced by up to 99%.

Additionally, AWS is committed to being water positive by 2030, returning more water to communities than it uses in its direct operations.