Google The company said on Thursday it would invest $2 billion in Malaysia amid growing demand for its AI and cloud services, with part of the money going towards building the country’s first data center and cloud region.
“This investment builds on our partnership with the Malaysian government to advance its Cloud First policy, which includes best-in-class cybersecurity standards,” Ruth Porat, president, CFO and CIO of Alphabet and Google, said in a statement.
Porat added that the investment would be Google’s largest ever in the 13 years it has been operating in Malaysia.
The data centres will power Google’s digital services such as Search, Maps and Workspaces, while the cloud space will serve businesses and organisations across the public and private sectors.Google has also launched two AI literacy programmes in India for students and educators.
These investments and programs are expected to contribute more than $3.2 billion to Malaysia’s GDP and support 26,500 jobs by 2030.
US tech giant Google said the Malaysian cloud region is the latest addition to its network of 40 regions and 121 zones around the world.
this is Microsoft announced earlier this month Investing $2.2 billion in Malaysia The company also announced investments in Indonesia and Thailand this year to drive new cloud and AI infrastructure.
Technology giants such as Google and Microsoft have pledged to pour billions of dollars into Southeast Asia to capitalize on growing demand for AI and cloud computing services.
The AI boom is driving demand for cloud computing services and data centers, which are facilities that store data and contain the servers and other infrastructure needed to run applications and services, because training AI models requires large amounts of data and the cloud provides access to huge datasets.
“Google’s $2 billion investment in Malaysia will be a major step forward in our digital strategy.” New Industry Master Plan 2030” YB Senator and Minister of Investment, Trade and Industry Zahur Aziz said in a press release.
He added that Google’s investment would enable manufacturing and service industries to harness AI and other advanced technologies and “move up the global chain.”