On August 31, 2021, the Google company logo hung outside one of its offices.
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Google It said on Thursday it would invest US$2 billion in Malaysia as demand for artificial intelligence and cloud services grows, part of which will be used to build the country’s first data center and cloud region.
Ruth Porat, president, chief financial officer and chief information officer of Alphabet and Google, said in a statement: “This investment builds on our work with the Malaysian government to advance its cloud-first policy. ‘, including best-in-class cybersecurity standards.
Porat added that the investment will be Google’s largest investment in Malaysia to date in the country’s 13 years of operations.
The data center will power Google’s digital services such as search, maps and workspaces, while the cloud area will serve public and private sector companies and organizations. Google has also launched two AI literacy programs in the country targeting students and educators.
These investments and programs are expected to contribute more than US$3.2 billion to Malaysia’s GDP by 2030 and support 26,500 jobs.
The US technology giant said the Malaysian cloud region is the latest addition to Google’s global network of 40 regions and 121 zones.
This is after Microsoft Earlier this month it said it would Invested US$2.2 billion in Malaysia Driving new cloud and AI infrastructure. This year the company also announced investments in Indonesia and Thailand.
Tech giants such as Google and Microsoft have pledged billions of dollars to Southeast Asia to tap growing demand for artificial intelligence and cloud computing services.
The boom in artificial intelligence has increased the demand for cloud computing services and data centers, because training artificial intelligence models requires large amounts of data, and the cloud provides access to large data sets. A data center is a facility that contains the servers and other infrastructure needed to store data and run applications or services.
“Google’s US$2 billion investment in Malaysia will significantly advance our New Industrial Master Plan 2030”, Minister of Investment, Trade and Industry and YB Senator Tunku Datuk Seri Utama Zafrul Aziz said in a press release.
The minister added that Google’s investment would enable the manufacturing and service industries to “move upstream in the global industrial chain” by leveraging artificial intelligence and other advanced technologies.
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