Malaysia’s information and communication sector drew $32.5 billion in cumulative foreign investment by the first quarter of 2026. Southeast Asia’s data-center boom is intensifying demand for land, electricity, water and reliable connectivity. That amount represented 12% of total inbound investment, compared with $11 billion, or 5% of total foreign investment, in the first quarter of 2023. Projects promise to power cloud computing and artificial intelligence, but local impacts and resource demands are drawing opposition.
Investment and resource demands
The Malaysian Investment Development Authority said $96 billion in data-center and cloud-computing projects received approval between 2021 and the first quarter of 2026, including $24 billion in the first half of 2026. These are approvals, not realized investment. Whether demand will justify the planned outlays remains an open question in the source article, which also points to the land, electricity and water facilities need to operate.
Malaysia’s policy guidance, infrastructure and proximity to land-constrained Singapore have helped attract development. Activity has gathered around the Johor-Singapore Special Economic Zone. Countries with suitable infrastructure, affordable inputs and investor-friendly regulation are attracting data-center projects, which also need access to subsea cable networks.
Indonesia is developing facilities around Batam to serve Singapore’s demand. Batam’s Nongsa Digital Park Special Economic Zone offers eligible projects tax and other fiscal incentives, while subsea cable connectivity has supported new construction. Around Jakarta, state-backed Telkom and private-sector firms and investors are developing large industrial-scale data centers.
Indonesia’s current data-center capacity stands at about 580 MW, and the country plans to reach 1.3 GW in the near term. Government data showed investment in information services rose from $967 million in 2023 to $3.4 billion in 2025. Those figures describe growing investment and capacity, while the article raises broader questions about whether expected demand will justify the resources and spending involved.
Thailand’s Board of Investment received applications in 2025 worth $24 billion across 151 digital-industry projects, mainly data centers. Not all will win approval or become operational. Vietnam’s government plans to reach 870 MW of data-center capacity by 2030, local media reported.
Corporate expansion and supply chains
Samsung is moving beyond chips with a $1 billion investment in Helix Digital Infrastructure, a new AI infrastructure company backed by global investment firm KKR. Six Samsung affiliates are taking part. The investment is described as a bet on infrastructure powering the global AI boom.
Meta Platforms, Facebook’s parent, signed AI infrastructure agreements with Australia’s Firmus for graphics processing unit compute capacity at Firmus data-center facilities in Southeast Asia. Firmus said the agreements provide contracted capacity and expansion options built on Nvidia’s full-stack DSX platform, supporting Meta’s AI research, model development and training. Financial terms weren’t disclosed.
The Meta agreement builds on its existing deployment of Nvidia GB300 NVL72 systems at Firmus’ Melbourne data center, described as the largest deployment of Blackwell Ultra systems in the Southern Hemisphere. Firmus designs, manufactures and operates AI factories for large-scale workloads and is preparing for a $5 billion initial public offering to fund AI-project growth; it could be Australia’s second-largest IPO.
Samsung Electronics Executive Vice President Kim Taewoo said high-bandwidth memory is expected to account for nearly 30% of DRAM chipmakers’ total wafer capacity next year, up from about 20% currently. HBM and standard DRAM compete for the same wafer capacity, he said, so increased HBM output could constrain standard DRAM supply. South Korea’s SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics, along with U.S.-based Micron Technology, dominate the market.
Local opposition grows
Nikkei Asia reported that unprecedented investment had left AI infrastructure providers’ order books bursting and pushed production to the maximum. Its report opened at a Silicon Valley gathering of thousands of suppliers, three days after Anthropic chief Dario Amodei triggered debate that month about slowing frontier AI development and AI-related stocks fell.
Local opposition to rapid AI data-center expansion is growing, too. Nikkei Asia’s Tech Latest host Chris Nuttall spoke with Tokyo tech correspondent Tsubasa Suruga about communities pushing back and how governments and developers are responding to concerns about power, water and transparency. The episode featured the report “‘Red-hot’ data center boom fuels public backlash across Asia.” Investment totals are clear; communities’ concerns over resources and disclosure are now part of the story.