Connect with us

Published

on

A large hallway with supercomputers inside a server room data center. 

Luza Studios | E+ | Getty Images

Malaysia is emerging as a data center powerhouse in Southeast Asia and the continent more broadly as demand surges for cloud computing and artificial intelligence.

Over the past few years, the country has attracted billions of dollars in data center investments, including from tech giants like Google, Nvidia and Microsoft

Much of the investments have been in the small city of Johor Bahru, located on the border with Singapore, according to James Murphy, APAC managing director at data center intelligence company DC Byte.

“It looks like in the space of a couple of years, [Johor Bahru] alone will overtake Singapore to become the largest market in Southeast Asia from a base of essentially zero just two years ago,” he said. 

Johor Bahru was named as the fastest growing market within Southeast Asia in DC Byte’s 2024 Global Data Centre Index

Princeton Digital Group says its Johor data center campus will come into service in 6 weeks

The report said the city has 1.6 gigawatts of total data center supply, including projects under construction, committed to or in the early stages of planning. Data center capacity is typically measured by the amount of electricity it consumes.

If all planned capacity comes online across Asia, Malaysia will only be surpassed by the larger countries of Japan and India. Until then, Japan followed by Singapore currently lead the region in terms of live data center capacity. 

The index did not provide a detailed breakdown of data center capacity in China. 

Shifting demand 

Blackstone's Nadeem Meghji: Data centers are the most exciting asset class across our entire firm

Booming demand for AI services also requires specialized data centers to house the large amounts of data and computational power required to train and deploy AI models.

While many of these AI data centers will be built in established markets such as Japan, Murphy said emerging markets will also attract investments due to favorable characteristics. 

AI data centers require a lot of space, energy and water for cooling. Therefore, emerging markets such as Malaysia — where energy and land are cheap — provide advantages over smaller city-states like Hong Kong and Singapore, where such resources are limited.

Spillover from Singapore

Singtel discusses its data center expansion plans

Thus, a lot of investment and planned capacity has been redirected from Singapore to the bordering Johor Bahru over the years.

Singapore recently changed its tune and laid out a roadmap to grow its data center capacity by 300 MW on the condition more projects meet green-friendly efficiency and renewable energy standards. Such efforts have attracted investments from companies like Microsoft and Google. 

Still, Singapore is too small for wide-scale green power generation, thus there remain a lot of limitations on the market, said DC Byte’s Murphy. 

Resource strains

Data center liquid cooling is accelerating and it's accelerating now, says Vertiv CEO

Local officials are increasingly concerned about the extent of this power usage, as quoted in a recent report from The Straits Times.

Johor Bahru city council mayor Mohd Noorazam Osman reportedly said data center investments should not compromise local resource needs, given the city’s challenges with its water and power supply.

Meanwhile, a Johor Investment, Trade, and Consumer Affairs Committee official told ST that the state government would implement more guidelines on green energy use for data centers in June.

Continue Reading

Technology

Japan chip stocks extend losses as DeepSeek worries fuel Wall Street tech rout

Published

on

By

Japan chip stocks extend losses as DeepSeek worries fuel Wall Street tech rout

A sales clerk shows off Elpida Memory Inc. memory chips at an electronics shop in Tokyo, Japan, on Thursday, March 5, 2009.

Tomohiro Ohsumi | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Shares in Japan’s chip-related companies extended declines for a second day as Chinese startup DeepSeek’s AI competitiveness calls into question the United States’ leadership in the field.

Semiconductor testing equipment supplier Advantest slid over 10%, Tokyo Electron fell 3.6%, while Renesas Electronics traded 2.29% lower Tuesday.

Softbank Group, which owns chip designer Arm, slid 5.26%. Data center-related shares also continued to take a hit, with wire and cable firms Furukawa and Fujikura dropping 8.22% and 8.1%, respectively.

DeepSeek released a free, open-source large language model in late December, claiming it was created in only two months with a budget of under $6 million. Last week, the lab introduced R1, a reasoning model that outperformed OpenAI’s latest o1 in several third-party tests.

“There will be a lot more pain to follow today as we follow the U.S. down,” said Andrew Jackson, head of equity strategy at ORTUS Advisors. 

“The big questions is whether the U.S. will U-turn on their approach and deregulate chip and SPE restrictions seeing as they are (currently) ineffectual or try and ramp things up even more,” Jackson wrote in an email. DeepSeek had to navigate strict semiconductor restrictions imposed by the U.S. government on China, which limited access to advanced chips.

The Chinese artificial intelligence company aims to stand out from its competitors by focusing on its reasoning abilities, where the model creates a “chain of thought” before providing the final answer to improve the accuracy of its responses.

“DeepSeek is a risk to the U.S. exceptionalism narrative, further questioning the ‘Magnificent 7’ dominance,” Citi analysts wrote in a note.

Sell-off in chip stocks ‘quite a mistake’

Chip giant Nvidia lost almost $600 billion in market cap on Monday, logging the largest drop for a company in a single day in the U.S. The company posted its worst day in the market since March 2020 after its stock price plunged 17%. However, a rotation into more defensive areas of the U.S. market helped ease Monday’s losses.

Overnight, other chip-related shares in international markets also fell. Netherlands-based chip companies ASML and ASM International saw declines during European trading hours. Micron and Arm Holdings dropped more than 11% and 10%, respectively.

DeepSeek either builds on existing inference infrastructure, or will itself stimulate new AI demand, said Richard Kaye, an analyst at global asset management group Comgest. 

“In both cases, semiconductor intensity remains high,” Kaye told CNBC via email.

“The deep fall in semiconductor equipment stocks, Tokyo Electron, ASML, Applied Materials, is quite a mistake,” he added.

Continue Reading

Technology

Google says it will change Gulf of Mexico to ‘Gulf of America’ in Maps app after government updates

Published

on

By

Google says it will change Gulf of Mexico to 'Gulf of America' in Maps app after government updates

The Gulf of Mexico as seen on Google Maps.

Source: Google Maps

Google said Monday it will change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to “Gulf of America” in Google Maps after the Trump administration updates its “official government sources.”

The company also said it will start using the name “Mount McKinley” for the mountain in Alaska currently called Denali.

Last week, President Donald Trump signed executive actions that included an order to make the name changes on official maps and federal communications.

“We’ve received a few questions about naming within Google Maps,” the company said in an X post. “We have a longstanding practice of applying name changes when they have been updated in official government sources.”

Google added that the name Gulf of Mexico will remain displayed for users in Mexico. Users in other countries will see both names, the company said.

Trump said he will restore former President William McKinley’s name to the mountain. He said McKinley made the country “very rich” through tariffs and talent.

The mountain was named Mount McKinley until 2015, when President Barack Obama’s administration changed it to Denali as a symbolic gesture to Alaska Natives.

WATCH: President Trump ‘not afraid to go big’ on tariff threats

President Trump is 'not afraid to go big' on tariff threats, says Wolfe Research's Tobin Marcus

Continue Reading

Technology

Amazon taps Whole Foods CEO to oversee grocery business

Published

on

By

Amazon taps Whole Foods CEO to oversee grocery business

Whole Foods Market CEO Jason Buechel speaks onstage during the 2023 Concordia Annual Summit.

Leigh Vogel | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images

Amazon has tapped Whole Foods CEO Jason Buechel to oversee its sprawling grocery business, the company announced Monday.

Doug Herrington, the company’s worldwide retail chief, wrote in a memo to employees posted to Amazon’s site that Buechel will “take on an expanded responsibility leading Worldwide Grocery Stores” while continuing to lead Whole Foods. Amazon acquired the upscale grocer for $13.7 billion in 2017.

“In his time as CEO, Jason has unlocked our ability to make high-quality natural and organic groceries more affordable and accessible to customers, helping WFM achieve record sales growth and expand to over 535 locations,” Herrington said.

Buechel became CEO of Whole Foods in 2022 after co-founder John Mackey retired from the company. In his expanded role leading Amazon’s grocery business, Buechel will succeed Tony Hoggett, who left Amazon last October to join Wonder, a food delivery startup led by serial entrepreneur Marc Lore.

Buechel will oversee not only Whole Foods, but also Amazon’s larger grocery business, which includes its line of Fresh supermarkets, Go cashierless stores and online grocery service. Buechel will report to Herrington, who is one of the closest executives to Jassy and serves on the S-team, a tight-knit group of more than a dozen senior executives from almost all areas of Amazon’s business.

Amazon has long been determined to cement itself as a grocery destination for shoppers. Since acquiring Whole Foods, it has launched its own chain of Fresh supermarkets, and it has taken steps to unify its online and brick-and-mortar grocery operations while appealing to a broader swath of consumers.

Herrington said he is “incredibly energized” by the momentum of Amazon’s grocery business.

“Since creating a single WW Grocery Stores organization in 2022, we have made notable progress in our vision to make grocery shopping simpler, faster, and more affordable for customers,” Herrington wrote in the memo. “We’ve taken steps to integrate our huge grocery selection across our broader logistics network, and create a more seamless experience for customers, especially Prime members. This work will continue under Jason’s leadership.”

The company has further tweaked its grocery division in recent years by shuttering some Fresh and Go stores as part of Jassy’s broader cost-cutting efforts. Last April, Amazon said it would begin removing its pricey and elaborate cashierless checkout system from Fresh stores in the U.S. Instead, it has focused on selling the technology, called Just Walk Out, to third-party retailers.

Amazon has also brought its Fresh and Whole Foods grocery businesses closer together since the 2017 acquisition. The company last October began piloting a new concept at one of its Whole Foods locations outside of Philadelphia, where it attached an automated warehouse onto the store that lets Amazon shoppers purchase goods from brands not typically stocked at the organic grocer.

Don’t miss these insights from CNBC PRO

Continue Reading

Trending