Chinese-developed artificial intelligence models, such as the recently unveiled DeepSeek-R1 by Chinese startup DeepSeek, are expected to strengthen Malaysia’s drive to become a regional data center hub. Juwai IQI, an international real estate and investment firm, stated on Tuesday that this development will help sustain, and potentially increase, the demand for land suitable for data centers in Malaysia’s property market.
Kashif Ansari, Co-Founder and CEO of Juwai IQI Group, pointed out that Malaysia’s favorable infrastructure and business environment, combined with data center projects largely designed to be AI-compatible, give the country a significant competitive advantage. “Not all data centers are suitable for the forthcoming AI boom, but Malaysia is well-positioned for a world where AI dominates data center development,” he said. Ansari further emphasized that traditional data centers—originally built to support enterprise IT, cloud computing, and general-purpose workloads—are not optimized for the higher power, cooling, and networking requirements that AI demands.
Malaysia’s advantages, including relatively low land and energy costs, a skilled workforce, robust digital infrastructure, government incentives, and connectivity to key markets such as Singapore, ASEAN, and China, make the country an attractive destination for data center development. These factors are expected to further enhance Malaysia’s global competitiveness in data center projects supported by Chinese-developed artificial intelligence models.