A Singaporean operator closed RM5.6 billion in green financing for its Johor campus this week. The state now leads Asia-Pacific’s data centre pipeline — while Kuala Lumpur builds out tokenised payment infrastructure in parallel.
On 13 August, ST Telemedia Global Data Centres confirmed a green financing facility of up to US$1.37 billion — roughly RM5.6 billion — to fund the expansion of its flagship Malaysian campus in Johor. The site is designed for up to 166 megawatts and is aimed squarely at cloud, AI and high-performance computing workloads.
The facility was arranged by a bank syndicate with UOB Malaysia as sole coordinator and mandated lead arranger, alongside OCBC Malaysia, Standard Chartered Malaysia and CIMB. Renewable energy accounted for 83.2 per cent of the group’s electricity consumption in 2025, according to its latest ESG report.
It is the most recent entry in a dense run of commitments — and a signal that capital for Malaysian compute now prices on terms that would have been implausible three years ago.
The numbers behind the build
The Knight Frank Data Centre Atlas 2026 identifies Johor as the fastest-growing market in Asia-Pacific. The state carries the region’s largest incoming pipeline at 8,542 megawatts and the lowest colocation vacancy rate at just 0.7 per cent — a reading that points to unusually tight demand from hyperscalers and enterprise customers.
Johor’s data centre market is valued at US$39.11 billion (RM159.9 billion), making it the second-largest in Asia-Pacific behind Japan. On live IT capacity, the state ranks third at 1,110 megawatts, behind Tokyo (1,473 MW) and Singapore (1,118 MW).
Disclosed data centre-related land transactions in the first half of 2026 totalled RM1.02 billion across 163.6 acres. Among them was an RM12.7 billion commitment from an Australian hyperscale specialist to build two new facilities adding 280 megawatts of capacity.
Knight Frank executive director Justin Chee frames the shift plainly: what started as a secondary market serving Singapore has matured into a regional hub in its own right.
The second cluster: Cyberjaya
Johor takes the headlines, but a second node is thickening in Selangor. As of January 2026, Cyberjaya hosted more than 20 data centres and draws hyperscalers including AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.
AIMS Data Centre — the data centre arm of TIME dotCom, with DigitalBridge as a shareholder — acquired around ten acres from Cyberview in February for an AI-focused facility of up to 200 megawatts, representing roughly RM4 billion in capital investment and targeted for completion in 2027. Since DigitalBridge took a stake in 2023, AIMS has invested more than RM2 billion in Malaysian capacity.
June brought a state-backed entrant. Selangor Industrial Corporation, a subsidiary of state development agency PKNS, signed a joint venture with Data Centre Union to develop a 65-megawatt facility in Cyberjaya valued at RM2.5 billion. Bundled into the deal: training for 500 Nvidia-certified engineers annually.
Nationally, Malaysia counts roughly 51 operational colocation data centres. The market was valued at US$6.14 billion in 2025 and is projected to reach US$11.40 billion by 2031.
Why this matters for crypto
Two connections stand out.
First, the hardware side. The same class of accelerators and power architecture driving AI training clusters sits at the centre of the pivot many mining operators are making worldwide. Johor is one of very few locations in Asia offering land, grid interconnection and a permitting path at gigawatt scale. Notably, fintech firm Currenc Group has already entered the sector with a 500-megawatt campus.
Second, the money side. Bank Negara Malaysia has onboarded three initiatives for 2026 under its Digital Asset Innovation Hub: B2B ringgit stablecoin settlement led by Standard Chartered Malaysia and Capital A, plus tokenised deposit pilots run by Maybank and CIMB. The central bank has said it intends to provide greater clarity on ringgit stablecoins and tokenised deposits by the end of 2026.
The overlap is worth pausing on. Standard Chartered Malaysia and CIMB appear both in the STT GDC financing syndicate and in the central bank’s stablecoin pilots. The same institutions are funding the compute and testing the settlement layer.
On the trading side, volume on licensed digital asset exchanges reached RM17.14 billion in 2025, up 23 per cent from RM13.93 billion the year before.
The outlook
Malaysia is building at both ends of the same stack: physical compute in Johor and Cyberjaya, and digital settlement infrastructure through the central bank and the Securities Commission. For operators scanning Asia for capacity, capital access and regulatory shape in one place, that is an unusually complete combination.
Primary sources
Johor / STT GDC
- Malay Mail, 13 Aug 2026: https://www.malaymail.com/news/money/2026/08/13/singapore-data-centre-operator-secures-rm56b-green-financing-for-johor-campus/231266
- The Star, 13 Aug 2026 (syndicate detail, ESG figures): https://www.thestar.com.my/business/business-news/2026/08/13/singapore-entity-secures-green-financing-for-johor-data-centre-campus
Market data
- Business Today on the Knight Frank Data Centre Atlas 2026: https://www.businesstoday.com.my/2026/07/30/johor-propels-malaysia-in-asia-pacific-as-the-regions-largest-data-centre-hub/
- Real Estate Asia, Johor pipeline and Currenc Group: https://realestateasia.com/industrial/news/johor-track-be-1gw-data-centre-market-end-2026
- Malaysia Data Center Market Report 2026–2031 (ResearchAndMarkets via BusinessWire): https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260120461807/en/Malaysia-Data-Center-Market-Investment-Analysis-Growth-Opportunities-Report-2026-2031—ResearchAndMarkets.com
Selangor / Cyberjaya
- The Edge Malaysia, SIC and DC Union: https://theedgemalaysia.com/node/807968
- w.media, joint venture detail: https://w.media/sic-and-dc-union-to-build-us-600-million-data-center-in-cyberjaya/
- Malaysian Wireless, AIMS RM4bn Cyberjaya: https://www.malaysianwireless.com/2026/02/aims-build-rm4b-200mw-ai-data-centre-cyberjaya/
Digital assets
- The Block, BNM pilots: https://www.theblock.co/post/389370/malaysias-central-bank-stablecoin-initiatives
- The Edge Malaysia, SC guidelines and DAX trading volume: https://theedgemalaysia.com/node/804271
For the desk
- Invest Johor: https://investjohor.johor.gov.my
- Bank Negara Malaysia, Digital Asset Innovation Hub: https://www.bnm.gov.my
- Knight Frank Malaysia (request the Atlas 2026 original): https://www.knightfrank.com.my
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