How These Asian Billionaires Are Riding The Data Center Boom

Forbes

The buildout of AI infrastructure in the Asia-Pacific is in high gear. Masayoshi Son and Mukesh Ambani are among the region's wealthiest taking the lead.  Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanburgos/2025/11/05/the-asian-billionaires-riding-the-data-center-boom/  Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1  Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:  https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript  Stay Connected Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes More From Forbes:  http://forbes.com  Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.

Transcript

00:00Today on Forbes, the Asian Billionaires Riding the Data Center Boom

00:05Nestled in the foothills of Mount Pulai in Malaysia's southern state of Johor,

00:11and surrounded by palm oil plantations, four windowless single-story buildings

00:15amid a steady drone 24-7. This comes from powerful supercomputers simultaneously running

00:22cloud computing and artificial intelligence applications, some using NVIDIA's most advanced

00:28GB200 chips. Capable of processing 1.8 terabytes of information per second, these GPUs are housed

00:36in a 20-megawatt facility within a 664-hectare data center park operated by YTL Power International,

00:44the utility unit of Malaysian Tycoon Francis EO's YTL conglomerate. Inside the building are three

00:52meter-tall fans blowing cold air onto rows of server racks interconnected by kilometers of

00:58cables. Two years ago, the American chip giant announced a $4.3 billion plan to develop AI

01:06infrastructure with YTL and Johor, of which $2.4 billion has already been spent, building 200

01:13megawatts of data center capacity. The high-profile collaboration vindicated YTL's 2021 bet on the

01:20business. In a video call from the group's headquarters in Kuala Lumpur, Yio Kiong Han, YTL Power's executive

01:27director and the elder Yio's nephew, recalls, quote, People said we were crazy to think we could

01:34build the equivalent of Singapore's total data center capacity in Johor. YTL's timing was fortuitous,

01:41dovetailing with Malaysia's ambitions to become a digital hub, and Johor, blessed with plentiful land,

01:47electricity, and water, key essentials for data centers, emerged as a hotspot. At the Sedanak

01:54Tech Park, 28 kilometers northwest of the YTL complex, Malaysian billionaire Robert Kwok's K2

02:00strategic, helmed by his 42-year-old grandson Kwok Mengwei, aims to quadruple its data center capacity

02:07in Malaysia to 240 megawatts in a few years. After a meeting with NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang

02:15and YTL Power Managing Director Yio Siakhang at the APEC Summit in South Korea last month,

02:22Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said, quote, Malaysia aims to become a leading AI nation by 2030,

02:29leveraging AI to boost productivity, enhance public services, and build a sustainable,

02:34inclusive, and ethical digital economy. The country's aspiration to overtake neighboring

02:39Singapore in data center capacity, which analysts forecast could be achieved over the next five

02:45years, is fueled by the AI boom that, in turn, has sparked a frenzied global build-out of AI

02:51infrastructure. While the U.S. has sprinted ahead, the Asia-Pacific region is catching up,

02:57according to Chicago-based real estate consultancy Cushman & Wakefield.

03:01Global tech giants including Amazon, Google, and Microsoft are pouring an estimated $240 billion

03:08in the next five years to expand their hyperscale footprint in the Asia-Pacific.

03:14This massive outlay, together with investments by regional players, is expected to more than

03:18double data center capacity across the region to more than 29 gigawatts by 2030, from 12 gigawatts

03:25in 2024, according to Cushman & Wakefield. By the end of the decade, the region could well be the

03:31world's second-largest data center market, next only to the 32 gigawatts capacity that will be created

03:37in the Americas. Drawn by the potential, several of Asia's leading tycoons and conglomerates have

03:44jumped into the race. In India, Gautam Adhani's flagship Adhani Enterprises, together with Alphabet's

03:51Google, is investing $15 billion over the next five years to develop what it claims will be the

03:56country's largest data center campus in the southeastern state of Andhra Pradesh. No less

04:02ambitious is the plan by India's richest person, Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries, to build a

04:08one-gigawatt AI data center in the western Indian state of Gujarat, as it develops AI platforms with

04:14Google and Facebook parent meta-platforms. In August, Ambani told shareholders, quote,

04:20we are making all of our businesses AI-native, positioning them for hyper-growth.

04:26High-profile collaborations are being forged across the region. South Korea was in the spotlight

04:32earlier this year when Chips billionaire Chae Tae-won's SK Group teamed up with Amazon Web Services

04:38to invest $5 billion to build a data center in Ulsan, an automotive industry hub south of Seoul.

04:44Kim Byung-soo's messaging app, Kakao, which forged a partnership with chat-GPT owner OpenAI,

04:52is building a $438 million facility northeast of the capital.

04:57JY Lee's semiconductor giant Samsung Electronics is developing memory chips for OpenAI

05:02and jointly building data centers in the country. In Taiwan, Terry Goh's Foxconn and NVIDIA

05:08are investing $1.4 billion to build a 100-megawatt AI data center.

05:14For full coverage, check out Jonathan Burgos' piece on Forbes.com.

05:21This is Kieran Meadows from Forbes. Thanks for tuning in.

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended