Hyperscalers are building water treatment plants in Malaysia
To alleviate strained water supplies.
Hyperscale players are going into public works in Malaysia. Could this be the future model for large data centres?
Did you know? Data centre operators in Malaysia are starting to build water treatment plants and wastewater treatment plants.
Water treatment plant
This week, news came that Google has purchased a massive plot of land at Port Dickson for a data centre - and it's also building a water treatment plant and reservoir.
This was revealed in a Bursa Malaysia filing, where Gamuda said it has sold a 389-acre plot of land it acquired last year to Google affiliate Pearl Computing Malaysia.
In addition, it will do enabling works, including a new water treatment plant with a capacity of 65 million litres per day, and an off-river storage facility for "steady water supply."
Recycling wastewater
Last month, AirTrunk also announced a landmark partnership with JSW to recycle wastewater for its Johor data centres.
It will essentially work with a state-owned enterprise to jointly develop a recycled water treatment plant to supply recycled water to AirTrunk's Johor data centres.
Developing water resources
As I wrote earlier, the rapid rise of data centres in Malaysia has badly strained water supplies.
This prompted Malaysia's main water regulator to announce new guidelines for data centres' water use, to come in force by the middle of this year.
I've been told that Malaysia has abundant water resources. However, the issue is to develop it for use, which is a different - and trickier - proposition.
This appears to be what large data centre operators like Google and AirTrunk are doing in Malaysia now. Who will make another announcement next?
