AIMS Group: Budget 2018 Wishlist for the Data Centre Industry

In a data rich world where everything is captured, saved and shared, data centres are the digital age manufacturers. The growing demand for data storage globally has opened up borders as global companies look towards Asia to store their data for their Asian customers.

However high operations costs, continues to hinder the growth and lessen the attractiveness of Malaysian data centres. Energy makes up approximately 40 percent of operation costs for a data centre. The current tariff is much higher than in Singapore. This has made us less attractive as the choice for Asia and has led to us losing out on significant collaborations with international brands.

We hope the government will reclassify the data centre industry as a manufacturer to bring down the tariff of power for the industry which will lower the cost of our operations. These savings will be passed on to our customers, making Malaysia more attractive and economically viable option for global investment.

In order for Malaysia to become a World-class Data Centre Hub as per the aspirations under Pemandu’s EPP 3, it is necessary that this reclassification is awarded to the data centre industry. Otherwise we risk losing our attractiveness in the global market looking to store their data in Asia.