AirTrunk—the data centre operator founded by Australian billionaire Robin Khuda—is spending 12 billion ringgit ($3 billion) to build two new data centres with a combined capacity of 280 megawatts in Malaysia, doubling down its bet on one of Southeast Asia’s fastest-growing digital economies.
The two new projects, which will be built in the southern Malaysian state of Johor, will raise AirTrunk’s total investments in the country to 27 billion ringgit across four data centres with over 700 megawatts in total capacity, the Sydney-based company said in a statement.
“Malaysia has set a clear ambition to lead in AI,” Robin Khuda, founder and CEO of AirTrunk, said in the statement. “We’re investing in that vision for the long term, both within Johor and across the country in time.”
Since Singapore imposed strictures on new data centre projects in 2021 (after lifting a moratorium that started in 2019), Malaysia has emerged as Southeast Asia’s digital infrastructure hotspot. The data centre market in the country is projected to reach more than $11 billion by 2031 from about $6 billion last year, according to a report published by Research and Markets in January.
Founded in 2015 by Bangladesh-born Khuda, AirTrunk has become one of the biggest data centre operators across the Asia Pacific with major presence in Australia and Japan. AirTrunk’s Malaysian expansion comes after announcing the proposed acquisition of Lumina CloudInfra, which has 600 megawatts of data centre projects in India and a development potential of up to $5 billion.
Lumina was founded by U.S. private equity giant Blackstone, which also holds a significant stake in AirTrunk.
With an estimated net worth of $2.1 billion according to Forbes’ real-time data, Khuda is among the wealthiest in Australia. He kept a small but valuable stake in AirTrunk after a consortium led by Blackstone and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board acquired the company in a deal valued at $16 billion in 2024.
This article was originally published on forbes.com and all figures are in USD.
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