PETALING JAYA (Sept 8): Data centres make up nearly a tenth of Malaysia’s electricity consumption, according to the Energy Commission, with demand for power expected to pick up further by the end of the year.
Electricity consumption by data centres has risen to 9.28% of total consumption, said EC chief executive officer Siti Safinah Salleh, adding that the warmer weather also saw cooling systems using more power.
More data centres expected to come online in November would also push up consumption, she noted.
Malaysia has attracted RM95.8 billion in data centre and cloud-computing projects in the first half of this year alone, the Malaysian Investment Development Authority said recently.
Most of Malaysia's data centre invesetments are concentrated in Johor. The Knight Frank Data Centre Atlas 2026 report released in July said data centres in the state had a live capacity of 1,110 megawatts (MW) and an incoming pipeline capacity at 8,542MW. Data centre capacity is often measured by the amount of power it can draw on.
By comparison, the EC's MyEnergyStats portal records Malaysia's installed electricity generation capacity at 27,333MW as of 2025, with a peak demand of 21,049MW recorded on May 28 last year.
Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Fadillah Yusof previously told Parliament in July that data centres are expected to consume around one third of Malaysia’s electricity supply by 2035. At the time, data centres accounted for 7% of electricity consumption.
The government has hinted at putting the brakes on data centre investments, with the Investment, Trade and Industry Ministry (Miti) saying projects will be approved only after ensuring that energy and water supply capacity is sufficient.
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