KUALA LUMPUR (May 30): Property developer Mah Sing Group Bhd (KL:MAHSING) announced it is setting up a joint venture to develop a data centre in Bangi, Selangor.

Mah Sing is the latest to jump on the data centre bandwagon amid expectations of strong future demand from the artificial intelligence (AI) sector.

Among other public-listed companies that have announced their own data centre ventures include YTL Power International Bhd (KL: YTLPOWR) and Sime Darby Property Bhd (KL:SIMEPROP).

Under the joint venture with Bridge Data Centres Malaysia V Sdn Bhd (BDC), Mah Sing will reserve a 17.55-acre land to develop the data centre that would consume up to 100 megawatts (MW), according to an exchange filing. The shareholding structure of the JV has yet to be finalised.

BDC — based in Singapore and mainly operates data centres in India and Malaysia — will prepare the preliminary planning and design of the project, as well as secure hyper-scale or artificial intelligence data centre customers for the data centre facilities.

“Mah Sing has earmarked 150 acres of a land bank at Southville City for further expansion into a leading Data Centre Hub with a planned capacity of up to 500 megawatts,” it said. “The collaboration with BDC... is just the beginning.”

Under the terms of the joint venture, BDC will make an initial payment of RM5 million to Mah Sing for the land reservation.

Both parties agreed that the surrounding land is valued at RM200 per sq ft. However, for the purpose of the agreement, Mah Sing stated that the reference price for the value of the land should be RM160 per sq ft.

The proposed joint venture with BDC “represents a strategic shift towards diversifying the group’s revenue streams beyond traditional property development,” said Mah Sing, which primarily develops homes, offices and retail spaces.

“The recurring income [from data centres] would create a recession-resistant business model to mitigate the risks associated with the cyclical nature of property development,” it added.

To recap, Sime Darby Property will build and lease out a hyperscale data centre at its Elmina Business Park in a deal worth RM2 billion.

According to the Ministry of Investment, Trade and Industry (Miti), it has secured a commitment by Google to invest US$2 billion (RM9.4 billion) to house Google’s first data centre and Cloud region in Malaysia.

The site of Google’s data centre will be located at Sime Darby Property's Elmina Business Park, in Greater Kuala Lumpur.

YTL Power is collaborating with Nvidia Corp to build an AI infrastructure that will be powered by Nvidia technology, with the first phase of the data centre expected to commence operations by the middle of this year.

The data centre, which will provide AI computing services, will be owned and managed by YTL Power’s 60%-owned unit YTL Communications Sdn Bhd. It will be hosted in YTL Power’s 500MW solar-powered Green Data Centre Park in Johor.