SoftBank Plans $50 Billion AI and Data Center Push in Malaysia
3 min readSoftBank intends to invest $50 billion in Malaysia’s artificial intelligence, emerging technology and data center sectors, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said over the weekend. The figure, about RM204 billion, would rank among the largest proposed technology commitments in Southeast Asia and is several times larger than any single hyperscaler pledge Malaysia has collected so far.
SoftBank Malaysia plan: what Anwar disclosed
Anwar said he held a video conference with SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son, during which Son identified the locations for the spending: Kuching in Sarawak, on Borneo, and Peninsular Malaysia. Business Today reports that details on the implementation timeline and the funding arrangements have not been announced. SoftBank has not issued a statement of its own, so for now this is a stated intention relayed by the Malaysian government rather than a signed commitment.
Anwar framed the plan around jobs for Malaysians, especially young graduates, and said the country needs to build capability in AI, digitalisation and semiconductors, with workforce training so Malaysia can move into higher-value technology work. He added that political stability and an investment-friendly climate are what keep international confidence.
Malaysia’s AI nation push
Malaysia has already pulled in Google with $2 billion for its first data center and cloud region, Amazon Web Services with $6.2 billion through 2038, and Microsoft with $2.2 billion for cloud and AI infrastructure. The Malaysian Investment Development Authority counts RM385.7 billion, about $94 billion, in data center investment from 2021 to mid-2026, most of it in the Johor corridor across the strait from Singapore, where DayOne recently raised $3.7 billion to expand its campus. A national AI action plan targets regional leadership by 2030.
Kuching is the new element. A major campus in Sarawak would put AI capacity on Borneo, away from the crowded Johor corridor, in a state that has been courting data center builders with its own power supply.
Why it matters
For Son, this would be another enormous bet layered on top of SoftBank’s commitments to OpenAI and the Stargate build-out, this time on Southeast Asian demand and cheaper land and power. For Malaysia, it is validation of a strategy that has turned the country into the region’s default location for AI infrastructure. The open questions are the ones that decide whether any of it happens: when, in what phases, and with whose money. Son’s headline pledges have historically arrived in stages, and this one does not yet have a timeline.
Watch for a SoftBank confirmation and for the first Sarawak site details.