Malaysia’s palm oil estates earmarked for data centres amid . . . Once a colonial-era crop, palm oil has grown into a global consumer staple found in nearly half of all supermarket products To keep up with rising demand, palm companies turned to deforestation, particularly in Malaysia and Indonesia, where vast stretches of tropical rainforest have been cleared to make way for plantations
Malaysia Turns Palm Oil Plantations into AI Data Centers and . . . Malaysia is transforming oil palm plantations into data centers and solar farms to meet AI and cloud computing demands, driven by environmental scrutiny on the palm oil industry With $34 billion in investments from tech giants like Google and Microsoft, it aims to lead Southeast Asia's digital infrastructure However, challenges include energy shortages, water usage, and limited local
Malaysia’s New AI Frontier: Palm Oil Estates Pivot to Data . . . Palm oil estates, controlling more private land than any other sector, saw an opportunity Why Palm Oil Producers Are Entering the AI Race Data centres are “power and land hogs,” expected to require at least 5 gigawatts of electricity by 2035, or nearly 20% of Malaysia’s current generation capacity