Google plans to put $15 billion into data centers and cloud services in Malaysia in 2027–2028. Alphabet’s Chief Investment Officer Ruth Porat announced this at an event in Kuala Lumpur.

The company will expand its existing computing campus in the Elmina business park in Selangor state and build new facilities in Selangor and neighboring Negeri Sembilan. The Elmina site came out of a $2 billion investment project Google announced in May 2024.

Part of the funds will go toward supplying the data centers with water and electricity and toward training specialists. Separately, Google will finance a $160 million reservoir and water treatment plant in Negeri Sembilan. They are meant to supply 65 million liters of drinking water a day for the data center and nearby communities.

By Google’s estimate, building the campuses will support more than 37,000 jobs a year in Malaysia and add about $1.1 billion to the country’s economy. Once in operation, the facilities are expected to provide jobs for more than 9,000 people.

Malaysia has become one of Southeast Asia’s main data center hubs thanks to relatively low costs, developed infrastructure and proximity to Singapore. Oracle, Amazon, Alibaba and ByteDance are expanding their presence there, and the combined stated capacity of planned facilities exceeds 6 GW.

Large data center projects also increase pressure on local resources. In India, construction of Google’s $15 billion center sparked protests over water supply concerns, and on Indonesia’s Batam island residents complained of water outages as such facilities expanded. In Malaysia, the company has built water infrastructure funding into its own investment plan.