Google adds $15 billion in Malaysia as data centers shift from Singapore

Back in 2019, Singapore told data center companies to stop building there, so they went across a one-kilometer causeway and built in Malaysia instead. That little corner of Malaysia now has about 50 times the data center capacity it had in 2021, and today Google dropped another $15 billion into the country. America is running the exact same experiment right now, just way bigger. The place across the causeway is called Johor. It had about 10 megawatts of data centers at the start of 2021. By 2025 it had close to 500 megawatts running and another 1.7 gigawatts either under construction or signed. One operator who'd bought land in both Johor and Batam, Indonesia during Singapore's freeze said they started building in Johor first because Malaysia's approvals came through faster. Fast…

Voters approved 43 of 44 local ballot measures to restrict data centers on Tuesday, many with more than 70% support. Brad Carson, who heads the Anthropic-backed Public First super PAC network, says the issue will likely dominate the 2028 cycle. Read more about the midterm blue wave: