Oracle invests USD $6.5 billion in AI & cloud in Malaysia

Oracle has announced plans to invest more than USD $6.5 billion in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and cloud computing services in Malaysia. This strategic move will see the establishment of a new public cloud region, marking Oracle Cloud Infrastructure's (OCI) 12th public cloud region in the Asia Pacific.

The development will provide Oracle customers and partners in Malaysia with the opportunity to utilise advanced AI infrastructure and services, including the migration of mission-critical workloads to OCI. This investment aligns with Oracle's strategy to expand its cloud presence and offer innovative technology solutions to businesses in the region.

According to the announcement, the public cloud region will facilitate the modernisation of applications, data analytics, and AI-driven innovation. Customers will gain access to OCI Generative AI Agents utilizing retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) capabilities, enhanced computing capabilities, and the OCI Supercluster, touted as the largest AI supercomputer in the cloud. The deployment will feature up to 131,072 NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs among other high-performance components.

A wide array of over 150 services, including the Oracle Autonomous Database, MySQL Database Service HeatWave, Oracle Cloud VMware Solution, OCI Kubernetes Engine, and the Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications Suite, will also be available. These offerings aim to provide comprehensive infrastructure, platform, or software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions to customers in Malaysia.

The Malaysian Minister of Investment, Trade, and Industry, YB Senator Tengku Datuk Seri Utama Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz, welcomed the investment, emphasising its significance in empowering local entities. He noted, "This investment will empower Malaysian entities, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, with innovative and cutting-edge AI and cloud technologies to enhance their global competitiveness." He added that Oracle's expansion underscores the readiness of Malaysia's infrastructure and its emerging role as a prime destination for digital investments in Southeast Asia.

Garrett Ilg, Executive Vice President and General Manager for Japan & Asia Pacific at Oracle, reiterated Oracle's commitment to Malaysia as a strategic regional hub. "Malaysia offers unique growth opportunities for organisations looking to accelerate their expansion with the latest digital technologies," he remarked.

Industry insights from Franco Chiam, Vice President of Cloud, Data Centre and Future Digital Infrastructure at IDC, underscore the increasing demand for data centres capable of supporting AI ventures. He highlighted that Malaysia's public cloud services market is projected to grow by 27.2% CAGR from 2022 to 2027, which points to the country's potential as a technological innovation hub in Southeast Asia.

The new cloud region, through its low-latency connections, aims to support local clients in data handling and application management, while meeting national regulations for data residency. By providing OCI's sovereign AI capabilities, Oracle aims to ensure that its customers have enhanced control over data location and management, allowing for aligned AI usage under digital sovereignty frameworks.

NVIDIA's Senior Director for the ASEAN and ANZ region, Dennis Ang, noted the importance of Oracle's move in Malaysia. "With the new Oracle Cloud Malaysia Region, customers in Malaysia will gain local access to NVIDIA's accelerated, secure, and scalable platform for end-to-end AI development and deployment on OCI," he said.