Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB) will provide high voltage electricity supply to GDS IDC Services (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd’s first data centre campus in the country via a strategic partnership.

TNB president and chief executive officer Datuk Baharin Din said in a statement today that TNB and GDS’ common goals and ambitions for a greener future offer great potential for both parties and Malaysians.

The collaboration supports GDS’ aspiration to become the first data centre company to achieve carbon neutrality with 100 per cent use of renewable energy by 2030, he said.

The collaboration, via an Electricity Supply Agreement (ESA) sealed in October 2022, aims to fulfil GDS’s data centre campus power requirement at the Nusajaya Tech Park in Johor Bahru.

The collaboration is one of many initiatives to accelerate Malaysia’s digital economic growth, further driven by a rise in usage of cloud-based services, the Internet of Things, big data analytics and the rapid pace of regional digitalisation, he said.

The data centre begins operations in July 2023 via a 16MW interim supply with plans underway to ensure that a maximum demand rise of 85.5MW will be delivered this year.

Baharin said TNB is complementing the government’s foreign investment-friendly policies to nurture a healthy data centre market to help the industry achieve its business objectives. — BERNAMA