Equinix Malaysia unit eyes alternative energy options amid expected electricity tariff hike

KUALA LUMPUR, May 7 (Reuters) - The Malaysian unit of data centre firm Equinix said on Wednesday it is looking at various providers of alternative energy as it expects an impending increase in domestic electricity tariffs to raise its costs.

Malaysia's government has previously announced that it will increase electricity tariffs by 14.2% in July.

Various renewable energy service providers were being looked into, Equinix Malaysia managing director Cheam Tat Inn told reporters during a walkabout at the completion of the second phase of its data center in Cyberjaya.

Cheam did not specify which renewable sources or a timeline.

Equinix Malaysia has two data centres, Cyberjaya and Johor, with capacity of 4.8 megawatts and 2.4MW, respectively.

Malaysia has recently experienced a boom in data centers with projections of a quadrupling of its facilities in the next decade from the current 18. Those presently have a significant electrical demand of at least 800MW.

Technology giants including Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens new tab, Nvidia Alphabet's Google (GOOGL.O), opens new tab, China's ByteDance and Oracle (ORCL.N), opens new tab have announced billions of dollars worth of digital investments into Malaysia since last year, mostly in cloud services and data centres, powering an infrastructure boom driven by growing demand for artificial intelligence.

Cheam said the Equinix Johor data centre was fully subscribed after launching in May last year.

“For our Cyberjaya data centre, it is already filling up, our customers are already moving in,” he said.

Equinix has been expanding its presence elsewhere in Southeast Asia to tap the region's growth potential, acquiring three data centres in the Philippines last year, on top of operations in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore.