Malaysia’s gas-guzzling data centre boom clashes with its clean energy goals

Malaysia has staked its economic future on becoming Southeast Asia’s data-centre capital. It has also promised to slash fossil fuel use by 2050. Right now, those two ambitions are pulling in opposite directions – and gas is winning.
There were 54 operational data centres across Malaysia by the end of 2024, with that number expected to rise to 81 by 2035, government minister Akmal Nasrullah Mohd Nasir told parliament last year.
In the handful of years from 2021 and mid-2025, some 144.4 billion...