AirTrunk and BDx have announced Phase 1 launch of their respective data centres in Malaysia and Indonesia, joining the robust growth of the sector in the region. 

Singapore-headquartered BDx said yesterday (31 July) that its JV, BDx Indonesia, completed the first phase of its scalable up to 500MW CGK4 data centre campus in Jatiluhr, Indonesia. 

The CGK4 is Indonesia’s first renewable energy-powered data centre campus and will offer a high-power density of 120kW per rack.

“BDx Indonesia is committed to enabling Indonesia to become an AI-first nation. We are the only data center provider in the country offering up to 700MW of development potential spread across Indonesia," said Mayank Srivastava, chief executive of BDx Data Centers.

"This sustainable and interconnected mesh of digital infrastructure is engineered to support training workloads at central sites, and inference workloads across multiple locations nationwide."

He added that BDx's partnership with its joint venture collaborators would help create a sovereign AI cloud for Indonesia. 

The construction of phase 1 was completed within a record time of 75 days, said Agus Hartono Wijaya, chief executive of BDx Indonesia. "Through our partnership with Indosat and Lintasarta, we are not only delivering state-of-the-art AI infrastructure but also establishing cloud infrastructure to support data sovereignty in Indonesia.” 

BDx Data Centers is backed by global infrastructure investment manager I-Squared Capital.

BDx Indonesia’s shareholders are:

• BDx Data Centres
• Indosat Ooredoo Hutchinson
• Lintasarta

In 2023, data centre infrastructure grew significantly, giving it a market size of around 10.2GW of critical IT capacity in 2023. According to a study by independent research and consulting firm Structure Research, the market size is projected to grow at a 5-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.3% to around 19GW by 2028.

Airtrunk's JHB1 

Meanwhile, Sydney-headquartered AirTrunk announced the commissioning of phase 1 of its 150MW hyperscale data center in Johor Bahru earlier this week (30 July).

The AirTrunk JHB1 data centre covers an area of 10.3 hectares and has a roof that can support up to 5MW of solar deployment.

Phase 1 will have a capacity of 50MW and will be powered by a 29.99MW solar farm operated by ib Vogt. It will also draw 1MW of power from its rooftop solar deployment, making it one of the largest onsite solar deployments for a data centre in Southeast Asia.

Along with its industry-low design Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) of 1.15,  the new state-of-the-art facility features an AI-ready design with AirTrunk’s first deployment of direct-to-chip liquid cooling technology alongside traditional indirect evaporative cooling (IEC) and high-density racks.

This pioneering approach reduces energy consumption by up to 23% and makes it one of the most efficient data centres in the country.

The company launched its liquid cooling approach in July 2024, following 5 years of research and development.

In February (2024), AirTrunk signed a virtual PPA with the German developer under Malaysia’s corporate green power program. The allocation was the maximum available for an individual developer with a secured offtaker.

JHB1 is part of AirTrunk’s leading Asia Pacific & Japan data centre platform of 11 centres offering more than 1.4GW of total capacity to support increasing demand from global tier one technology companies in the region.

The hyperscaler-focused operator continues to expand in the region. Last week (25 July), IJGlobal was first to report that AirTrunk is seeking around A$1 billion to fund expansion of one of its centres in Australia. The operator is also amid a sale process likely to be finalised by end of 2024. 

AirTrunk is owned by:

• Macquarie Asset Management
• Canadian pension fund PSP Investments