Experts call for mandatory water usage standards and sustainability competition among data centres to support Malaysia’s tech hub ambitions sustainably.
PETALING JAYA: To become Southeast Asia’s tech powerhouse, Malaysia must make data centres compete on water efficiency, putting sustainability at the heart of growth, experts say.
Association of Water and Energy Research president S. Piarapakaran called for stricter and evolving standards as the nation positions itself as a regional technology hub.
“We have suggested to the government a pragmatic approach. Firstly, they must impose mandatory water usage efficiency (WUE) standards with a clause for future improvements,” he said.
WUE measures how efficiently a system, such as a data centre or a farm, uses water, comparing consumption with the productive output generated.
He argued that competition could drive data centres to improve performance.
“Allow competitive or sustainability competition between data centres, which would give room for improvement on voluntary WUE achievements.”
He also called for regular policy reviews to ensure alignment with global best practices.
The call comes amid a surge in data centre investments in Malaysia, driven by rising demand for cloud computing and AI.
Universiti Teknologi Malaysia property economics and finance associate professor Dr Muhammad Najib Razali said global studies show that data centres consume vast amounts of water, especially to cool servers that run 24/7.
Considering these pressures, Piarapakaran emphasised the need for a targeted and industry-specific approach.
“We have raised the need to micromanage mitigation to be tailor-made for different types of industries. Operational differences make it harder to manage at a macro level.”
He also highlighted the potential for integrating industries through resource recovery initiatives.
“While we micromanage to mitigate, we could link up different industry groups via resource recovery efforts, which will be an added advantage to Malaysia as a manufacturing hub.”
Beyond efficiency standards, he emphasised that broader water planning must continue in parallel.
“Raw water security planning and policy implementation will have to be carried out continuously to support changing water demand between domestic, industry and agriculture sectors.”
Ultimately, he said the goal is not to restrict growth, but to ensure it is sustainable.
“If we aspire to be a hub for data centres in Asean, we must find ways to make this sector more sustainable.”