ASEAN Data Centre Revenue To See 20 Pct CAGR By 2028

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 22 (Bernama) -- ASEAN data centre revenue is expected to see a 20 per cent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) by 2028, according to Maybank Investment Bank Bhd (Maybank IB).

In a research note today, it said the growth will be driven by the region’s own needs and global demand as ASEAN could emerge as a data centre hub, supported by its favourable cost economics and power/water infrastructure.

“Assuming that half of the six per cent global demand comes from China and assuming that China is totally banned from hosting data or running large language models (LLMs) in ASEAN, overall demand growth would reduce to 17.2 per cent, as such demand does not fall off the cliff,” it said.

Maybank IB added that although investments led by Chinese companies in ASEAN may face increased regulatory hurdles, it believes that those would only account for around 10 per cent of total investments.

Despite stringent new United States (US) export controls to limit access to advanced artificial intelligence (AI)-technologies, Maybank IB still sees some cause for optimism.

While AI provides long-term growth potential within ASEAN, medium-term growth will be driven by ASEAN catching up on traditional data centres for cloud computing and storage, it said.

The investment bank estimated that ASEAN is between 55 per cent to 70 per cent behind evolved markets in terms of data centre infrastructure on a per capita basis.

At the same time, it noted that major AI-driven data centre announcements in ASEAN are predominantly led by US hyperscalers, which it believes are better positioned to navigate tier-two market sanctions.

“Additionally, we see the potential for greater demand for graphic processing unit as a service (GPUaaS) in ASEAN if access to advanced GPUs in China is curtailed,” it added.

-- BERNAMA