A solar farm at SD Guthrie’s oil palm estate in Selangor, Malaysia, in November.
Photographer: Samsul Said/BloombergAI Boom Is Turning Malaysia’s Palm Oil Estates Into Data Centers
Plantations are being turned into data center parks and solar power farms, the latter meant to feed the insatiable energy appetites of the former.
Malaysia’s palm oil giants, long-blamed for razing rainforests, fueling toxic haze and driving orangutans to the brink of extinction, are recasting themselves as unlikely champions in a different, potentially greener race: the quest to lure the world’s AI data centers to the Southeast Asian country.
Palm oil companies are earmarking some of the vast tracts of land they own for industrial parks studded with data centers and solar panels, the latter meant to feed the insatiable energy appetites of the former. The logic is simple: data centers are power and land hogs. By 2035, they could demand at least five gigawatts of electricity in Malaysia — almost 20% of the country’s current generation capacity and roughly enough to power a major city like Miami. Malaysia also needs space to house server farms, and palm oil giants control more land than any other private entity in the country.