2-10-2024 (KUALA LUMPUR) American tech giant Oracle has unveiled plans for a substantial investment of over 6.5 billion U.S. dollars to establish a public cloud region in the Southeast Asian nation. This strategic initiative, announced on Wednesday, aims to address the surging demand for artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud services in Malaysia’s rapidly evolving digital economy.
The forthcoming cloud region is poised to be a game-changer for Oracle’s customers and partners in Malaysia, offering them access to state-of-the-art AI infrastructure and services. This development will facilitate the migration of mission-critical workloads to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), marking a significant leap forward in the country’s digital transformation journey.
Oracle’s statement emphasised that the new public cloud region will play a pivotal role in empowering Malaysian organisations to modernise their applications, seamlessly transition various workloads to the cloud, and harness the power of data, analytics, and AI for innovation. This move is expected to particularly benefit small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), providing them with tools to enhance their global competitiveness.
Tengku Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz, Malaysia’s Minister of Investment, Trade and Industry, hailed the investment as a catalyst for empowering Malaysian entities. He stated, “This investment will equip Malaysian businesses, especially our SMEs, with innovative and cutting-edge AI and cloud technologies, significantly boosting their ability to compete on the global stage.”
The minister also highlighted the alignment of Oracle’s investment with Malaysia’s New Industrial Master Plan, which ambitiously aims to create 3,000 smart factories by 2030. This synergy between corporate investment and national industrial policy underscores the potential for transformative growth in Malaysia’s manufacturing sector.
Garrett Ilg, Oracle’s Executive Vice President and General Manager for Japan & Asia Pacific, reiterated the company’s commitment to Malaysia as a regional gateway for cloud infrastructure. He emphasised that the investment goes beyond hardware, encompassing a comprehensive suite of software as a service (SaaS) applications to be deployed within Malaysia.
