Global Data Centre Outlook 2026-50

PwC's Global Data Centre Outlook 2026-50 provides a long-term view of how capital is expected to flow into Malaysia's data centre ecosystem and the factors that will determine the country's ability to capture future growth.

Under the central scenario, Malaysia is projected to attract approximately US$287 billion in cumulative data centre capital expenditure between 2026 and 2050. Annual investment is expected to increase from around US$7 billion in 2025 to US$11 billion by 2030 and US$14 billion by 2050, reflecting sustained demand for digital infrastructure, AI workloads, and cloud services. Supporting this outlook, Malaysia's data centre capacity is expected to expand nearly four-fold from 522MW in Q1 2025 to 2,055MW by end-2026, with around 1.2GW in pre-leased capacity in 1H 2026.

Alternative scenarios suggest cumulative investment could range from US$198 billion to US$417 billion, depending on the pace of AI adoption, technology development, and market conditions.

The outlook explores how the nature of investment is evolving. As AI adoption accelerates, spending is expected to shift increasingly towards servers, storage, networking equipment, and advanced chips rather than buildings and structures alone. By 2050, ICT equipment is projected to account for up to 93% of the share of data centre capital expenditure, underscoring the growing importance of compute capacity in the AI economy.

Malaysia is also expected to strengthen its position within the ASEAN data centre landscape. Under the central scenario, Malaysia could rank second in cumulative data centre investments by 2050.

While opportunities remain significant, competition for investment will be shaped by the broader ecosystem supporting digital infrastructure. These forces include access to affordable and reliable power, connectivity, security, advanced technologies, policy certainty, as well as sustainability considerations.

Explore the report to find out what these forces mean for investors, operators, and policymakers seeking to participate in the next phase of AI-enabled growth in Malaysia.