Data Centres & Networks

Malaysia's Communications Ministry launched on Monday what it's billing as a "Strategic Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure" – a sovereign, full-stack AI ecosystem powered by Huawei GPUs that also marks the first national deployment of Chinese large language model (LLM) DeepSeek outside of China.

UAE-based tech group G42 will lead a consortium of US companies to build a new 5GW AI data centre campus in Abu Dhabi as part of an agreement by the US and UAE governments to build and invest in AI infrastructure in the UAE and globally.

Brazilian investment firm Patria Investimentos has announced the launch of Omnia, a hyperscale data centre platform that will invest about US$1 billion in its first project in the next 18 to 24 months.

Digital infrastructure company Equinix has inaugurated its first International Business Exchange data centre in Jakarta under a joint venture with Indonesian conglomerate Astra International.

Safaricom said on Tuesday it has entered into a strategic partnership with Kenya's iXAfrica Data Centres to offer services leveraging the new NBOX1 hyperscale data centre in Nairobi to enterprise and cloud solutions clients.

Malaysia is back in the data centre news again. Hard on the heels of news that Equinix has completed the second phase of a new data centre in Cyberjaya, Selangor, has come the announcement of an award by Google related to the building of a hyperscale data centre in the country.

There are both positive developments and a few problems for the digital infrastructure company Equinix in Malaysia, according to recent headlines.

Indian data centre firm RackBank says it has broken ground on a campus in the city of Nava Raipur in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh. Spanning 13.5 acres, the development will be Chhattisgarh’s first data centre campus.

Operator Orange Tunisie has announced the inauguration of a new data centre in Sousse in the central-east part of Tunisia. This latest-generation data centre is described as part of the country's digital transformation and, Orange Tunisie says, has been designed to meet the highest standards of performance, security and resilience.

Digital infrastructure company Khazna Data Centres, part of UAE-based artificial intelligence-focused technology group G42, has announced plans to build an AI-capable data centre in Turkey, with a potential capacity of up to 100MW, after securing a site in Başkent Organized Industrial Zone in Ankara.

Vietnamese telco Viettel says it has broken ground on its 16th data centre, which it claims will also be the biggest data centre in Vietnam upon completion and one of the ten biggest in Southeast Asia.

Global internet backbone and data services provider Arelion and Latin American network provider Gold Data have announced a strategic partnership to leverage dark fibre infrastructure.

PLDT Group’s data centre arm Vitro inaugurated its 11th data centre – and the first to support AI and other hyperscale workloads – on Wednesday as it starts work on an even bigger hyperscale data centre with twice as much IT load capacity.

UAE operator Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company (du) has announced a major hyperscale data centre deal with Microsoft.

UAE-based Khazna Data Centers said it has broken ground on two new facilities in the UAE as it looks to expand its data centre footprint and meet demand for AI workloads.

Nepalese telco Ncell announced on Tuesday it has become the first – and so far only – company to be officially certified by the Department of Information Technology (DoIT) as a data centre and cloud service provider in Nepal.

NBCC (India) Limited, a central public sector enterprise (CPSE) under the Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs, has signed a strategic memorandum of understanding (MoU) with RailTel Corporation, a Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) or government-owned establishment under the Ministry of Railways, to collaborate on developing data centre projects.

ST Telemedia Global Data Centres (India) has announced plans open a new artificial intelligence (AI)-ready data centre campus in New Town, Kolkata, the primary financial and commercial centre of eastern and northeastern India, in the second quarter of 2025. The planned investment is said to be INR4.5 billion (aboutUS$52.7 million).

Vietnam’s Da Nang International Data Centre Joint Stock Company (JSC) has reportedly begun construction of what it says will be the city’s largest data centre in Da Nang Hi-tech Park, as well as signed several cooperation agreements with partners.

Angola Cables subsidiary TelCables West Africa says it has partnered with global network-as-a-service (NaaS) provider Megaport to gain access to its portfolio of data centres and cloud nodes, making it the second such deal between Megaport and Angola this month.

Malaysian telco YTL Communications said on Tuesday it has signed two separate MoUs it says will beef up its ability to support adoption of AI in the country – one with Equinix and the other with free-space optics firm Transcelestial.

African technology company Cassava Technologies has announced that it plans to build Africa’s first artificial intelligence (AI) factory — a powerful and super-secure data centre facility powered with AI computing technology from multinational corporation and technology company Nvidia.

Malaysian operator Maxis has partnered with Nokia to deploy data centre networking solutions for large enterprises, aiming to meet the growing demand for AI and cloud adoption.

WIOCC Group subsidiary Open Access Data Centres (OADC) reportedly plans to invest up to US$240 million to expand the capacity of its new data centre in Lagos from 1.5MW to 24MW by 2027.

East African carrier-neutral data centre operator Wingu Group says that it has kicked off the second phase of its data centre expansion in Tanzania.

Global data centre operator Digital Realty has officially entered Indonesia by forming a joint venture with Southeast Asian regional digital infrastructure platform provider Bersama Digital Infrastructure Asia (BDIA).

PLDT Group’s data centre arm Vitro announced on Wednesday it has kicked off proof-of-concept (PoC) trials with Nokia to develop data centre solutions tailored for AI workloads, including generative AI (GenAI) training and inference.

Japan’s NTT Data announced on Monday that its long-awaited Malaysia, India, Singapore Transit (MIST) subsea cable system will be commissioned by June this year as it also outlined plans to double its data centre capacity in India over the next few years.

Wholesale connectivity provider WIOCC has joined forces with iColo, a carrier-neutral data centre provider, in a strategic colocation agreement aimed at accelerating the growth of internet service providers (ISPs) in Mombasa, a coastal city in southeastern Kenya, and across the country.

A new company called VSData has announced plans to build a spring water-cooled data centre outside Yerevan, the capital of Armenia. It is expected to be a 2MW, 125-rack facility.

Brazil’s giant state-owned oil and gas company Petrobras has launched a tender aimed at enhancing its data processing and storage capabilities.

Saigon Asset Management (SAM) revealed plans on Tuesday to launch a data centre campus in southern Vietnam with a targeted investment of up to US$1.5 billion, whilst also launching a US$300 million fund to boost data centre investment in the country.

ST Telemedia Global Data Centres (STT GDC) announced on Monday that it has commenced construction of its third data centre facility in Thailand, STT Bangkok 2, to support demand for critical digital infrastructure in the country.