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Malaysia is betting on data centers to boost its economy

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Re: Malaysia is betting on data centers to boost its economy

#41

Post by frontfor »

refurb wrote: post #29
crowcroft wrote: post #3

I guess the thesis is that Singapore is the primary business hub in SEA, but Singapore doesn't have a grid that can handle large scale data centers (especially with power hungry GPU demand). Logically Johor bordering Singapore is the next best option for data centers.

On a related note, in the last 1 to 2 years there has already begun a shift in terms of multi-national investment in APAC outside of Singapore. Singapore used to be the obvious location for MNC offices in APAC. Especially since Hong Kong's return to China, Singapore has benefited and see an increase in head offices and employment. However, over the last couple of decades surrounding countries have improved significan…

The cost of living is rising everywhere, not just Singapore, so I’m not sure how relevant that factor is. Do you have evidence that MNCs are net moving out of Singapore?

Re: Malaysia is betting on data centers to boost its economy

#42

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

dweekly wrote: post #20
decimalenough wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Singapore is also very land-constrained. Google's latest DCs there are multi-story, which is obviously going to be more expensive to build that your standard one-story warehouse.

Long term, you'll want your datacenters to be roughly spherical to minimize cross-section path length latencies.

Volume increases to the cube, where as surface area only increases to square.

This results in large, perfectly spherical, data centre being more difficult to cool, especially when operating in a vacuum.

Re: Malaysia is betting on data centers to boost its economy

#43

Post by anon291 »

nsoonhui wrote: post #36

I'm a Chinese Malaysian, and I feel the need to highlight the other side of the coin—the risks multinational corporations (MNCs) face when setting up data centers in Malaysia. Despite being elected on the promise of reform, the government's actual performance has been anything but. The press is still frequently suppressed; social media platforms are required to obtain a yearly license or risk being fined or shut down…

All of afro-Eurasia seems to be falling into religious intolerance and extremism, except for a few outposts.

Re: Malaysia is betting on data centers to boost its economy

#44

Post by charlie0 »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #39
nsoonhui wrote: post #36

I'm a Chinese Malaysian, and I feel the need to highlight the other side of the coin—the risks multinational corporations (MNCs) face when setting up data centers in Malaysia. Despite being elected on the promise of reform, the government's actual performance has been anything but. The press is still frequently suppressed; social media platforms are required to obtain a yearly license or risk being fined or shut down…

Sounds what Malaysia needs is Big Co. & Friends to move in, data centres and all, and run the government from the shadows, much like they do in every successful democracy.

And some of the unsuccessful ones.

Re: Malaysia is betting on data centers to boost its economy

#45

Post by crowcroft »

porphyra wrote: post #32
crowcroft wrote: post #3

I guess the thesis is that Singapore is the primary business hub in SEA, but Singapore doesn't have a grid that can handle large scale data centers (especially with power hungry GPU demand). Logically Johor bordering Singapore is the next best option for data centers.

There was once a proposal to run an extension cord from Australia to Singapore [1] since Australia could have plentiful and cheap solar power. However, the project collapsed after the capricious billionaire backers ditched it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia-Asia_Power_Link

This is an insane idea, but would be epic if someone could figure it out. I don’t know much about how electricity grids work, but that seems fraught with so many challenges, not all of them technical.

Re: Malaysia is betting on data centers to boost its economy

#46

Post by frontfor »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #24
slt2021 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

its hard to serve customers in Asia from a DC in Iceland

Does 50-100ms latency matters when LLM takes few seconds to minutes to produce answer?

This is stating the obvious, but LLM is not the only use case for a data centre.

Re: Malaysia is betting on data centers to boost its economy

#47

Post by crowcroft »

decimalenough wrote: post #35
refurb wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a related note, in the last 1 to 2 years there has already begun a shift in terms of multi-national investment in APAC outside of Singapore. Singapore used to be the obvious location for MNC offices in APAC. Especially since Hong Kong's return to China, Singapore has benefited and see an increase in head offices and employment. However, over the last couple of decades surrounding countries have improved significan…

While multinationals are investing elsewhere in SE Asia to serve SE Asian markets, I'm not seeing them move their HQs out of Singapore though, because they don't trust the Malaysian/Thai/Indonesian legal system and regulatory environment. Cyberjaya (yes, you can cringe at the name) in Malaysia was built with the explicit goal of attracting them, but it's mostly call centers, not R&D. Even Malaysian success stories li…

Being able to trust the govt is a pretty important factor for businesses.

Re: Malaysia is betting on data centers to boost its economy

#48

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

scarab92 wrote: post #40
porphyra wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was once a proposal to run an extension cord from Australia to Singapore [1] since Australia could have plentiful and cheap solar power. However, the project collapsed after the capricious billionaire backers ditched it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia-Asia_Power_Link

The SunCable project is still moving forward. There was a disagreement between the co-founders. One wanted to use HVDC cable to transmit power, the other wanted to use electrolysis to produce Hydrogen, put that on ships, then burn it in Singapore to produce electricity. To resolve the dispute, they both agreed to put the project into administration, then both made bids to take full control, with HVDC proponent Mike C…

Twiggy was also talking about producing hydrogen in Tasmania from largely unavailable hydropower, or so the argument goes. If I recall correctly then turn that in to green ammonia.

Many of those dams are full to excess, at least sometimes. And what Twiggy doesn’t waste turning falling water in to energy anaemic hydrogen gas, ammonia is handy though, we can keep selling to Victoria for a profit, for the Tasmanian government to, what, waste on a footy stadium no one wants? No no, to waste storing the new Spirit of Scotland ferries.

Cynical bugger.

Re: Malaysia is betting on data centers to boost its economy

#49

Post by szvsw »

dweekly wrote: post #20
decimalenough wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Singapore is also very land-constrained. Google's latest DCs there are multi-story, which is obviously going to be more expensive to build that your standard one-story warehouse.

Long term, you'll want your datacenters to be roughly spherical to minimize cross-section path length latencies.

What about heat transfer? At least in a moderate, dry climate (whereas SP is hot/humid) there’s a natural benefit to having a high surface area to volume ratio, favoring wide/flat spaces, from the perspective of heat rejection. I’m not sure to what extent space cooling is actually a controlling factor in DC design, or what the typical strategies are (for instance I assume there are lots of new systems which make use of geothermal cooling). Anyways, just curious if you have any insight on that.

Re: Malaysia is betting on data centers to boost its economy

#50

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

charlie0 wrote: post #44
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds what Malaysia needs is Big Co. & Friends to move in, data centres and all, and run the government from the shadows, much like they do in every successful democracy.

And some of the unsuccessful ones.

It’s a bit hit and miss.
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