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Malaysia is betting on data centers to boost its economy

apnews.com

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

#51

Post by lmm »

darth_avocado wrote: post #18
scarab92 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it isn't. That's just the journalist unprofessionally injecting their political ideology into what is supposed to be a factual article. Malaysia has an opportunity simply because Singapore can't keep up. It doesn't have the land to waste on data centers, nor does it have the spare power generation capacity.

> Malaysia has an opportunity simply because Singapore can't keep up. It doesn't have the land to waste on data centers, nor does it have the spare power generation capacity. Malasia doesn’t have the spare power either and neither does it have the capacity to keep the power clean, that’s what is being argued in the article. Poor countries will always take up a business opportunity to make money because they are poor.…

> Poor countries will always take up a business opportunity to make money because they are poor. That doesn’t fix the problem that the business opportunity could do plenty of harm to the country in other ways.

Actually it does. Taking business opportunities to make money is the main way that poor countries become rich. If you block them off from that they don't find harmless ways to make money (any conceivable way for a poor country to make money can be painted as getting exploited if you're that way inclined), they just stay poor.

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

#52

Post by frontfor »

anon291 wrote: post #43
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.

This is an ignorant statement to make. Most of East & Southeast Asia aren't religious extremists. Malaysia and Indonesia are exceptions rather than the rule. It's clear you're making statements about a large swarth of the region you have no clue about.

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

#53

Post by w00kie »

mc32 wrote: post #6
decimalenough wrote: post #2

This article has so many problems that I don't know where to start. > Tech companies exploiting resources in poorer countries while extracting data from their populations to get rich is akin to “digital colonialism.” She compared data extraction to silver mining in Bolivia, which enriched colonial Spain but left nothing behind for Latin America. “They are extracting data in the same way. Data doesn’t even leave (behi…

Why do they have to go in that bent? Report the news, don’t inject prejudices into a story. All the things you mention are true but AP assumes few people know the ground truth and those that do they’d hope would just ignore it.

Because "data centers are evil" is trending with the masses.

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

#54

Post by scarab92 »

crowcroft wrote: post #45
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

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.

I believe they have the technical challenges solved (at least on paper), and the Singaporean and Australian governments have both approved the project.

I'm a little surprised Singapore approved it, as it'll need to supply about 10% of Singapore's power in order to cover the cost of the cable, which seems like a big vulnerability to me.

Next question is, can they find enough buyers in Singapore for that much power.

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

#56

Post by lmz »

darth_avocado wrote: post #31
MangoCoffee wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>move the factories to third world countries so that we can have cleaner air and water You do know there are latency issues when servicing the Western countries from Asia, right? make it make sense.

If you read the article, it is about Singapore, a first world country and Malaysia which is not. Western countries were not part of the conversation.

It's not serving Singapore though. If anything it would serve Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia. All countries with vastly more people than Singapore.

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

#57

Post by w00kie »

scarab92 wrote: post #22
darth_avocado wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Malaysia has an opportunity simply because Singapore can't keep up. It doesn't have the land to waste on data centers, nor does it have the spare power generation capacity. Malasia doesn’t have the spare power either and neither does it have the capacity to keep the power clean, that’s what is being argued in the article. Poor countries will always take up a business opportunity to make money because they are poor.…

Malaysia has sufficient land and water to produce more power as needed. It's just a matter of investment. If anything, the stable power demands from datacenters make business case for new builds stronger. Also, it's not like these datacenters are serving western customers. These datacenters are far MORE costly than those in the EU/US because of the higher cooling costs, and also the latency is more than 200ms to the…

I might also add that all of the big data center companies have sustainability goals that will push demand for cleaner energy, and therefore investment, in the country where they build.

I work for one of the top datacenter companies in the world and we run 8TWh on 96% renewable energy.

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

#58

Post by chabska »

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…

> the MCMC backed down after massive public outcry, but the government's authoritarian tendencies remain palpable.

That contradicts your thesis. They did listen to feedback from the people, that's democracy.

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

#59

Post by scarab92 »

w00kie wrote: post #53
mc32 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do they have to go in that bent? Report the news, don’t inject prejudices into a story. All the things you mention are true but AP assumes few people know the ground truth and those that do they’d hope would just ignore it.

Because "data centers are evil" is trending with the masses.

Outrage is demand driven, rather than supply driven.

Even if you solve all the worlds problemns, journalists would just stretch the truth further to find new things to be outraged about to keep the readers "happy".

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

#60

Post by nsoonhui »

chabska wrote: post #58
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…

> the MCMC backed down after massive public outcry, but the government's authoritarian tendencies remain palpable. That contradicts your thesis. They did listen to feedback from the people, that's democracy.

That such a ridiculous idea even being proposed is already a huge indication of authoritarianism, not to mention that MCMC could resurrect the idea at any time.
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