Google will invest US$15 billion in Malaysia during 2027 and 2028 to build new data centre campuses and expand the computing capacity behind its cloud and artificial intelligence services, the company announced on 4 November. The commitment, unveiled in Kuala Lumpur in the presence of Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, is more than seven times the US$2 billion Google pledged for Malaysia in 2024.
The plan centres on energy-efficient data centre campuses in industrial zones in Selangor and Negeri Sembilan. Google’s first Malaysian campus, at Elmina Business Park in Selangor, is already operational, and computing capacity in Selangor will support the company’s forthcoming Google Cloud region in the country. The new campuses will run Search, Maps and Chrome for users across Malaysia and the Asia-Pacific region, as well as locally developed AI applications.
Google said the construction phase would contribute an average of US$1.1 billion a year to Malaysia’s GDP and support more than 37,000 local jobs a year, including about 6,000 construction roles, generating US$378 million in average annual labour income. Once the campuses are running, it expects them to sustain more than 9,000 local jobs a year, paying wages averaging 45 per cent above the national median. More than 80 Malaysian companies are involved in building and operating the infrastructure.
Energy and water form a large part of the package. Google plans to add more than one gigawatt of new clean energy capacity to Malaysia’s National Grid, working with the utility Tenaga Nasional Berhad, and says it will pay for all of the electricity its campuses use as well as the direct costs of connecting them to the grid. It is also funding US$160 million of shared water infrastructure in Negeri Sembilan, including an off-river storage reservoir and treatment plant on the Linggi River, and new river-basin and school water projects in Selangor.
The company also announced four programmes aimed at upskilling about 800,000 Malaysians between 2027 and 2031, covering AI literacy in schools, practical digital skills for small businesses, training for council officers and data centre technician courses at polytechnics in the two host states.
Ruth Porat, president and chief investment officer of Alphabet and Google, said the investment would “provide the foundational computing capacity to deliver the upside of innovation across the country while adding local power and water resources as our operations scale”. Malaysia’s digital minister, Gobind Singh Deo, said the plan set “a high standard for sustainable, high-impact digital infrastructure development”.
The US$15 billion figure is a stated plan for spending in 2027 and 2028, not money already spent, and Google has not published a breakdown of how the sum will be divided between campuses, energy, water and training, nor opening dates for the new sites. The jobs and GDP figures are Google’s own projections and have not been independently verified.
Sources: Google, “Google Announces Digital Infrastructure Expansion, Local Jobs, Water Replenishment, and Clean Energy Initiatives with US$15 Billion Malaysia Investment”, 4 November 2026 — https://blog.google/intl/en-my/company-news/inside-google/google-investment-malaysia-digital-infrastructure-november-2026/
