KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 8 — Nvidia is in advanced talks with Malaysian conglomerate YTL on a data centre deal, three sources familiar with the matter said, as the US chip giant looks for more business from Southeast Asia.
The potential tie-up would include collaborating on cloud infrastructure and is likely to be anchored at YTL’s data centre complex in Johor one of the people said.
The partnership would offer businesses in Southeast Asia access to Nvidia’s AI chips via cloud computing, a second person briefed on the matter said.
Nvidia chief executive officer Jensen Huang, who was visiting Malaysia on Friday, declined to comment directly on a potential deal.
“YTL is an extraordinary company, Malaysia is an important hub for Southeast Asia computing infrastructure, which requires access to land, facilities and power, and YTL could play a great role in that,” he told Reuters at a news conference.
“It would be a privilege for us to partner with YTL in any way.”
YTL, whose telecoms division agreed to a cloud gaming partnership with Nvidia this year, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Southeast Asia has become increasingly important for Nvidia as a “growing technology hub,” with Huang telling reporters he was considering artificial intelligence infrastructure projects in Singapore or Malaysia. He said this week the company would “potentially announce some large investments” in Singapore.
About US$2.7 billion (RM12.42 billion) of the company’s revenues, or 15 per cent , in the quarter that ended in October came from Singapore, a 401 per cent jump from the same period last year. Singapore hosts many of the Asian headquarters of US and Chinese technology giants, and more than 1,100 AI startups.
The chief executive officer told reporters on Friday that Nvidia was working with 80 startups in Malaysia.
— Reuters
