Nvidia in talks with Malaysia’s YTL on data centre deal

Nvidia is in advanced talks with Malaysian conglomerate YTL on a data centre deal, three sources familiar with the matter said, as the U.S 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 the southern Malaysian state of Johor, bordering Singapore, 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 CEO 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 SEA (Southeast Asia) computing infrastructure, which requires access to land, facilities and power, and YTL could play a great role in that,” he told 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 $2.7 billion of the company’s revenues, or 15%, in the quarter that ended in October came from Singapore, a 401% jump from the same period last year. Singapore hosts many of the Asian headquarters of U.S and Chinese technology giants, and more than 1,100 AI startups.

The CEO told reporters on Friday that Nvidia was working with 80 startups in Malaysia.