Oracle to invest $6.5b in Malaysian cloud services region

Tech giant Oracle on Wednesday said it plans to invest more than $6.5 billion on cloud services data centres in Malaysia, joining a list of US titans rushing to build up their artificial intelligence infrastructure in Southeast Asia.

The firm said in a statement the cloud region would help organisations in the country modernise their applications, migrate their workload to the cloud and innovate with data, analytics and AI.

"Malaysia offers unique growth opportunities for organisations looking to accelerate their expansion with the latest digital technologies," said Garrett Ilg, Oracle's executive vice president and general manager for Japan and Asia Pacific.

"Our multi-billion dollar investment affirms our commitment to Malaysia as a regional gateway for cloud infrastructure as well as a comprehensive suite of software as a service applications deployed within Malaysia."

The statement also quoted Malaysia's Investment, Trade and Industry Minister Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz as welcoming the investment, saying it would help firms with innovative and cutting-edge AI and cloud technologies to boost their global competitiveness.

"Oracle's decision to establish a public cloud region in Malaysia underscores Malaysia's infrastructure readiness, and its growing position as a premier Southeast Asian destination for digital investments," he added.

The firm is the latest to seek out investments in the country. Google-parent Alphabet said in May it would invest $2 billion to house the firm's first data centre in the country.

Amazon and Microsoft have also announced investments worth billions of dollars in the region as demand for AI hots up.