[REVISION HISTORY]
Data‑centre expansion strains power, water, sparks protests
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2026-07-27 12:40 UTC → 2026-07-30 08:24 UTC ·
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Data‑centre expansion fuels cooling demand, strains power, water, sparks protests
Mid‑2026, Malaysia’s AI‑driven data‑centre boom lifted gas‑fired generation by 50.5 % YoY, prompting a national task force on power and water allocations and spurring projects that could need about 5 GW by 2035. Vertiv opened a 21,900 m² plant in Senai and expanded its Croatian engineering teams to deliver liquid‑cooling modules for high‑density AI workloads across Asia and EMEA. Australia’s deployable capacity is set to more than double by 2030, while India plans India’s AI‑focused facilities are slated to raise data‑centre power grow from roughly 1.5 GW to between 6.5 GW, triggering reviews GW and 17 GW by 2030, raising serious power and water‑stress concerns. A 100‑MW centre can use about 2 million litres of generation water per day, and transmission assets. total sector demand could approach 37.5 billion litres annually, prompting calls for closed‑loop direct‑to‑chip liquid cooling to cut losses. On 22 July Vertiv announced it will double chiller production at its Tognana campus in Piove di Sacco, Italy, by the end of 2026 end‑2026 and launch an integrated laboratory in early 2027 to test large‑capacity chillers under extreme AI‑driven loads. The upgraded facility will combine research, product management, manufacturing and a Customer Experience Center, allowing operators to validate high‑density liquid‑cooling systems in real‑world conditions and AI loads, creating skilled jobs for in Europe. Two days later later, residents in Johor staged rare protests against a new data‑centre complex, and Selangor lawmakers intensified debate over electricity, water and community impacts. Operators such as Equinix, ZDATA, NTT and Bridge Data Centres point to cite renewable energy, treated‑wastewater cooling and solar power to address concerns. The Malaysian Treasury is revising electricity tariffs, tightening standards and developing a scorecard that evaluates projects on economic value, job creation and local linkages rather than capital spend alone, linkages, signalling a shift from pure capacity building to toward sustainable power use.
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- 2026-07-30 08:24 UTC Data‑centre expansion strains power, water, sparks protests
- 2026-07-27 12:40 UTC Data‑centre expansion fuels cooling demand, protests
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