China’s xFusion to invest US$366m over 3 years in Penang

• Build its maiden Global Supply Center in partnership with NationGate
• Annual capacity of 150k units of computing equipment including GPUs

China based provider of computing power infrastructure and services xFusion International Pte Ltd has chosen Malaysia to house its maiden Global Supply Center with plans to invest up to US$366 million (RM1.7 billion) over the next three years said were Jeffrey Liu, Chairman and CEO of xFusion Digital Technologies Co, Ltd, a subsidiary of xFusion International established in 2021.

Located in Seberang Perai, Penang, the 254,491 sq ft Global Supply Center will be a key hub for xFusion’s international market, with annual production capacity of over 150,000 units of equipment including Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) servers.

Listed electronics manufacturing services (EMS) provider NationGate Holdings Bhd has been appointed as xFusion’s strategic partner to manufacture GPU servers for the global market.

GPU servers is a high powered server designed for data centers and are applicable to artificial intelligence, high performance computing, database and video analysis scenarios.

Together with home-grown NationGate as the strategic partner, the venture marks Malaysia’s continued presence in the global growth of the computing power industry, which has expanded by an average of 30% in the last five years in China alone. No data is available for the growth in Malaysia.

The computing power industry is a sector that deals with the production, distribution, and consumption of computing power. It is a rapidly growing industry that has become increasingly important in recent years with GPU servers from software and hardware company Nvidia being the poster child for the emerging computing power industry.

xFusion has 11 research institutes, 7 regional offices and 6 Global Technical Assistance Centers to serve customers in more than 130 countries and regions, including 211 Fortune Global 500 enterprises.

The announcement saw the attendance of Chief Minister of Penang, Chow Kon Yeow.

Also present Ooi Eng Leong, Managing Director of NationGate; Lee Kah Choon, Director of InvestPenang; Loo Lee Lian, Chief Executive Officer of InvestPenang; Mohammad Ghaddaffi Sardar Mohamed, Director of Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA) Penang and Wong Siew Hai, President of Malaysia Semiconductor Industry Association.

Liu said the opening of the state-of-the-art Global Supply Center in Penang is an important milestone in the company’s strategy to strengthen its worldwide supply network to ensure continuous, consistent delivery of products and services in its key markets. The company plans to establish R&D centres in both Penang and Singapore to help it keep up with strong demand from the computing industry, Liu added.

“In additional to being a renowned high-tech manufacturing hub, Penang, also known as the Silicon Valley of the East is an ideal location for xFusion to set up due to the availability of highly skilled workforce, the mature local supply chain as well as the close proximity to our business partner NationGate, Liu said.

“With the increasing importance of digital infrastructure cutting across multiple sectors, we are excited for our new chapter here in Malaysia, which is well-positioned to further support the growth of the industry,” Liu added.

Commenting on the partnership, NationGate’s Ooi said its appointment as xFusion’s strategic partner is a testament to its growing capability and competency as an established EMS provider.

“With 12 years of operating history in Penang, NationGate provides EMS manufacturing services and technical support to its customers, many of whom are multinational companies from high growth industries such as networking and telecommunications, industrial instruments, data computing, consumer electronics, automotive and semiconductor.

“The appointment will further support NationGate’s journey to improve our expertise along the value chain, in order to solidify our position as a renowned one-stop EMS provider,” Ooi added.