2022 highlights: Smart mobility & data centre players that invested in Cyberjaya

• State-of-art infra combined with expansive landbank draws data centres
• 2022’s wins show that new master plan for the township is on the right track

Since the inception of its Cyberjaya master plan in 2020, Cyberview has continued to attract a series of exciting inflows of investments in its determined focal tech industries.

The master plan, mooted to transform the city into a vibrant and exciting global tech hub, has made Cyberjaya the preferred tech investment destination in Malaysia.

This is due to its offering of a robust tech ecosystem, with interconnections between academia, research and development, critical agencies, government stakeholders and the local community coming together to spur innovation necessary for national growth and advancement.

The master plan was developed with the objectives of creating value chains comprising leading industry players, local small and medium enterprises, and startups, all coming together to work in a collaborative environment and to establish a tech hub focused on emerging technologies such as robotics, big data analytics, cloud computing and artificial intelligence.

The focus of the Cyberjaya master plan is to entice companies that embrace the collaborative environment and apply the mentioned emerging technologies in three focus areas - smart mobility, smart healthcare, and digital creativity.

Simultaneously, Cyberjaya’s offer of state-of-the-art infrastructure combined with the township’s expansive landbank has made it a global focus for developing the data centre industry.

Forming the central data spine

According to Arizton Advisory and Intelligence in August this year, Malaysia has become a preferred data centre location in Southeast Asia, with a forecasted growth of 7% in the next five years. This would mean forecasted investments of up to US$2 billion (RM8.8 billion), specifically from data centre players.

This increased interest is due to the country’s solid connectivity and high internet penetration - close to 90%. Malaysia is also a centrally connected internet hub, with 22 submarine cables via six landing stations, forming a worldwide network.

Cyberjaya’s other advantages would be its ability to offer exclusively available dark fibre connectivity, which allows speeds up to 10Gbps at reduced costs, and its 5G connectivity - one of only three locations in the country.

These advantages have made Cyberjaya the primary location in Malaysia for data centre development, with 14 established facilities contributing to around 75% of the country’s existing capacity.

The most recent development was by US-based Vantage Data Centres last September. KUL12 is a four-story data campus built on a four-acre piece of land in the township. Moreover, construction for KUL13 is already underway to meet their regional customer demands.

With ESG values now being a prerequisite for investors, data centre players in Cyberjaya can leverage the Cyberview Smart City Action Plan, aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal, while also in tandem with the Malaysia Smart City Framework and Cyberjaya Low Carbon City Framework.

Also being pursued, is the adoption of  green power generation project and renewable energy initiatives. In a recent development among early players in this space in Cyberjaya, a large-scale solar park is being developed by Worldwide Holdings Bhd, a subsidiary of Perbadanan Kemajuan Negeri Selangor, in collaboration with Dynac Sdn Bhd.

Automating mobility with a sandbox

With Precedence Research in August 2022 projecting revenue of US$250.3 billion (RM1.1 trillion) by 2030 in the smart mobility market, it is little wonder why Cyberjaya has identified this sector as another focus area.

The township’s expansive landbank allowed it to develop sandboxing spaces and routes specifically for this sector. Through Cyberview’s subsidiary, Futurise, Cyberjaya is equipped with Malaysia’s first Autonomous Vehicle Testing Route and its first drone testing site.

These have attracted the likes of Yinson GreenTech, which teamed up with Cyberview to develop a smart mobility ecosystem for the township since August this year. This includes testing the eMooVit electric and autonomous vehicles, developing mobility-as-a-service, and introducing intelligent transport systems.

Meanwhile, the Aerodyne Group has made the township its primary location to provide drone technology, data technology and digital transformation (DT3) enterprise solutions. It offers services using drones coupled with remote sensing technology and artificial intelligence to offer precision agriculture systems, swarm intelligence systems for surveillance, and provides the usage of drones for delivery systems.

Turkish Aerospace has also started operations in the tech hub, developing its Skus Advanced Trainer Aircraft flight control computer. It has since signed a MoU with Universiti Malaya and Universiti Kuala Lumpur, providing the opportunity for ten students to complete their internships at their headquarters in Turkiye. Having stated plans to expand the local team to 100 personnel, Tusas have recently expanded, now occupying about 12,000 sq ft.

Building up smart healthcare and digital creative

Meanwhile, Cyberview has also seen its township’s smart healthcare focus reach greater heights, starting with the completion and opening of Cyberjaya Hospital, the first platinum-rated government hospital under the Green Building Index certification built on close to 13,000 acres of land.

The township has also signed a sales purchase agreement with Avisena Healthcare to develop a specialist hospital with smart healthcare components, further cementing its ability to draw investment from local healthcare players.

Globally, Cyberjaya has also become the chosen destination for Chicago-based Hematogenix’s first central lab for clinical research, making Malaysia the epicentre for the company’s cancer clinical trials in the Asia Pacific region.

For the digital creative side, attractive prospects abound for the township. Local animation powerhouse Les’Copaque and Cyberview announced in May that they are exploring the potential of an Upin & Ipin theme park to be based in Cyberjaya.

At the same time, Monsta Studios has seen their animated series Mechamato ranked as the 4^th Best Anime at the Tokyo Anime Award Festival, with their Mechamato movie managing to rake in more than RM1 million on their opening weekend.

The listed successes and investment inflows are just a fraction of the developments currently taking place in Cyberjaya.

Cyberview, as a tech hub developer, has shown that its master plan for the township is on the right track. What are you, waiting for?

Visit Cyberview’s website for more information https://www.cyberview.com.my