10/06/2026

BIZ & FINANCE WEDNESDAY | JUNE 10, 2026

/thesuntelegram FOLLOW / Malaysian Paper

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Alibaba launches public cloud region in Johor

Company unveils RM1.25 billion second real estate development fund PETALING JAYA: Sime Darby Property Bhd has launched its second real estate development fund, the New Economy Venture. Achieving 100% capital commitment at its first close, the fund marks a significant milestone for the group’s investment and asset management business, building on the experience and track record established through its first joint venture for the Industrial Develop ment Fund in 2022. Structured as a syariah-compliant closed-end, discretionary investment platform, the new fund’s size is up to RM1.25 billion with a life of five years. The fund is established to invest in build-to suit-to-lease data centres, and industrial and logistics development projects within Sime Darby Property’s key town ships in Malaysia. The fund leverages the group’s strategically located land bank, master developer and leasing capabilities and industrial ecosystems that are well positioned to support the growing demand for new economy assets domestically. The New Economy Venture is backed by institutional investors, including the Employees Provident Fund, Armed Forces Fund Board and Great Eastern Life Assurance (Malaysia) Bhd. Sime Darby Property will act as the general partner and sponsor to the fund and has committed RM500.1 million as a co-investor at first close. Group managing director and CEO Datuk Seri Azmir Merican said, “The launch of the Fund marks a significant milestone in our transformation journey under the SHIFT32 strategy. “As general partner and manager to the fund, it will enable Sime Darby Property to diversify its recurring income streams through investment yield and fee-based income from the development of new economy assets such as data centres and warehouses, which are much in demand in the Malaysian real estate market.” To date, the fund has secured two high-value seed assets strategically positioned within Sime Darby Property’s flagship township, Elmina Business Park and City of Elmina. The seed assets represent approximately 85% of the target fund size and are supported by long-term lease arrangements, providing the fund with income visibility and stability. Construction for both assets has commenced and is expected to be completed in the second half of 2027, reflecting the fund’s immediate deploy ment visibility. Sime Darby Property’s investment and asset management division currently has about RM4.4 billion in assets under management, supported by a long-term hyperscale data centre lease that came on stream in April.

those who need it most while strengthening the country’s long-term fiscal sustainability. Further, he said, while subsidy reforms were a key part of the government’s economic agenda, ensuring a stable supply of essential resources remained its top priority. “The most important thing the government focused on was assuring supply first. If there’s no supply in the country, it’s game over. The economy cannot function if there’s no supply,“ he added. Despite disruptions and uncertainty stemming from conflicts in the Middle East, Amir Hamzah said, Malaysia has managed to avoid major supply shortages.“Fundamentally, since we have seen the issues in the Middle East, have we had supply issues in the country? We have not.” Amir Hamzah attributed this resilience in part to Malaysia’s position as a net energy exporter, which provides the country with some protection against external shocks. “We have been blessed because we are a net energy exporter and we have our own capacity.” He added that Malaysia’s key institutions and companies were also well-positioned inter nationally, with access to a diversified network of supply sources that could be activated when needed. “Our institutions are quite well-positioned on a global basis. They have supply sources that can be activated globally to cushion the impact on us along the way,“ Amir Hamzah said. As a result, he said, securing supply has remained a central focus of government policy, with continuous monitoring and coordination taking place across agencies and industry players. “We have our National Economic Action Council meetings every week. We look at the position, and Petroliam Nasional Bhd and the other companies continue to secure our supply position on a rolling basis going forward,“ he said. “The addition of Alibaba Cloud’s new data centres in Johor further strengthens Malaysia’s position as a key destination for AI-ready infrastructure and high-value digital investments. This expansion aligns with Malaysia’s cloud-first and AI-driven national agenda, propelling us closer to realising our vision of becoming an AI Nation by 2030 through secure, scalable, and future-ready digital infrastructure that enables both industry innovation and public sector transformation,” said Digital Minister Gobind Singh Deo. “Malaysia remains a strategic key market for us in Southeast Asia, and we are deeply committed to empowering enterprises of all sizes on their cloud and AI journey with our robust and secure cloud and AI technologies,” said Alibaba Cloud Intelligence general manager of Malaysia Choong Hon Keat. “This expansion in Malaysia is a direct response to surging customer demand as local businesses scale cloud-native operations and integrate AI at scale. Our new data centres in Johor will enable us to deliver more resilient, low-latency services, helping companies innovate faster, scale securely, and operate with greater efficiency in the AI era,” he added. TNG Digital Sdn Bhd chief technology officer Leslie Lip said, “Through our partnership with Alibaba Cloud, we are strengthening the technology foundation that enables us to deliver more intuitive and localised experiences for our users.”

o New facilities. including two data centres, offer comprehensive suite of products such as compute, storage, container, networking, big data and security

PETALING JAYA: Alibaba Cloud, a global provider of artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure and the intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group, has launched a public cloud region in Johor, with two new data centres established to meet the country’s growing demand for cloud and AI services. As part of Alibaba’s previously announced US$53 billion (RM215 billion) investment in AI and cloud infrastructure in 2025, this expansion brings Alibaba Cloud’s global infrastructure to 104 availability zones across 32 regions, providing a secure, scalable, robust, cloud and AI infrastructure to support customers worldwide in their digital innovation journeys. The new facilities in Johor offer a comprehensive suite of cloud computing products – from compute, storage, container, networking, big data, security and databases to cloud-native services. To meet the growing demand for enterprise agents in the region, Alibaba Cloud also plans to introduce a suite of agentic AI services to Malaysia in the second half of this year. These products include AgentRun, a one-stop KUALA subsidy rationalisation efforts have generated annual savings of more than RM16 billion, strengthening the government’s fiscal position and enabling greater support for vulnerable groups. Finance Minister II Datuk Seri Amir Hamzah Azizan said the reforms, which covered electricity, water, diesel and fuel subsidies, were once seen as politically difficult measures that few believed could be implemented. “We were going to touch subsidy rationalisation – electricity, water, petrol and diesel – and nobody thought that we could do it. “Two-and-a-half years down the road, we have done all that. The savings that we are getting, a bit more than RM16 billion a year, are helping to improve the fiscal space that we’ve got, while also allowing us to channel some of the money to support vulnerable groups within Malaysia,“ he said at the Invest Malaysia 2026 Conference yesterday. Amir Hamzah said the government’s approach was carefully planned and executed rather than driven by emotion, demonstrating its ability to undertake difficult but necessary reforms. “It was not emotive. It was thoughtful, executed, and actually gave confidence to people that we can take difficult decisions, while putting in place measures that sustain change as we move forward.” Amir Hamzah pointed to a series of reforms, including the restructuring of electricity tariffs, which protected 85% of consumers, as well as the introduction of targeted diesel subsidies and the ongoing evolution towards a targeted petrol subsidy mechanism. According to him, using the national identity card as the basis for subsidy targeting was one of LUMPUR: Malaysia’s Ű BY JOHN GILBERT sunbiz@thesundaily.com

intelligent agent development and build platform, STAROps, a comprehensive intelligent operations platform; ACS Agent Sandbox, which provides hardware-level security isolation while reducing operational costs of AI agents, Agent Security Centre, an integrated defence platform for AI agents; AI Security Guardrails 2.0, an upgraded security solution with end-to-end risk detection capabilities as well as Agentic SOC, an enterprise-grade, AI agent-driven security operations platform. The new products are designed to streamline the building and running of enterprise-scale agents in a secure environment, providing enterprises with full cycle management of agent engineering. Since 2017, Alibaba Cloud has been among the earliest global cloud providers to invest in Malaysia, including establishing its first twin data centre presence and adding the third facility last year in the country. The launch of Johor region brings Alibaba Cloud’s total data centre footprint in Malaysia to five facilities, which marks its largest infrastructure presence in Southeast Asia so far.

Subsidy reforms yield savings of more than RM16 billion annually: Amir Hamzah

the innovative features introduced during the reform process. “But the more important thing was that it is adaptable. That is giving us the capability to navigate challenges and make the country’s resilience stronger.” Amir Hamzah said the reforms have helped ensure that subsidy spending is managed more effectively, with assistance directed towards Amir Hamzah displaying the My Value Up Guidebook at Invest Malaysia Kuala Lumpur Conference 2026 yesterday. – BERNAMAPIC