AIMS reinforcing position as Asean’s top interconnection hub for regional, global firms

KUALA LUMPUR: The data centre sector especially cloud computing has enabled Malaysia to persevere and adapt to the new normal during the Covid-19 pandemic.

This trend would continue well into and pass 2021, carrier-neutral data centre services provider AIMS Group chief executive officer Chiew Kok Hin said.

Chiew is confident of continued expansion of the data centre market in Malaysia and Southeast Asia.

He said in anticipation of growing demand, AIMS had started its expansion a year ago by building a purpose-built data centre with scalable power of up to 60 megawatt (MW) in Cyberjaya and a 1MW retrofitted data centre in Bangkok’s central business district area.

He said both data centres were ready for operation in 2021.

“The company’s main focus for the year would be to reinforce AIMS as Asean’s leading interconnection hub for regional and global companies’ business expansion into the region with its new data centres,” Chiew told the New Straits Times in an interview recently.

Southeast Asia has been the focus for its emerging data centre market for the past few years.

He said with the slowly maturing business environment, technology and resources, local businesses and global players were flooding the market with tremendous technological demand.

“Data centre infrastructure has been the driving force in the rise of the digital economy. This was very apparent in 2020 when cloud computing technology enabled the nation to persevere and adapt to the new normal during the Covid-19 pandemic. This trend will continue well into and pass 2021.”

He added that it was an enormous challenge and also an opportunity for data centres as digital infrastructures would be central to this transition.

“The pandemic-driven IT modernisation is a continuation of the enterprise shift from on-premise legacy IT platforms and systems to more agile cloud technologies in third-party data centres.

“This has been a long and gradual process, but the pandemic has provided a ‘seismic jolt’ to these efforts, according to IDC. This translates to a massive demand for hyperscale capacity. Postponing IT transformation projects won’t be an option in 2021 as companies adjust their IT roadmaps to compete in a shifting business landscape,” Chiew said.

He added that the pandemic had placed an emphasis on flexibility, which would accelerate the ongoing shift to new architectures and software-defined, programmable infrastructures.

Source: NST