JOHOR BARU: Global chipmaker Nvidia Corporation has chosen Johor as the only location in the Asia-Pacific region to base its DGX Cloud high-performance artificial intelligence (AI) platform, with YTL Group being one of its only five global cloud partners.
Its RM10 billion tie-up with YTL Power International Bhd (YTL Power) has transformed Johor into southeast Asia's AI powerhouse by anchoring its most advanced infrastructure in the country.
Menteri Besar Datuk Onn Hafiz Ghazi recently said Nvidia's choice of making Johor as one of its only five worldwide cloud deployments is a "historic vote of confidence" for the state.
Onn Hafiz is leading a state delegation on a working visit to the company's headquarters in Santa Clara, California, since Monday.
The project, located in YTL Power's 600-megawatt Green Data Centre Park in Kulai, has deployed thousands of Nvidia's cutting-edge GB200 graphic processing units alongside its enterprise AI software platform to deliver the country's first large language model (LLM) and next-generation digital applications.
First announced in December last year and reaffirmed this week, the Nvidia-YTL Power collaboration is seen as a strategic endorsement of Johor's growing digital ecosystem and the newly formalised Johor–Singapore Special Economic Zone (J-S SEZ).
With tax incentives, streamlined approvals and cross-border connectivity to Singapore's financial and technology capital, the J-S SEZ is positioned to attract precisely the type of high-value investments now flowing into the state.
Economists expect the partnership to generate thousands of high-skilled jobs, besides sparking growth in cloud services, semiconductors and software, and accelerate Johor's emergence as a regional AI Centre of Excellence in line with Malaysia's New Industrial Master Plan 2030.