Johor Leads Apac Data Centre Boom as Malaysia Tops Southeast Asia in Construction, Says C&W

Key figures

• ●Johor had 4,198MW of overall data centre stock in 1H2026: 1,110MW operational, 602MW under construction, 2,486MW planned
• ●Malaysia led Southeast Asia with 1,039MW of data centre capacity under construction, ahead of Thailand's 859MW
• ●Johor colocation vacancy tightened to 0.7% despite over 212MW of new operational capacity coming online
• ●C&W recorded three Q2 2026 Johor land sales to data centre developers, including Digital Edge's US$85 million (RM346.53 million) purchase from Crescendo Corporation
• ●C&W places Johor in its 'Powerhouse' category and expects Malaysia to exceed 2GW of capacity by 2028

News summary

Johor has strengthened its position as Asia Pacific's largest data centre market by combined operational and future capacity, while Malaysia leads Southeast Asia in data centre capacity under construction, according to global real estate consultancy Cushman & Wakefield (C&W) in its Asia Pacific Data Centre H1 2026 Update.

Johor had 4,198MW of overall stock in the first half of 2026, comprising 1,110MW of operational IT capacity, 602MW under construction and 2,486MW in the planning stage. Operational capacity rose 24% from the second half of 2025, capacity under construction grew from 315MW to 602MW, and planned capacity rose 19%. C&W's maturity index places Johor in its 'Powerhouse' category alongside Tokyo, Beijing, Sydney and Mumbai.

Johor's development pipeline expanded 29% to 3,088MW, and despite more than 212MW of new operational capacity coming online, colocation vacancy tightened to 0.7%, which C&W said showed newly completed facilities were absorbed almost immediately. The consultancy also recorded three sizeable Johor land sales involving data centre developers in the second quarter of 2026.

C&W cited continued investment including Alibaba Cloud's launch of a new Johor cloud region, AirTrunk's plans for 280MW of new capacity, the topping out of Digital Halo's first facility and US$283 million in financing secured by DayOne Data Centers for its Johor campus, with momentum reinforced by the Johor-Singapore Special Economic Zone.

Across Southeast Asia, 2,382MW of data centre capacity was under construction in 1H2026, roughly half of the Apac total, with Malaysia leading at 1,039MW ahead of Thailand's 859MW. C&W identified Malaysia as one of four Apac markets, alongside Australia, India and Japan, on track to exceed 2GW by 2028.

C&W said 1H2026 was a period of rapid but power-constrained execution, with electricity availability increasingly a bottleneck. It noted Johor has introduced stricter sustainability requirements, including lower power usage effectiveness (PUE) and water usage effectiveness (WUE) thresholds and tighter approval standards, measures that could moderate the pace of future approvals but improve the quality and long-term resilience of the state's data centre ecosystem.