Amazon Web Services (AWS) is expected to shell out major investments in Malaysia this year in order to develop data centres in the country, according to the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI). Senior Minister of International Trade and Industry, Mohamed Azmin Ali said that the government has already given AWS approval to invest In Malaysia as a data hub.
That being said, Azmin clarified that they have still not finalised negotiations and that AWS is still discussing several new incentives with MITI, the Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA), and the Ministry of Finance (MoF). “We are confident that the negotiation process will be finalised soon because, for Malaysia, this investment is very important to accelerate the digital technology transformation process in Malaysia,” explained the minister.
Back in March, AWS had signed a Cloud Framework Agreement (CFA) with the Malaysian government, which gave government agencies and departments access to AWS Cloud services in any of the company’s 84 Availability Zones globally. Additionally, the government signed a CFA with AWS, Microsoft, Google Cloud, and Telekom Malaysia to power the cloud computing service MyGovCloud.
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On a related note, Azmin had also met with Microsoft representatives to discuss the progress of the company’s “Bersama Malaysia Microsoft” initiative. He revealed that almost 500,000 local workers have been trained with a target of over one million by next year. Microsft is set to invest US$1 billion (~RM4.4 billion) over the next five years to build its first Azure data centre region in the country.
The minister added that both Microsoft and AWS are prepared to provide input to help the government’s efforts in improving the country’s competitiveness in the digital economy. Malaysia seems to be raking in foreign investments from notable tech companies as of late, with tech manufacturing goliath Foxconn recently announcing that it will be setting up a chip-making plant in the country.
(Source: Bernama)
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