Nvidia is reportedly in advanced talks with Malaysian conglomerate YTL over a data center deal, as the US chip giant seeks more business in Southeast Asia. The report said the potential cooperation would include cooperation on cloud infrastructure and could be based on YTL's data center in the southern Malaysian state of Johor. Johor borders Singapore.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang declined to comment directly on a potential deal during a visit to Malaysia on Friday.
"YTL is an extraordinary company and (Malaysia) is an important hub for Southeast Asia's computing infrastructure, which requires access to land, facilities and power, and YTL can play an important role in that," Huang said at a news conference. "Working with YTL in any way is an honor for us."
For Nvidia, Southeast Asia is becoming increasingly important as a "growing technology hub." Huang said he was considering artificial intelligence infrastructure projects in Singapore or Malaysia. He said this week that the company might "announce some big investments" in Singapore.
In the quarter ended in October, the company's revenue from Singapore increased 401% year-on-year to approximately US$2.7 billion, accounting for 15% of total revenue. Many of the Asian headquarters of American and Chinese technology giants are in Singapore, and there are more than 1,100 artificial intelligence startups.
Huang Renxun said that Nvidia is cooperating with 80 startups in Malaysia.