Malaysia is aggressively pursuing a shift toward becoming a major hub for data centers to stimulate economic growth, with Johor Bahru leading this expansion. The state, once known as an "Asian tiger," has historically faced challenges such as the "middle-income trap" following the late 1990s Asian financial crisis, prompting current Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim to seek energy surpluses and high-paying jobs through these facilities. According to a report published in April, Johor is on track to have at least 1.6 gigawatts of data center capacity by any given moment, marking it as Southeast Asia's fastest-growing data center market, rising from almost zero in 2019. Researchers at Malaysia’s Kenanga Investment Bank project that power demand from these future facilities could rise to over 5 gigawatts by 2035, a figure exceeding half of the nation's entire renewable capacity recorded in 2023. However, local experts and businesses warn that this rapid infrastructure boom comes with significant environmental and economic costs. Winson Lau, a fish farmer in Johor who relies on precise water and electricity conditions to raise high-value tropical fish, faces direct competition from these power-guzzling operations for resources. Data centers require extensive air conditioning systems using pumped water to prevent overheating, leading to fears that energy outages caused by storms or grid strain could be more severe than before. Lau cited a past 30-minute outage last year that killed 300,000 fish and cost him over $1 million, prompting him to move his operations to Thailand. He noted that the sheer volume of data centers is driving power shortages, with projections suggesting demand for energy may outpace supply as tech giants prioritize low-cost land and tax incentives in Southeast Asia. Critics also point to broader implications regarding labor, resource consumption, and geopolitical dynamics. While Malaysia and countries like Vietnam, Indonesia, and India vie for billion-dollar investments from major tech firms including Microsoft, Equinix, Alibaba-backed GDS Holdings, and Singapore’s Princeton Digital Group—which is building a 170-megawatt site in Johor—the job creation numbers may not match the scale of infrastructure investment. A report by Good Jobs First indicates that data centers typically provide only 30 to 50 permanent jobs, with larger facilities creating no more than 200, contrasting sharply with the resource intensity required. Sofia Scasserra of the Transnational Institute has characterized this dynamic as "digital colonialism," noting that while foreign companies extract value from local resources, most data center capacity services international markets like East Asia and Europe rather than local users, and data centers contribute minimally to tax revenue compared to their physical footprint.