KUALA LUMPUR: Selangor still has the capacity to accommodate the requirement needed by data centres to operate in the state.

Invest Selangor Bhd chief executive officer (CEO) Datuk Hasan Azhari Idris said the state has discussed with Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB) on the requirement for the operators and the state's available capacity to meet them.

"We have 24 data centres that chose Selangor as their location and they are in early processes of development such as submission and under construction. "We still have more spaces for data centres and recently we have discussed with TNB and they still can accommodate the requirement by data centre operators. We still welcome any data centres that choose Selangor as a location for their operations," he said at the CEO Insights panel session during the MIDA Invest Series programme.

Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA) CEO Sikh Shamsul Ibrahim Sikh Abdul Majid said conventional data centres require high usage of electricity and water.

To reduce excessive usage of these utilities, he said the National Investment Council which is chaired by the prime minister has decided to focus on the development of artificial intelligence (AI) data centre.

"The committee decided to focus on AI data centre as to not escalate the issues of having to spare alot of electricity to these kind of projects. For these centres, they need to meet certain standards of power usage effectiveness and water usage effectiveness to ensure these projects meet the requirement of TNB, and overtime they will use these energy efficient equipment, servers or technology that will reduce electricity and usage of water as well," he added.

Earlier, Investment, Trade and Industry Minister Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz said the government will announce electricity and water efficiency standards for data centres in September, following the influx of power and water-intensive data centre investments in the country.

The minister said the National Investment Council has suggested for Sirim Bhd and the Standards Department to come up with efficiency standards for data centres, especially for electricity and water.