In Malaysia’s Johor, silicon dreams meet parched realities

byVerified News Online

AdvertisementMalaysiaThis Week in AsiaEconomicsIn Malaysia’s Johor, silicon dreams meet parched realities

As global tech titans invest billions in data centres to power the AI revolution, the state’s most precious resource is fast evaporating

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Farmers inspect a parched field in Johor, Malaysia’s most drought-prone state, in 2019. Photo: Shutterstock

Ushar DanieleMalaysia’s southern state of Johor is being transformed by a torrent of tech investment.Advertisement

Global heavyweights – Microsoft, Nvidia, ByteDance – are pouring billions into vast data centres, the digital foundries that underpin the international AI industry and cloud economy.

For Malaysia’s government, these investments are nothing short of transformative, representing a once-in-a-generation opportunity to vault ahead in Southeast Asia’s technology race.

But for Johor residents like Muhammad Azrien Mohammad Ali, the future arrives with a simple, daily anxiety: will water still flow from the tap?

“This year I have experienced three water disruptions,” the 35-year-old told This Week in Asia. “The water supply is there but it is now low compared to before.”

A tanker distributes water to residents in Pontian, Malaysia’s Johor state, after a prolonged water supply cut due to pollution in 2019. Photo: Shutterstock
A tanker distributes water to residents in Pontian, Malaysia’s Johor state, after a prolonged water supply cut due to pollution in 2019. Photo: Shutterstock

Earlier this month, almost a million people faced supply disruptions after pollution shut down several treatment plants along the Johor River – the latest symptom of a long-running water crisis in Malaysia’s most drought-prone state.

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