Malaysia PM pledges $10 billion for national grid upgrade

Anwar Ibrahim, Malaysia's Prime Minister, said that Tenaga Nasional had committed to upgrading the national grid infrastructure with 43 billion ringgit (about $10 billion).

Anwar, who opened the Energy Asia Conference, said that the grid upgrade will help the country achieve its ambitions in artificial Intelligence and battery energy storage system.

Petronas, the state energy company Anwar also said that he plans to build three carbon-capture storage facilities offshore to serve the oil and gas industry as well as other industries.

He said Malaysian CCS efforts include more than ten international partners, including those from Japan and South Korea as well as energy companies such as TotalEnergies or Shell.

Anwar said that Petronas also works with Eneos and Mitsubishi to explore the transport and storage of CO2 from the Tokyo Bay Area to Malaysia.

In his speech, he stated that CCS is not only a crucial decarbonisation tool, but also a new revenue source for the region.

Tengku Muhammad Taufik Tengku Aziz, CEO of Petronas, said that the company is working hard to meet the surge in demand for AI-based data centres.

Malaysia is quickly becoming a hub for data centers and AI factories in Southeast Asia. This is due to investments by technology giants such as Microsoft, Alphabet's Google, Amazon and Nvidia.

(source: Reuters)