Malaysia is currently in a phase of economic development where many global technology companies are looking to open data centers for various uses in our country. While these data centers introduce many advantages such as increased employment and other economic value for the local people, they also introduce new challenges such as high electricity and water consumption.
Selangor is one of the states that will see widespread data center openings, and one of the challenges presented is whether the state’s water supply can accommodate the rate of opening and operation of these data centers. Air Selangor recently said that the state’s water production and supply rate is sufficient to accommodate the water needs of these data centers for the purpose of cooling server machines.
Air Selangor CEO, Adam Saffian Ghazali said that Air Selangor has 34 water processing plants across the state that can produce 6300 MLD (million liters per day) of water, with the current water requirement by data centers as high as 250 MLD through data collected by investment company Invest Selangor.
Meanwhile, Air Selangor also has several subsidiaries such as Central Water Reclamation Sdn Bhd which processes reclaimed water which is processed to be clean, but not for drinking. The use of reclaimed water can also reportedly help technology companies to increase the company's sustainability rate because it uses recycled materials.
For data centers operating in industrial areas, they also have the option of using reclaimed water supplied by Air Lestari Sdn Bhd using wastewater from factories around the area.
Air Selangor also said that they will make organizational and process reforms to further streamline their water processing process to reduce water leakage this year, after reducing cases such as pipe leaks which saved water production by 298 MLD.