Google commits $160m to Malaysia data center water plant

Google committed $160 million to fund shared water infrastructure in Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia, built to serve local residents and the company's planned data center campus in Port Dickson.

The money covers an off-river storage reservoir and a water treatment plant able to supply 65 million liters (17.17 million gallons) of drinking water a day for public use and for the campus. Google is working with the Negeri Sembilan state government and the water utility Syarikat Air Negeri Sembilan Sdn Bhd, and has hired Gamuda Berhad to carry out construction, Data Center Dynamics reported.

For allocators underwriting digital infrastructure, the plant is joint-use rather than captive to the campus, so the $160 million buys water capacity that serves public users alongside Google's data center. Google has separately committed to pay 100% of the campus's power and the direct costs of connecting it to the grid.

Drew Byrnes, Google's director and head of global infrastructure and energy for Asia Pacific, said: "Google's decision to fund shared water infrastructure in Negeri Sembilan reflects our global ambition to replenish 120 percent of the freshwater volume we consume, even as our water risk assessment showed that local water sources were not at high risk of scarcity or depletion."

Google bought 389 acres in Port Dickson in May 2025 for the campus. The site lies about 90km (55.9 miles) south of Kuala Lumpur on the Strait of Malacca, and the data center's capacity has been reported at between 500MW and 1GW, with Gamuda Engineering handling engineering and infrastructure works.

The commitment follows a comparable arrangement on power. Google said in October it would fund grid infrastructure for a 600 MW data center in Arkansas, as Private Wealth Daily previously reported.

Port Dickson is one of two Google data center developments in Malaysia. The company broke ground at Elmina Business Park in Selangor in October 2024, where the first phase is expected to have 100MW of capacity and is slated for completion this year. Both fall under a $2 billion investment Google committed to the country in 2024.