AWS launches Malaysia Region infrastructure

The new AWS Malaysia Region, a physical geographic location where AWS has a cluster of data centers, offers Malaysian and Asia Pacific customers world-class cloud infrastructure with security, performance, and scalability. It enables local data residency while providing businesses with low latency access to advanced technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI.

Developers, startups, small and medium sized businesses, and enterprises, as well as government and public sector organizations, will have greater choice to build and run their applications to serve end-users from AWS data centers located in Malaysia. This will enable Malaysia organizations to meet the Malaysia Digital Economy Blueprint (MyDIGITAL) goals, and advance the country’s Malaysia MADANI vision to build a highly skilled, innovative, prosperous, and sustainable economy.

AWS’s investment is also expected to create a ripple effect across Malaysia, creating employment opportunities across the data center supply chain, accelerating productivity gains, empowering digital transformation, and upskilling the workforce in cloud and generative AI skills.

“AWS’s RM29.2 billion investment underscores the robust confidence global investors have in our economic policies and potential. AWS’s advanced cloud solutions will play a crucial role in accelerating our national digitalization agenda, enhancing public sector efficiency, fostering innovation across all sectors and ensuring we have the right digital infrastructure in Malaysia to future-ready our nation’s economy,” said YB Rafizi Ramli, Malaysia’s Minister of Economy. “We see cloud as the foundation for innovation as it enables businesses and governments to innovate at scale, and in a more sustainable way. The economic impact of AWS’s investment is profound, with thousands of high-quality and high wage jobs being created, directly contributing to Malaysia’s economic growth. This collaboration will also drive technological advancements and spur new business opportunities especially for AI-driven Startups, ensuring a prosperous future for all Malaysians.”

Since 2017, AWS has trained over 100,000 individuals in Malaysia in cloud skills. AWS continues to invest in upskilling developers, students, and the next generation of IT leaders in Malaysia with sought-after cloud skills through programs like AWS Academy, and AWS re/Start. In July 2024, AWS and PayNet announced Program AKAR powered by AWS re/Start, a new cloud skills initiative in Malaysia that aims to bridge the growing digital skills gap in the financial services industry.

The new AWS Region in Malaysia will further play a vital role in ensuring we fulfill our commitment to sustainability. In 2023, all of the electricity consumed by Amazon’s operations, including its data centers, was matched with 100% renewable energy, reaching our goal seven years ahead of schedule. Moving forward, Amazon will continue to innovate and implement ways to increase the energy efficiency across our data centers and invest in renewable energy, including in Malaysia, to meet its net-zero carbon by 2040 goal, as part of The Climate Pledge. Malaysian customers will also benefit from AWS’s sustainability efforts across its infrastructure to decarbonize their own operations, and innovate with AWS tools and services for sustainable solutions and outcomes. For example, PETRONAS, Gentari Sdn Bhd (Gentari), Amazon, and AWS will be collaborating to accelerate their sustainability initiatives.

Transforming and driving innovation across every industry in Malaysia

Malaysian organizations of all sizes and industries have been increasingly adopting and running every imaginable workload on AWS. These include enterprises like Astro Malaysia Berhad, Axiata Group, Bank Islam Malaysia, Bursa Malaysia, CelcomDigi, Johor Corporation, PayNet, PETRONAS, and large public sector organizations like the Asia Pacific University of Technology & Innovation, BeEducation, Department of Statistics Malaysia, Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE), Ministry of Education, the National Digital Department (JDN), the Federal Agricultural Marketing Authority, GXBank, Pos Malaysia, Radio Televisyen Malaysia (RTM), and Smart Selangor, and Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB). Malaysian startups, independent software vendors, and small businesses, including Aerodyne, Carsome, QRRA, Silverlake, and Tapway are also building their businesses on AWS to rapidly scale nationally and around the world.

“AWS’s substantial investment is a strong vote of confidence in Malaysia’s digital economy. This collaboration will enable us to harness cutting-edge technologies, positioning Malaysia as a leader in the digital era, especially as Malaysia hosts ASEAN in 2025,” said YB Gobind Singh Deo, Malaysia’s Minister of Digital. “AWS’s investment in Malaysia will further expand the ecosystem by fostering collaboration between public and private sectors using regional best practices, implementing skilling initiatives and increasing global competitiveness through AWS’s capacity building in the civil service. Additionally, it will inevitably encourage all sectors to adopt technology and innovation. This partnership is a catalyst for the digital transformation of our nation, fostering a thriving digital economy.”

Here are some examples of how Malaysia organizations in the key verticals of public sector, financial services (FSI), telecommunications, and energy are innovating with AWS:

• Digitalizing Malaysia’s public sector to deliver enhanced citizen services

The new AWS Region in Malaysia will enable digital transformation across the government and public sector. AWS was the first international cloud service provider to sign a Cloud Framework Agreement (CFA) with the Malaysian government in 2022 as part of its long-term commitment to support Malaysia’s digital transformation. 

The Department of Polytechnic and Community College Education (DPCCE) under the Ministry of Higher Education (JPPKK) is the first pilot public sector agency under the CFA to use cloud for online learning, teaching, and examinations. “Built and run on AWS, data and information from the Centralized Information Document Online System (CIDOS) can be obtained easily and quickly 24/7, and be accessed anywhere by 100,000 students and 10,000 lecturers from 36 polytechnics and 106 community colleges throughout the country. We welcome the investment and launch of the AWS Region in Malaysia that will enable us to deliver more innovative digital and AI-led solutions for our students,” said Y.M Tengku Besaruddin Shah Bin Tengku Yaakob, director of the Digital Instructional and Learning Division (BIPD), DPCCE.

The Credit Counselling and Debt Management Agency (AKPK) enhances financial literacy among Malaysians through education, advisory, and debt management programs. AKPK leverages AWS to strengthen its security posture and drive innovations to improve Malaysians’ financial wellbeing. “AKPK swiftly migrated to AWS as part of our Digital Transformation Roadmap to enhance cybersecurity resilience and minimize interruptions to our operations,” said Azaddin Ngah Tasir, CEO of AKPK. “Looking ahead, we plan to go all-in on AWS, leveraging the new AWS Malaysia Region as well as advanced technologies like Generative AI and Machine Learning to deliver personalized financial advice and debt management programs that meet the specific needs of Malaysians. Our collaboration with AWS underscores our commitment to digital transformation, harnessing cloud technology to strengthen data security, deliver high-quality financial services, and reinforce community resilience nationwide.”

• Accelerating secure innovation in financial services

Thousands of financial services firms, from the fastest-growing fintechs, to established financial institutions, are redefining their future on AWS.
AEON Bank (M) Berhad, Malaysia’s first Shariah-compliant digital bank, has built on AWS to create a seamless and secure digital banking experience for Malaysian consumers. “Our strategic collaboration with AWS improves our operational efficiency by promoting collaboration, simplifying design, and deploying applications faster,” said YM Raja Teh Maimunah, CEO of AEON Bank (M) Berhad. “Leveraging AWS has enabled us to build fully digital customer offerings through services such as data management, security, and Al/ML, while reducing our carbon footprint by not having to maintain in-house servers. Banking on the strength of the new AWS Region in Malaysia, we are poised to deliver a suite of compliant digital financial solutions that contribute towards the growth of Malaysia’s fintech digital economy.”

CTOS, Malaysia’s leading credit reporting agency, empowers businesses with comprehensive company and individual credit reports to facilitate and foster a trustworthy commercial environment. Using AWS Outposts, CTOS was able to accelerate their move to cloud within two months and roll out applications within three months, while complying with security and data residency requirements. “Going all-in on AWS helped us modernize our infrastructure, improve performance, resilience and sustainability, as well as strengthen security measures while supporting mission-critical workloads,” said James Mitchell, Group Chief Technology Officer, CTOS Digital Berhad. “With AWS’s expansion of cloud infrastructure in Malaysia, we look forward to improved performance and scalability, reaffirming our commitment to data integrity and leadership in our industry.”

PayNet, Malaysia’s national payments network and shared central infrastructure for the financial market, leverages AWS to run critical national payment workloads. “As the nation’s infrastructure operator for real-time retail payments, we rely on AWS to meet the stringent requirements of reliability, security, scalability, and compliance demanded by our customers,” said Teh Lip Guan, Chief Technology Officer, PayNet. “The real-time insights from analyzing the over 20 million daily e-payment transactions have enhanced our fraud detection, uncovered new opportunities, and improved operational support. The launch of the AWS Region in Malaysia offers lower-latency access to cloud services, which will enable us to innovate quickly and ensure our customers enjoy a seamless payments experience.”

• Transforming Malaysia’s telecommunications, and media and entertainment landscape

Telecommunications companies and media and entertainment institutions in Malaysia are building on AWS to better serve the nation’s connectivity and entertainment needs, and help Malaysia become a regional powerhouse for innovation.

Malaysia’s leading broadcaster, Astro Malaysia Berhad, modernized its systems and infrastructure by migrating to cloud and adapting to a SaaS model to mitigate the risks of maintaining legacy systems as well as enhancing business agility and resilience. “Astro provides premier local programs and a diverse array of international sports content, including football, golf, Formula One, NBA basketball, cricket, sepak takraw, and badminton, to keep sports fans engaged,” said Euan Smith, Group CEO, Astro Malaysia. “We are thrilled that the AWS Malaysia Region will accelerate our transformative journey by integrating new technologies securely and reliably across out platform. This will enable us to revolutionize how we produce and distribute shows, and offer high-quality, personalized content to a broader audience at lower cost.”

Maxis, Malaysia’s integrated telecommunications provider is collaborating with AWS to accelerate innovation in the dynamic fields of generative AI and 5G use cases for Malaysian customers. “As Malaysia’s leading integrated telco, Maxis is pleased to join AWS in marking this great milestone for the nation. Maxis has a proven track record as the first and only telco in Malaysia to be an AWS Advanced Tier Services Partner, and an AWS Direct Connect partner,” said Goh Seow Eng, Chief Executive Officer, Maxis. “With the AWS Region, Malaysia will be able to benefit from the greater flexibility provided by features such as data residency, reduced latency, and enhanced security. Together with AWS, we look forward to helping more businesses leverage the power of cloud computing, accelerating their digitalization and the growth of the nation’s economy.”

• Enabling innovation with partners

The AWS Partner Network has more than 130,000 Partners from more than 200 countries, 70% of which are headquartered outside of the United States. Our partners in Malaysia are a force multiplier for industry innovation. They provide knowledge, expertise, and services to support digital transformation, and help public and private sector organizations to solve pressing challenges.

With AWS, Exabytes has been able to transform to become a one-stop cloud solutions and managed services provider, and scale its business to focus on cloud-first digital transformation services. “With AWS’s comprehensive cloud services and cloud migration programs, we are confident to grow our Exabytes Enterprise Business by more than 40% in FY2024,” said Eric Foo, Executive Vice President and Head of Enterprise Business, Exabytes Group. “We strongly believe that the launch of the new AWS Region in Malaysia will accelerate our growth further as we migrate more customers’ workloads to AWS and modernize their applications to optimize costs, improve user experiences, and simplify their digital transformation journeys.”

Kyndryl, a global IT infrastructure services provider, and AWS’s Premier Tier Services Partner, collaborated with AWS to establish its first Mainframe Modernization Center of Excellence (CoE) in Malaysia to jointly help enterprises update, modernize, and migrate legacy mainframe applications to a cloud-native environment. “We deeply appreciate our strategic partnership with AWS and the value it brings to our customers’ digital transformation through cloud,” said Effendi Azmi Hashim, Managing Director, Kyndryl Malaysia and Indonesia. “In addition to leveraging AWS to help businesses streamline their applications on the cloud, our first Mainframe Modernization Center of Excellence in Malaysia marks a milestone in our collaboration to accelerate innovation and growth across the region. The new AWS Malaysia Region is a welcome development that is pivotal for our shared goal to help our customers become more competitive and digitally advanced.”

With the new AWS Asia Pacific (Malaysia) Region, AWS aims to help organizations in Malaysia and around the region transform and empower its digital economy to maintain a competitive advantage on the global stage.

Re-disseminated by The Asian Banker