Oracle Corp. plans to invest over $6.5 billion in a new public cloud region in Malaysia. With this initiative, the company aims to meet the growing demand for cloud and AI services in the country and expand its presence in the Asia-Pacific region to a total of 12 public cloud regions. The U.S. technology company announced this on Wednesday.

According to Oracle, the new cloud region is intended to enable Malaysian companies to access modern AI infrastructure and services and migrate their mission-critical workloads to the cloud. The investment is part of a comprehensive plan to advance digitalization and technological innovation in the region.

Tengku Zafrul Aziz, Malaysia's Minister for Investment, Trade, and Industry, welcomed the group's commitment. "Oracle's billion-dollar investment underscores Malaysia's potential as a leading location for digital investments in Southeast Asia. This supports the government's goal of establishing around 3,000 smart factories in the country by 2030," said the Minister.

Oracle's decision follows a series of similar investments by tech giants like Microsoft, Google, and ByteDance in Southeast Asia, primarily targeting the growing computational demands of AI systems.

Malaysia increasingly positions itself as a hub for AI innovations in the region.

The planned public cloud region in Malaysia is part of Oracle's strategy to expand access to state-of-the-art cloud services in emerging markets and support digital transformation in the region. According to a report by Arizton Advisory and Intelligence, the country will experience strong growth in data center investments in the coming years. Key locations such as Cyberjaya, Kuala Lumpur, and Johor Bahru will serve as central hubs for most of the country's new data centers.