Google has unveiled plans to take a position $2 billion in Malaysia, the place it’s trying to construct its first information heart and drive native capabilities in synthetic intelligence (AI).
The brand new web site will function a cloud area and help Google’s digital companies, together with Maps, Workspace, and Search, the corporate stated in a press release on Thursday. It additionally will energy AI companies that the cloud vendor is trying to drive within the nation.
To be positioned in Malaysia’s capital Kuala Lumpur, the info heart will likely be in certainly one of 11 international locations the place Google runs such a facility, together with Singapore, Indonesia, and South Korea. The seller at present operates 40 cloud areas and 121 zones worldwide.
When operational, the brand new information heart will run alongside Google’s devoted cloud interconnection websites in Cyberjaya and Kuala Lumpur. It additionally marks the seller’s largest funding to this point in Malaysia, the place it has operated for the previous 13 years, based on Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat.
“[In particular], the Google information heart and cloud area…will empower our manufacturing and service-based industries to leverage AI and different superior applied sciences to maneuver up the worldwide worth chain,” Senator Tengku Datuk Seri Utama Zafrul Aziz stated in a press release.
In March, Google launched packages to coach Malaysian youth in AI-focused expertise, working with the Ministry of Larger Schooling to supply 161 institutes of upper studying with 500 Google Profession Certificates scholarships every. It additionally supplied Google Workspace instruments to 445,000 public officers.
The US firm added that it had launched two packages to spice up AI literacy amongst native college students and educators, together with the Gemini Academy, which goals to assist educators use generative AI instruments, comparable to Gemini, responsibly. Greater than 600 educators have participated on this program since its pilot final November, which now has expanded to incorporate extra academic establishments. Google is focusing on for 15,000 educators to undergo this system by yr’s finish.
Google has additionally been offering on-site AI coaching and supplies to college students aged 11 to 14. Launched in April, that program goals to coach an preliminary goal of 1,000 educators and, in flip, attain 10,000 college students throughout Malaysia, Google stated.