AI boom is turning Malaysia’s palm oil estates into data centres

[KUALA LUMPUR] Malaysia’s palm oil giants – long-blamed for razing rainforests, fuelling toxic haze and driving orangutans to the brink of extinction – are recasting themselves as unlikely champions in a different, potentially greener race: the quest to lure the world’s artificial intelligence (AI) data centres to the country.

Palm oil companies are earmarking some of the vast tracts of land they own for industrial parks studded with data centres and solar panels, the latter meant to feed the insatiable energy appetites of the former.