Damac Group—controlled by Dubai billionaire Hussain Sajwani—is deepening its investment in Indonesia with a $2.3 billion data center project, its second in the country, amid booming demand for cloud computing and artificial intelligence applications.
Through its unit Edgnex Data Centers, Damac will develop a 144-megawatt data center in Jakarta, the company said in a statement on Wednesday. Construction is ongoing, with the first phase of the project expected to be operational by the end of next year.
“With the increasing scale of AI workloads, the need for new, more powerful and efficient infrastructure is growing,” Hussain Sajwani, founder of Damac Group said in the statement. “This project is part of our major commitment in Southeast Asia, where we have invested more than $3 billion in the development of digital infrastructure.”
Edgnex is concurrently building a 19.2-megawatt data center in Jakarta’s MT Haryono. Phase one of the project is expected to be completed by the third quarter of next year.
Indonesia is among Southeast Asia’s data center hot spots. Billionaire Widjaja family’s Sinarmas Land has tied up with K2 Strategic—controlled by Malaysian billionaire Robert Kuok—to develop a 100-megawatt data center in Bekasi in eastern Jakarta. The Widjajas also have a separate joint venture with Korea Investment Real Asset to build a $300 million project in Jakarta’s business district. Meanwhile, industry pioneer DCI Indonesia—cofounded by billionaires Otto Toto Sugiri, Marina Budiman and Han Arming Hanafia—expects its total capacity to exceed 120 megawatts by early next year with new facilities coming online.
Aside from Indonesia, the Edgnex unveiled plans in October to invest 32 billion baht ($982 million) to build data centers in Thailand. It aims to have a capacity of more than 300 megawatts in Southeast Asia in the coming year.
With a net worth of $10.2 billion according to Forbes’ real-time data, is chairman of Dubai-based property developer Damac Properties, which he founded in 2002. He initially provided food catering services to the U.S. military and construction giant Bechtel, before focusing on real estate.
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