Core infrastructure for data centres and cloud networks are infamous for its out-of-city locations or needing to be built with a supporting sub-urban housing that ensures easy access for its expanding workforce. In fact, with the latter, the brand-new data centre will automatically boost demand, right from ground-breaking, through the surge in need for talents during construction and infrastructure deployment, and, after that, when it comes online – this usually creates a boom time for the township and outlying communities, new or otherwise.

The same can be said of data centres that directly kick-start the building and accelerated growth of a township. This can be seen in the rapid development of new urban zones across outliers around European capital cities; up-and-coming suburbs across India; and various all-new communities being built alongside newly established data centre parks all over the Asia Pacific.

Notably, major players have already bucked this trend as they have established key operations in downtowns of major cities, such as Chinese Capital, Beijing as well as China’s business capital and technology hubs – Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzen; various business districts within central London; and central zones in Seoul.

Credit: datacentres.com

Malaysia is the pioneer in Southeast Asia that just joined this list, with the opening of a new data centre that sits inside the famed Golden Triangle of Kuala Lumpur (KL), adding innovative presence for data centres in the city’s Central Business District (CBD). The newly established Bangunan AIMS (KL2) – a 7.5megawatts (7.5MW) high-density IT load ecosystem data centre – can offer 20-kilowatts (20KW) or more per rack to meet various high-performance computing loads from enterprises that manage and process high volumes of data; work with massive data load-outs from various networks and multi-nationals that land in Malaysia through the Malaysia Internet Exchange (MyIX), which operates from within AIMS data centres; and is fully prepared for the high bandwidth demand from up and coming artificial intelligence (AI) platforms.

AIMS has other bigger plans beyond making downtown KL a centralised data centre hub with KL2, one of which is having the ability to develop and deploy new data centre innovations. This new deployment also focuses on long-term capabilities that focus on addressing the fast rise of environment, sustainability, and governance (ESG) demands.

Insightful Innovations
KL2 is not the first data centre deployment in downtown KL for AIMS – that auspicious title belongs to Menara AIMS (KL1). Having both operating online at the same time enabled AIMS to deploy a new inter-connection system between KL1 and KL2. Called the AIMS Campus Cross Connect system, it links up both adjacent data centres to create an inter-network link that is highly robust and technologically versatile to ensure it delivers on the promise of providing enhanced redundancies, scalable support features, and resilient connectivity.

All these data centre innovations lead towards key features that AIMS can offer as an exclusive – full up-time guarantee and always-on data centre functionality. These are easily achievable for the KL-based AIMS data centre as it operates on resilient data and networking infrastructure. With this comprehensive capability, AIMS can offer technology functions that can scale alongside the growing operational capabilities of business that AIMS is engaged with; amplify workload output based on their needs; and optimise data management and related functions for these businesses.

Beyond the promise of delivering zero down-time for its newly launched data centre, AIMS had set its sights on boosting its information security offerings as well and push the envelope on other innovations for its latest operation in downtown KL. These include sustainable designs and construction processes; renewable energy deployment; and next-gen green design. All these efforts are part of the continuous push that AIMS undertook to be fully compliant with various environment, sustainability, and governance (ESG) requirements.

Sensible Sustainability
With ESG being closely associated with various economic drivers, sustainable and eco-friendly issues must be addressed when it comes to date centre deployment as well. With its new downtown ecosystem now a part of its expansive offerings, AIMS saw this as an opportunity to expand its ESG compliances.

For KL1 and KL2, AIMS retro-fitted both buildings with next-gen energy and water management systems that prioritised on usage efficiencies, optimization of both natural resources, and streamlining demand to ensure that wastage is kept to a minimum. This can be seen in the renewable energy certificates that AIMS secured via bidding for from Sarawak Energy Berhad – this amounted to 268,800 Hydropower Renewable Energy Certificates for vintage year 2024.

This push for ESG compliance also saw AIMS applying even more energy efficient processes for its all-new 8MW IT load facility at its AIMS Cyberjaya campus. The high-power density AIMS Cyberjaya Block 2 (Block 2) is using chilled-water fan wall cooling systems and advanced automation to measure and control the air flow and temperature within the data centre. Throught technology innovation and creative design planning, the anticipated power usage effectiveness for Block 2 will be 1.5MW and below, even when on set to full-load operations at 20KW output per rack.

All these innovations, along with next-gen network infrastructure and training that helps teach and deploy machine learning models, will also be deployed in AIMS Cyberjaya Block 3. With an even higher load capacity of 12MW, this platform has the option to use liquid cooling.

In putting into place these ESG compliant processes and reinforcing its focus on renewable energy use and optimising its use of natural resources, AIMS is now fast-tracking to become a sustainable data centre provider. Its latest addition in downtown KL not only pushes the envelope for advanced innovations, but also reaffirms its consistent pursuit of sustainable designs and processes. This will propel AIMS further in its efforts to constantly be engaged with the data centre ecosystem.