Malaysia PM says $10 bln committed to national grid upgrade

Anwar, opening the Energy Asia conference, said the grid upgrade would help meet the country's ambitions in artificial intelligence and battery energy storage systems.

State energy firm Petronas also plans to develop three carbon-capture and storage facilities in the country's offshore waters to serve not only the oil and gas sector but other industries, Anwar said.

He said Malaysia's CCS efforts involve more than 10 international partners from Japan and South Korea, as well as global energy firms such as TotalEnergies and Shell.

Petronas is also working with Eneos, Mitsubishi and JX Nippon to explore the transportation and storage of carbon dioxide from the Tokyo Bay area to Malaysia, Anwar added.

"This positions CCS not only as a vital decarbonisation tool but also as a promising new revenue stream for the region," he said in his speech.

Petronas CEO Tengku Muhammad Taufik Tengku Aziz said the firm is working to serve a surge in demand for AI and data centres.

Malaysia is fast becoming a major hub for data centres and AI factories in Southeast Asia, with investments from technology giants including Microsoft, Alphabet unit Google, Amazon, Nvidia, and Oracle, mainly in cloud services and data centres.