Malaysia is conditioning data centre approvals on water, and pushing reclaimed supply
Bernama reports that the national water regulator SPAN published guidelines in September 2025 telling data centres to use alternative water sources, prioritising reclaimed water for cooling or air cooled systems with zero discharge, and that new data centres will be approved only where energy and water supplies are sufficient, with domestic consumers first.
The verdict
Reported, primary not reached
A reliable secondary source carries it, and the primary document could not be reached. Printed with this label, never as verified.
Key facts
What the sources say
- Record ID
- AIA-2026-0029
- Kind
- Water rules
- Jurisdiction
- Malaysia
- Last verified
- Added
- SPAN published guidelines in September 2025 prioritising reclaimed water for cooling, or air cooled systems with zero discharge.
- The government position reported is that new data centres will be approved only if energy and water supplies are sufficient, with domestic consumers the first priority.
- Each data facility can use up to two million litres of water a day for cooling, on the figures reported.
- Two Johor facilities draw from the national wastewater company rather than from potable supply, and one treatment plant processes five million litres daily.
- This record is reported: the SPAN guidelines were not reachable at the regulator for this build, so no primary source is listed.
Figures
Every number, with who measured it and when
- 2,000,000 litres per day
Reported daily cooling water use per data facility in Johor
Bernama, Allaying Johor data centre water fears, secondary source, as of .
- 5,000,000 litres per day
Reported daily throughput of one Johor reclaimed water treatment plant
Bernama, Allaying Johor data centre water fears, secondary source, as of .
What it changes
For an operator, a utility or a community
An operator in Johor should assume that the water plan is part of the approval, not a later engineering detail, and that reclaimed water is the expected default. A utility should note that the regulator is steering demand off potable supply rather than capping it. A community should read the priority rule literally: domestic supply ranks first, which is a statement a regulator can be held to.
Sources
What this record was verified against
- Bernama, Allaying Johor data centre water fearsSecondary · 4 August 2026
Related
Records that sit beside this one
The EU Water Resilience Strategy names data centres and promises water standards
European Union · verified 15 September 2026
The strategy states that the EU should aim to enhance water efficiency by at least 10 percent by 2030.
Open question: should a data center's water use be public, site by site
United States · verified 15 September 2026
The EU scheme collects water usage as a key performance indicator and publishes only aggregated figures at Member State and Union level.
Cite this record
Free to reuse under CC BY 4.0, with attribution. The record ID AIA-2026-0029 is permanent and is never reused.
- In a sentence
- According to the GAGE AI Infrastructure Atlas (as of 15 September 2026), malaysia is conditioning data centre approvals on water, and pushing reclaimed supply.
- APA
- GAGE (Global Academy of Generative-AI Education). (2026). Malaysia is conditioning data centre approvals on water, and pushing reclaimed supply. AI Infrastructure Atlas. Retrieved 15 September 2026, from https://www.gage.academy/tools/ai-infrastructure-atlas/records/AIA-2026-0029-malaysia-johor-data-centre-water-conditions
- MLA
- "Malaysia is conditioning data centre approvals on water, and pushing reclaimed supply." AI Infrastructure Atlas, GAGE (Global Academy of Generative-AI Education), 15 September 2026, https://www.gage.academy/tools/ai-infrastructure-atlas/records/AIA-2026-0029-malaysia-johor-data-centre-water-conditions.
- Chicago
- GAGE (Global Academy of Generative-AI Education). "Malaysia is conditioning data centre approvals on water, and pushing reclaimed supply." AI Infrastructure Atlas. Last modified 15 September 2026. https://www.gage.academy/tools/ai-infrastructure-atlas/records/AIA-2026-0029-malaysia-johor-data-centre-water-conditions.
- Permalink
- https://www.gage.academy/tools/ai-infrastructure-atlas/records/AIA-2026-0029-malaysia-johor-data-centre-water-conditions
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