Singapore-Based Data Center Operator Gets Green Load to Fund its $1.5 Billion Project

Princeton Digital Group has obtained a green loan of $280 million to help finance a data center it’s building in the southern region of Malaysia with $1.5 billion.

The loan is the data center operator’s first green loan

This will be the first green loan for the Asian data center manufacturer, as it aims to get that project operational by June.

The Singapore-based group, backed by Warburg Pincus and Mubadala, which construct and manage data infrastructure facilities in the Asian region, obtained the loan from Maybank, which is a Standard Chartered and United Overseas Bank Ltd., reported Bloomberg.

The digital infrastructure operator said that the agreement signified its first green financing, which is a type of debt focused on eco-friendly projects.

Many big tech firms like Amazon and Microsoft and many investors, along with financial corporations, are funding data centers across the Asian region to support the rapid growth of AI development and services. Microsoft already committed to investing $2.2 billion in Malaysia last week.

To meet the annual demand for the infrastructure that powers generative AI and cloud computing, they are required to aid approximately a 25% increase on a yearly basis.

Johor Bahru region is becoming a digital hub

Princeton Digital, founded in 2017, establishes and operates data center facilities in China, India, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia. The company has said it’s seeking to borrow $1 billion to fund multiple projects.

Back in 2022, the firm secured more than $500 million in a funding round headed by Mubadala Investment Co., which is an Abu Dhabi-based sovereign investor and was joined by Ontario’s Teachers’ Pension Plan Board. 

It also bought land in the southern Malaysian state of Johor in the month of May 2023 to build its megascale 150-megawatt data center, which was its first such facility in the country.

The Malaysian Johor Bahru area is gaining footing as one of the rising centers of activity for data infrastructures as it is connected by a causeway to Singapore.

Last year, Nvidia Corp. also initiated the construction of an AI data center in the same region in partnership with YTL Power International Bhd, with an investment of $4.3 billion.