Microsoft to spur new era, Data centre - boon or bane?

  

Economic boost: Trade groups foresee Microsoft’s investment opening doors to more career opportunities for the people besides supporting the nation’s digital transformation. — File photo

GEORGE TOWN: Tech giant Microsoft’s RM10.5bil investment to support Malaysia’s digital transformation will not only help local businesses be more efficient but also lead to better wages and higher skills for workers, say trade groups.

The investment, which includes building cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure as well as creating AI development opportunities for an additional 200,000 people, will definitely boost Penang’s manufacturing sector, said Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers Penang (FMM Penang) chairman Datuk Lee Teong Li.

“Microsoft’s investment has the potential to drive socio-economic progress and enhance Malaysia’s competitiveness in the global tech landscape.

“The investments will definitely benefit our digital infrastructure, and the skills will help Malaysian businesses, communities and developers apply the latest technology to drive inclusive economic growth and innovation across the country.

“AI adoption will spread across key industries and the public sector while ensuring AI governance and regulatory compliance.

“It is also expected to create better-paying jobs for our people as we ride the AI revolution to fast-track Malaysia’s digitally empowered growth journey,” he said yesterday.

Lee said this will lead to more job opportunities and stimulate economic growth by providing people with valuable skills and employment.

“Additionally, it can attract other tech companies and foster a thriving ecosystem to position Malaysia as a hub for innovation in the region,” he added.

Although some manual jobs and clerical work will be made obsolete by AI, these workers could be retrained for other roles, he said.

On May 2, Microsoft announced that it will invest US$2.2bil over the next four years in Malaysia to support the country’s digital transformation.

The company said the investment will include building cloud and AI infrastructure, training 200,000 people in using AI, and supporting the growth of Malaysia’s software developer community.

This will be Microsoft’s single largest investment in its 32-year history in Malaysia, and the firm will work with the Malaysian government to establish a national AI Centre of Excellence and enhance the nation’s cybersecurity capabilities.

Malaysia Semiconductor Industry Association (MSIA) president Datuk Seri Wong Siew Hai pointed out that Microsoft’s investment in Malaysia is the largest in South-East Asia.

“It follows Nvidia’s investment of US$4.3bil in December last year to develop artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure in Malaysia.

“With Malaysia’s prominence in semiconductor manufacturing and the emergence of generative AI as the next big technology disruptor, AI and semiconductor manufacturing are becoming increasingly intertwined, with AI playing a crucial role in optimising manufacturing processes and enhancing chip design.

“This is in addition to Malaysia’s increasing role in AI chip manufacturing,” he said.

He added that investors are eyeing Malaysia, especially after the government announced that it is crafting the Semiconductor Strategic Plan.

“Intense interest in Malaysia by many companies has resulted in announcements like the ones from Microsoft,” he said.

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Data centre – boon or bane?

https://www.thestar.com.my/business/business-news/2024/05/11/data-centre---boon-or-bane

Data centre - boon or bane?

 https://www.tnb.com.my/assets/newsclip/11052024a.pdf 

Data centre – boon or bane?

 

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YTL AI Cloud to deploy advanced supercomputer

 

 

 

Boom time for Malaysian AI

 

YTL AI Cloud to deploy advanced supercomputer

YTL said the YTL AI Supercomputer will be located in a 664ha data centre facility in the YTL Green Data Centre Campus in Johor.

KUALA LUMPUR: YTL Power International has announced the formation of YTL AI Cloud, a specialised provider of massive-scale graphic processing unit (GPU)-based accelerated computing.

YTL AI Cloud will deploy and manage one of the world’s most advanced supercomputers on Nvidia Grace Blackwell-powered DGX Cloud, an artificial intelligence (AI) supercomputer for accelerating the development of generative AI.

In a statement yesterday, YTL said the YTL AI Supercomputer will be located in a 664-ha data centre facility in the YTL Green Data Centre Campus in Johor, powered by a renewable energy source from its on-site 500-megawatt solar power facility.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim said YTL AI Cloud, the first for Malaysia, will accelerate Malaysia’s adoption of AI and spearhead the development of the country’s Sovereign Cloud.

“The collaboration with Nvidia is a testament to Malaysia’s attractiveness as a hub for digital investments,” he said.

Meanwhile, Investment, Trade and Industry Minister, Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Abdul Aziz said the AI Cloud will create high-value, high-income jobs for Malaysians.

“This marks a significant step forward in our mission to become a leading AI and data centre hub in the region,” he said.

He said the initiative not only brings Malaysia closer to achieving its goals under the New Industrial Master Plan 2030, but also demonstrates Malaysia’s capability and readiness to play a significant role in the global technology landscape.

It is to be noted that YTL will be among the first companies to adopt Nvidia GB200 NVL72 – a multi-node, liquid-cooled, rack-scale system with fifth-generation NVLink.

The supercomputer will be interconnected by Nvidia Quantum InfiniBand networking platform.

The platform acts as a single GPU with 1.4 exaflops of AI performance and 30 terabytes of fast memory, and is designed for the most compute-intensive workloads.

The YTL AI Supercomputer will surpass more than 300 exaflops of AI compute, making it one of the fastest supercomputers in the world.

“There is no doubt that AI is a critical tool that will power the global digital economy,” said Digital Minister, Gobind Singh Deo.

He said having one of the most powerful Nvidia cloud computing infrastructures in Malaysia is a game changer and will spark innovation and development of solutions which are instrumental to the success of the Malaysia Digital Economy blueprint.

“Nvidia is working with YTL AI Cloud to bring a world-class accelerated computing platform to South-East Asia – helping drive scientific research, innovation and economic growth across the region,” founder and chief executive officer of Nvidia, Jensen Huang said.

The latest supercomputer marks one of the first deployments of the Nvidia GB200 Grace Blackwell Superchip on DGX Cloud, supporting the growth of accelerated computing in the Asia-Pacific region.

Meanwhile, YTL Power International managing director, Datuk Seri Yeoh Seok Hong said the group is proud to be working with Nvidia and the Malaysian government to bring powerful AI cloud computing to Malaysia.

“We are excited to bring this supercomputing power to the Asia-Pacific region, which has been home to many of the fastest-growing cloud regions and many of the most innovative users of AI in the world,” he said. — Bernama

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Boom time for Malaysian AI

Boom time for Malaysian AI

PETALING JAYA: Artificial intelligence (AI) is set to be the next growth engine for the technology sector.

Stocks linked to this sub-segment of the tech space have seen strong gains this year.

Analysts believe the run has further legs to go with companies such as Nvidia Corp, Advanced Micro Devices and their related branded manufacturers in Taiwan such as Asustek Computer Inc gaining strong interest of late.

AI requires computing power that is used by graphics processing unit (GPU) in computers and they are the key to the training of neural networks, the enabler of AI.

Apart from powering computer games and graphics/video-intensive computers, GPUs help quicken the training of neural networks which are a key component of many algorithms enabling AI.

The two main GPU designers and makers in the world are Nvidia and AMD.

It appears that tech stocks on Bursa Malaysia have not caught up with the strong rally in the United States as the surge in interest since late last year are limited to makers of GPUs and their related companies.

There was much buzz last week on the local tech space with Nvidia founder and chief executive officer Jensen Huang dropping by several countries in the region including Malaysia to announce business ventures.

For Malaysia, Nvidia last Friday announced a data centre partnership and it also announced last Sunday it will set up a manufacturing base in Vietnam.

YTL Power International Bhdannounced a collaboration with Nvidia to deploy AI infrastructure with Nvidia H100 Tensor Core GPUs at its YTL Green Data Centre Park in Kulai, Johor.

YTL Power’s share price received a boost with this development and saw gains of almost 15% last week alone. The company is now considered an AI-linked firm by market players with this partnership.

SPI Asset Management managing partner Stephen Innes said the surge in share prices of AI-linked companies is just the beginning and investors have not fully digested the strong upside prospects of this latest development in the tech space.

“We are only seeing the tip of the iceberg on a decade-long transition to AI.

“Right now, most of the focus is on the companies making the tools necessary to power the AI revolution that appears to be fast descending upon businesses and, eventually, the broader economy,” Innes told StarBiz.“In the immediate sense, such a build phase may also benefit the ‘shovel providers’ of this ‘gold rush’ – the companies that provide the computing power and tools necessary to build the models needed to compete.

“For this year, at least, Nvidia has stood out as that hardware store on the prospecting hill,” he added.

Innes expects Nvidia will continue to trend higher and be trading at US$600 per share next year and over US$1000 in the longer term.

High-net-worth investor and former investment banker Ian Yoong Kah Yin said investor interest in the domestic tech sector will be AI-driven, moving forward.

“The listed companies in this space are YTL Power, ITMAX System Bhd and Straits Energy Resources Bhd YTL Corp and YTL Power, its subsidiary, are in data centres.

“ITMAX is in video surveillance and analytics. Straits Energy is into oil bunkering, telecommunications solutions and AI-enabling services,” Yoong told StarBiz.YTL, YTL Power, ITMAX and Straits Energy are trading at financial year 2024 price-to-earnings ratio (PER) of 10, 8, 19 and 10 times, respectively, he noted.

Meanwhile, Yoong said the wider local tech space on Bursa Malaysia is expected to remain in the doldrums in the first half of 2024, with recovery seen earliest in the second half of next year.

“The Bursa Malaysia Technology index currently commands an above-average valuation, with a forward PER multiples of 25 times. The historical average PER is 21 times.

“The semiconductor-based sub-sector is expected to report weak earnings in the next two to three quarters,” Yoong added.

Commenting on tech stocks’ performance on Bursa Malaysia, Rakuten Trade head of equity sales Vincent Lau said many Malaysian tech stocks appear to be stuck in a trading range.

“Fund managers are staying on the sidelines and I think they need to see fourth-quarter numbers first.

“Ours are lagging behind and only in the United States it seems to be doing well. Even in Hong Kong the tech sector is struggling,” Lau told StarBiz.However, a tech recovery is still on track and the fourth quarter might be supported by restocking activities.

He said how strong will the recovery be is still the main question.

“But in the AI space, it still has some legs to run while for electric vehicles, it continues to be another growth sector,” Lau said.

“We may be at a short-term bottom now, as I think it will be quite a firm recovery moving into 2024. We may be at an inflection point.”

On YTL Power-Nvidia partnership, RHB Research said it has a long-term positive view on this development.

“The project may also boost its data centre take-up rate in Johor.

“YTL Power’s earnings growth should strengthen upon the successful delivery of the project delivery in the long run but investors ought to take note that additional capital expenditure requirements ahead could be rather intensive,” it said in a note.

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Made in China: Country's new supercomputer uses homegrown chips

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China is stepping up its semiconductor manufacturing efforts and using domestic chips for its latest supercomputer. It's going to be interesting to see how fast China can close in on U.S. supercomputer processor makers Intel, AMD, and Nvidia.

The New York Times reported that a supercomputer called Sunway BlueLight MPP, was installed in September at the National Supercomputer Center in Jinan, China. The details emerged at a technical meeting. The real catch is that China used 8,700 ShenWei SW1600 chips.

Those semiconductors are homegrown and indicate that China is aiming to be a major chip player. The New York Times story was mostly sourced to Jack Dongarra, a computer scientist at the University of Tennessee, but Chinese sites reported on the technical meeting. Dongarra helps manage the list of Top 500 supercomputers. China's previous supercomputers used Intel and Nvidia chips.



Meanwhile, ZDNet UK highlighted the blog of Hung-Sheng Tsao, founder of HopBit GridComputing, who posted the slides detailing the Sunway BlueLight MPP, which come from IT168.com. IT168.com covered China's supercomputing powwow extensively this week.

ZDNet UK's Jack Clark noted:

According to (Tsao's) slides, which appear to be from a presentation describing the computer's capabilities, the ShenWei Sunway BlueLight MPP has 150TB of main storage and 2PB of external storage. Each ShenWei SW1600 processor is 64-bit, has 16-cores and is RISC-based.

Here's a Google Translate link offering more details via IT168.

The Wall Street Journal noted that the China domestic supercomputing effort is very credible and signals an effort to cut the country's reliance on western companies. It's unclear whether China's chips are completely original blueprints or based on a previous design. One issue for the Sunway chips is power consumption. The Sunway supercomputer apparently doesn't need that much power relative to rivals.

The New York Times added that that ShenWei chip appears to be based "on some of the same design principles that are favored by Intel's most advanced microprocessors."

China's efforts appear to be a few generations behind, but rest assured the country will try to close any gaps quickly.

This story was originally posted at ZDNet's Between the Lines under the headline "China steps up its semiconductor game with homegrown supercomputer effort." 

Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan is editor in chief of ZDNet and editorial director of CNET's TechRepublic. He has covered the technology and financial-services industries since 1995.

 
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