KUALA LUMPUR (June 23): Malton Bhd (KL:MALTON) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Ricloud AI Inc, a US-based AI cloud infrastructure company, to develop AI compute centres in Malaysia.
The centres will be specialised facilities designed to support AI activities, such as training large AI models and running AI applications in real time.
The property developer said in its filing on Bursa Malaysia on Tuesday that Ricloud AI will help attract global technology companies to invest and set up AI compute centres in Malaysia; provide technical expertise for designing and developing the AI facilities and supply AI servers, Nvidia GPU clusters and related AI solutions and also assist with project financing if needed.
Malton, on the other hand, will help investors find suitable locations and secure land for the AI centres, assist with government approvals, permits and local authority matters and act as the main contractor responsible for building, completing, testing and commissioning the AI compute centres and related infrastructure.
The proposed collaboration would be focused on promoting Ricloud AI’s services in Malaysia and later expanding into neighbouring Southeast Asian markets.
The property developer said the specific terms for any future project would be negotiated on a case-by-case basis once investors have been identified, with definitive agreements to be entered into where necessary.
“The project represents an opportunity for Malton and its subsidiaries (Malton Group) to participate in the growing demand for cloud and AI-related computing as well as data centres,” said Malton.
The MOU will last for 12 months from June 23 onwards, unless replaced earlier by a binding agreement, terminated by either party or expires at the end of the collaboration period.
Malton noted that the MOU is non-binding, except for confidentiality provisions, and serves as a statement of intent between the parties.
The group’s shares were up by half a sen or 1.96% at 26 sen on Tuesday’s market close, giving the property developer a market capitalisation of RM149.2 million.