Google on Thursday said it will invest $2 billion in Malaysia, with part of the funds going toward building its first data center and cloud region in the country, as the demand for AI and cloud services rises. The Malaysia cloud region is the latest addition to Google's network of 40 regions and 121 zones in the world, the U.S. tech giant said. This comes after Microsoft said earlier this month it will invest $2.2 billion in Malaysia to advance new cloud and AI infrastructure. Tech giants like Google and Microsoft have pledged billions of dollars to Southeast Asia to capitalize on the rising demand for AI and cloud computing services. The AI boom has boosted demand for cloud computing services and data centers, as large amounts of data are required to train AI models and the cloud provides access to vast datasets.

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Persons: Ruth Porat, Porat, Tengku Datuk Seri Utama Zafrul Aziz Organizations: Google, Government, Microsoft, Tech, Industrial Locations: Malaysia, U.S, Indonesia, Thailand, Southeast Asia