Japanese tech giant SoftBank, Malaysian oil and gas business Petroleum Sarawak Berhad, and Singaporean rideshare company Grab have partnered for a data center venture. The trio has signed a Joint Development Agreement (JDA) for Malaysian data centers, with an initial spend of US$1 billion (RM4.07bn). The companies announced a framework agreement last month . SoftBank will invest $800m, Grab will invest $100m, and Petroleum Sarawak Berhad (Petros) will invest $100m. The companies have a long-term target of five gigawatts of compute in the Sarawak region, one of the Borneo states of Malaysia. The three firms will seek additional investors and hyperscaler customers. State-owned Petros plans to expand critical gas infrastructure in the region as part of a broader push for industrial expansion. “We are proud to work with Sarawak to advance AI for the benefit of the region and its people. Together with Grab and Petros, we aim to create lasting opportunities in Sarawak and support the development of technology-driven economic activity across Malaysia and the wider region,” said Masayoshi Son, chairman and CEO of SoftBank. The companies said that the data centers will be developed in close collaboration with Malaysia's Federal Government and the Sarawak Government. Malaysia has increasingly pitched itself as an APAC data center hub, with Google this month announcing plans to invest $15 billion in the country, joining proposed investments from OpenAI , Tencent , and PDG .