How to Find Private Company Data in Malaysia: A Data Center Case Study

This article draws on Speeda’s private company data and Speeda’s original reports on Southeast Asia’s data center market to demonstrate how professionals can identify and analyze the private companies behind Malaysia’s data center expansion.

Malaysia’s data center market is expanding rapidly, particularly in Johor. But identifying the companies behind the market is not as straightforward as searching for “data center companies in Malaysia.” The problem is industry classification.

A company involved in the data center market may be registered under other related business activities. A search based on one industry code can therefore produce both false positives and false negatives.

For professionals conducting market research, the challenge is not finding information about data centers – It is building a usable company universe.

Step 1: Start broad

A practical company search should begin with multiple relevant sources rather than one keyword.

For Malaysia, a starting universe can include:

• Direct and relevant MSIC classifications
• Server Hosting / Colocation (one of Speeda’s industry classifications)
• Companies whose registered activities mention hosting or data processing
• Companies whose business descriptions explicitly mention data centers

This produces a broad screening universe.

But it is only the first step.

Step 2: Separate operators from related businesses

A hosting company is not necessarily a data center operator.

For example, a company may provide:

• Cloud hosting
• Server management
• Data processing
• IT infrastructure
• Network services

These companies may serve data centers without actually owning or operating the facility.

For company-level research, we therefore classify the universe into:

Core Data Center
Owns, operates, develops or provides physical data center / colocation facilities.

Data Center-related
Provides hosting, cloud, data processing or related infrastructure services but is not confirmed as a facility operator.

Adjacent
Broader infrastructure, telecom, engineering or technology businesses.

Needs verification
Holding companies, SPVs, investment entities or companies where the operating role is unclear.

This second layer of screening is where a broad industry search becomes an investable company universe.

Step 3: Identify the private companies

Applying this screening approach to Malaysia produces a working universe of 23 Core Data Center entities, all private.

Examples include:

• AirTrunk Malaysia
• DayOne Data Centers Malaysia
• AIMS Data Centre
• Bridge Data Centres Malaysia
• Princeton Digital Group
• IP ServerOne
• CSF Advisers
• VDC Cerulean
• Equinix Malaysia
• Open DC

The value of the company-level dataset is that we can move beyond names.

Step 4: Compare financial scale

Of the 23 Core Data Center entities identified, 15 have reported financial data available in Speeda.

The difference in scale is significant.

For example, reported revenue ranges from approximately:

US$430m — AirTrunk Malaysia

to

US$152m — DayOne Data Centers Malaysia

to

US$69m — AIMS Data Centre

to

US$41m — Bridge Data Centres Malaysia

This allows researchers to distinguish between companies that appear in the market and companies with meaningful reported operating scale.

That’s difficult to achieve from a project-by-project market report alone.

if needed, a next layer on geography can be added. Malaysia’s Johor Bahru, for example, has been the largest gainer from Singapore’s 2019-22 DC moratorium, leveraging cost advantages, abundant land, and supportive infrastructure to attract significant investments

For a broader view of the private data center landscape across Singapore and Malaysia, see our analysis of the two markets.

What this workflow gives you

Instead of starting with a market report and manually collecting company names, the workflow becomes:

Broad industry universe

↓

Business activity screening

↓

Core Data Center / Data Center-related classification

↓

Private-company filtering

↓

Geographic screening

↓

Financial comparison

↓

Company shortlist

This is particularly useful for professionals working in markets where the commercial sector does not map neatly onto a single industry classification.

Malaysia Data Center Company Screening — Sample Data by revenue

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