Officials say the temporary deferral will apply to developers whose facilities depend on water for cooling servers that run around the clock, amid growing unease among residents and environmentalists that billions of dollars in tech investment are colliding with basic water needs.
Johor is now home to 15 operational data centres with dozens more under construction. Cooling these vast server farms, which are essential for everything from artificial intelligence to e-commerce, requires about 675 million cubic metres (178.3 billion gallons) of water per day, according to government estimates.
