Johor is building a 7,300-acre innovation hub on the Singapore border, offering ‘land and scale’ for its neighbor’s ‘capital and speed’

JCorp’s flagship project is the Ibrahim Technopolis, a strategic development under JLand Group, JCorp’s real estate arm. IBTEC has a gross development value of 27 billion Malaysian ringgit ($6.5 billion), and hopes to leverage the exponential growth potential of the Johor-Singapore Special Economic Zone, which Malaysia and Singapore agreed to early this year. 

“In IBTEC, there is a big playground, so to speak, not just for industry, but for innovators,” he said. 

Syed Mohamed has high hopes for IBTEC, which covers almost 7,300 acres in the state of Johor. “In five years, IBTEC is going to be a place where researchers, global firms, and universities work together with industries to tackle the challenges of food security, green energy, and [a] digital future,” he proposed. “In 10 years’ time, IBTEC is going to migrate, not just to become an innovation hub, but a thriving innovation corridor.”

Still, innovation isn’t a costless process, as companies and workers may get disrupted out of a job. 

“Disruption is inevitable when we talk about the dynamics of economic growth, but we feel we should be more humane,” Syed Mohamed said. “I would, in fact, prefer at JCorp that we call it creative renewal, because as we disrupt, we have to make sure that, in fact, there is still an opportunity for those that are going to be disrupted.”

In particular, JCorp also hopes to tap the booming data center industry, in turn connected to rising digitalization and AI usage across the region and beyond. Malaysia has attracted billions in data center investment from Big Tech companies like Microsoft, who hope to tap the country’s ample space and relatively more abundant resources. 

“We’ll be working with partners to provide courses in data center management,” Syed Mohamed said. “We will be moving towards creative renewal.”