D8-1 In Kedah: The Malaysia–Thailand Gateway, By The Numbers

Most Malaysian data centres face south, towards Singapore. D8-1 faces north. It sits at Bukit Kayu Hitam in Kedah, less than six kilometres from the Thai border, and it is the only data centre in Kedah certified to TIA-942 Rated 3. 

If you are looking for a data center in Kedah, or a Malaysian site that connects directly into Thailand, here is D8-1 by the numbers. 

D8-1 At A Glance

Why Build A Data Centre At The Malaysia–Thailand Border? 

Because the fibre is already there. Bukit Kayu Hitam is the main land crossing between Malaysia and Thailand, and it sits on the terrestrial routes that carry traffic between the two countries and onward to Indochina. Within 120 km there are four cable landing stations, two in Malaysia and two in Thailand at Satun and Songkhla, carrying 16 subsea cables. 

That gives D8-1 three roles: 

• A cross-border interconnection point.
  Carriers and networks can hand over traffic between Malaysia and Thailand without routing through Kuala Lumpur or Singapore. 

• A Malaysian site for Thai demand.
  Thailand suspended construction of 49 data centres in September 2026 while it sets new rules on power, water and the environment. Companies that need capacity near southern Thailand now have fewer options at home. 

• A northern recovery site.
  For companies in Penang, the Klang Valley or Johor, D8-1 is a certified site in a different state and grid region. 

How Close Is D8-1 To Thailand, In Network Terms? 

Fibre adds about one millisecond of round-trip time for every 100 km. From D8-1, the border is under six kilometres away. Hat Yai and Songkhla are a short distance beyond. A workload in D8-1 can serve southern Thailand and northern Malaysia without the detour to Kuala Lumpur or Singapore that most traffic between them takes today. 

Is D8-1 A Certified Tier III Data Centre? 

D8-1 is certified to TIA-942 Rated 3(Facilities), the TIA standard’s equivalent of concurrent maintainability: every component and distribution path can be taken out of service for maintenance without affecting your IT load. It is the only Rated III facility in Kedah.  

How Much Capacity Does D8-1 Have? 

D8-1’s first phase covers 47,000 sq ft, with 40,000 sq ft available for customers. The building is designed for an upgrade to 20 MW at 33 kV. As of September 2026, it runs at about 2 MW and is expanding to 4 MW, and the current phase is close to fully taken up. 

We publish that because a gateway site is valuable only if you can get into it. If you need space at D8-1, talk to us now about the next increment and its date. 

How Does D8-1 Connect To The Rest Of Malaysia? 

D8-1 is DE-CIX Premium-enabled, and the full DE-CIX node launch is targeted for Q4-2026 / Q1-2027. It connects south to PE2 in Penang, where DE-CIX Malaysia’s Penang Internet Exchange has a transport node, and onward to Open DC’s sites in Cyberjaya and Johor Bahru. D8-1 was developed with Northern Gateway, a subsidiary of Minister of Finance Incorporated, inside the Delapan Special Border Economic Zone. 

How Does D8-1 Work As A Recovery Site? 

Bank Negara’s RMiT asks financial institutions for concurrently maintainable production data centres and a separate recovery site. D8-1 is certified for the first, and its location helps with the second. It is in Kedah, a different state from Penang, the Klang Valley and Johor, on a different part of the grid and away from the main data centre clusters. 

Paired with PE2 in Penang, which is certified to TIA-942 Rated 3, D8-1 gives a northern production and recovery pair under one operator. Paired with a Klang Valley or Johor site, it puts your recovery capacity at the far end of the Peninsula from your production. Either way, ask us for the shared-dependency map before you decide. 

Who Is D8-1 For? 

• Carriers and network operators building or diversifying Malaysia–Thailand routes. 

• Thai and regional companies that need certified Malaysian capacity close to southern Thailand. 

• Northern-corridor enterprises in Kedah, Perlis and Penang. 

• Banks and regulated companies that need a certified recovery site in a separate state from their production site. 

• AI R&D teams and AI agent training — research labs, universities and companies building, fine-tuning and testing AI models and agents. D8-1’s halls are ready for direct liquid cooling, so GPU clusters for experiments and smaller training runs can sit in a certified site, with direct routes into both Malaysia and Thailand for testing agents against real users and data in both markets. 

The Short Version 

D8-1 is under six kilometres from Thailand, with more than 20 terrestrial cable routes and four cable landing stations carrying 16 subsea cables within 120 km. It is the only TIA-942 Rated 3 facility in Kedah and its current phase is close to fully taken up. 

Book a D8-1 briefing — we will walk you through routes, certification and the next capacity increment. 

Empowering Southeast Asia’s Digital Future.

For further enquiries 

☎️:  03 8888 8188 (General Line)
📱: 012 3188 0446 (Sales)

📧: enquiry@opendc.my 

Operating Hours: Monday – Friday, 9am – 6pm