26 OCT 2026 — Malaysia's prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim, said on Saturday, 24 October, that an unnamed global investor intends to put US$50 billion into artificial intelligence, new technology and data centres in Kuching, Sarawak and Peninsular Malaysia. He gave the figure in a speech in Melaka and did not say who the investor was. Bloomberg has since reported that it is Masayoshi Son, chairman and chief executive of SoftBank Group. SoftBank has issued no statement on the plan.
No timeline, funding structure or job count has been made public. For now the number rests on one account of one video call, given by a head of government at a domestic government event.
What Anwar said in Melaka
The occasion was a Sentuhan Kasih MADANI event in Melaka, which doubled as the launch of the government's cost-of-living action plan running to 2030. The national news agency Bernama carried his remarks that evening, in this English rendering:
"Last Tuesday, one of the world's largest investors held a video conference with me. The investor said he had chosen Kuching, Sarawak, and Peninsular Malaysia for an investment worth US$50 billion, one of the largest investments in the region," he said. "In which sectors? AI, new technology and data centre."
Bernama converted the sum at US$1 to RM4.08. Anwar tied the money to employment, telling students in schools and universities that "there will be new opportunities waiting, including better employment opportunities".
Who the investor is reported to be
The name comes from Bloomberg. In a report republished by the Taipei Times on Monday, the agency said Son had picked locations in Malaysia for the projects, and wrote that Anwar described a videoconference with Son on Tuesday. Its English version of the speech differs slightly from Bernama's: "He said he had chosen Sarawak — Kuching — and Peninsular Malaysia to expand investment in what would be among the largest investments in the region, worth US$50 billion," it quoted Anwar as saying.
Neither version of the quotation contains a name. A Malaysian news site, The Vibes, reported that Anwar did not identify the investor in Melaka, nor give project details, an implementation timeline or the number of jobs. The link to Son therefore depends on Bloomberg's reporting. RECATOOLS has not seen it confirmed by the prime minister's office or SoftBank.
What SoftBank has and has not said
As of Monday, SoftBank Group's press release page carried nothing about a US$50 billion Malaysian programme. Its two most recent entries, both dated 23 October, concern an interim dividend and the early redemption of euro-denominated notes.
The company's most recent Malaysian announcement came earlier in the month. On 8 October in Kuching, Son, Grab chief executive Anthony Tan and Dato Janin Girie, group chief executive of Sarawak's state energy company PETROS, signed a framework agreement to explore building a Sarawak platform for AI and digital infrastructure. The Sarawak premier attended the signing. The three parties said they would draw up a roadmap for developing the platform in phases, and look at AI compute, robotics and local workforce development along the way.
The SoftBank release named no investment figure. It also states that signing creates no obligation on the companies to reach definitive agreements or to carry out the project. No one has said whether the US$50 billion Anwar described includes the Sarawak platform, though both name Kuching.
Where the money would land
The money would arrive in a market that has already drawn heavy spending. In a release on 14 September, the Malaysian Investment Development Authority put recorded data-centre-related investment at RM385.7 billion between 2021 and mid-2026. Among the operators it listed were AWS, Microsoft, Google, AirTrunk and DayOne, particularly in Greater Kuala Lumpur and Johor.
Kuching is in neither of those clusters. In the October release PETROS is described as the master developer of a low-carbon hub in Kuching, and its stated role in the partnership is energy supply and the infrastructure around it.
Bloomberg noted that a Malaysian push would sit alongside SoftBank's US$500 billion data-centre project in Ohio and a French project costing as much as 75 billion euros.
The conditions Anwar attached
Anwar also used the speech to argue that investor confidence depends on stable leadership. "If people don't have confidence in this government, and if the leadership is constantly quarrelling, investors will not be interested in coming here," he said, according to Bernama.
He also said Malaysia needs to train its workforce well enough to move from back-end technology work into the middle and front of the value chain, where more of the value is captured. MIDA's chairman, Tengku Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz, made a similar case in September, when the agency said the measure of success would be the value built at home rather than the scale of investment attracted.
What would settle the question
A statement from SoftBank naming the amount and the sites would settle the identity question. A definitive agreement under the Sarawak framework would show that talks had become a contract, and the October release makes clear that step has not yet been taken. MIDA's approval figures would later show whether any of the money arrives as a project. Until one of those appears, the US$50 billion is the prime minister's account of what an investor told him.
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