Malaysian power producer YTL Power is considering expansion into the South African data center space, with a view to also becoming a power producer in the country.

According to local reports, YTL would enter the market within the next two years, citing comments by executive director Yeoh Keong Hann. He went on to state that the South African government has queried whether YTL could provide it with water management expertise.

"Hopefully, in the next year or two, YTL can establish a presence in South Africa, but these are areas where we will need to double down and conduct further research,” he said.

The comments were made during the G20 summit, which was hosted in Johannesburg last week, where YTL was a part of Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s delegation.

In addition to Malaysia, YTL also operates in Singapore as a power producer and in the UK as a water utility. The company primarily supplies power from natural gas, operating a portfolio of more than 3GW of gas-fired generation in Singapore through its subsidiary, YTL PowerSeraya.

South Africa's data centers are primarily located in Johannesburg. Operators in the region include NTT, Equinix, Africa Data Centres, MTN, and Teraco, among others.

In August, Teraco announced the successful expansion of its data center outside Johannesburg. The Digital Realty subsidiary said the 30MW addition makes JB4 the largest standalone data center in Africa, serving 50MW of critical IT power load.