Aolani and NVIDIA plan 22,000-GPU AI factory expansion in Southeast Asia

By Splitfeed EditorialLast updated Sep 26, 2026, 20:18 UTC

On September 21, 2026, Aolani and NVIDIA announced a partnership to deploy 22,000 new GPUs across AI factory sites in Southeast Asia, with Malaysia and the Philippines confirmed as host locations. Aolani serves as the primary infrastructure partner in the deal, with NVIDIA supplying the hardware at the centre of the build-out. On the same date, a separate initiative from Delta involving NVIDIA DSX AI factory infrastructure was also reported, suggesting that the Aolani deal is one of several concurrent expansions taking shape in the region.

The scale of the deployment points to a broader shift in where large-scale AI compute capacity is being built. Southeast Asia has become an increasingly competitive destination for data centre investment, driven by growing regional demand for cloud and AI services, relatively lower land and energy costs compared to saturated Western markets, and governments in countries like Malaysia and the Philippines actively courting technology infrastructure. A commitment of 22,000 GPUs represents a substantial physical and financial commitment, and the involvement of NVIDIA, whose chips remain the dominant hardware in AI training and inference workloads, signals that this is not a speculative or pilot-scale project.

None of the three camps, Pro-AI, Anti-AI, or Middle Ground, have published reactions to this announcement yet. A Pro-AI camp would typically frame a deal of this kind as evidence that AI infrastructure is maturing and spreading economic opportunity to emerging markets. An Anti-AI camp would likely raise concerns about the environmental cost of large GPU clusters, the concentration of powerful compute in the hands of a few corporate players, and whether the benefits actually reach local populations. A Middle Ground camp would probably acknowledge the economic development potential while calling for scrutiny of energy sourcing, labor conditions, and regulatory oversight in the host countries.

The details most worth watching next include any formal groundbreaking dates or operational timelines for the Malaysia and Philippines sites, further specifics about the Delta and NVIDIA DSX initiative announced the same day, and whether regional governments issue statements clarifying the terms or incentives attached to hosting these facilities.