Jardine CEO warns Asia data-centre bets exposed to US policy risk
Jardine Matheson CEO Lincoln Pan has warned that Asia's data-centre boom rests heavily on US tech giants, exposing investments to Washington's policy shifts. Speaking at the Milken Asia Summit in Singapore, he said political risk is a key concern, even as private equity pours billions into regional
PETALING JAYA (Oct 13): Asia's rush to develop data centres rests heavily on a handful of US technology giants, leaving investments exposed to shifts in Washington's policies, Jardine Matheson Holdings Ltd CEO Lincoln Pan has warned.
Speaking at the Milken Asia Summit in Singapore on Friday (Oct 9), Pan said political uncertainty was a key concern for investors committing capital to facilities serving US cloud providers and artificial intelligence (AI) companies, Bloomberg reported.
“The risk we think the most about at this point is actually political risk,” he said. Pan questioned whether US technology companies would retain the same freedom and certainty to operate internationally over the next decade, given tensions between Washington and Beijing.
For investors, that means the outlook for Asian data centres depends partly on policy decisions beyond the region, even as demand for computing capacity continues to grow. Private equity firms including Blackstone Inc and KKR & Co have invested billions of dollars in Asian data centres, anticipating sustained demand from AI and cloud computing.
Pan said Asia's digital infrastructure would struggle to keep pace with demand. However, the facilities' reliance on US hyperscalers, the large technology companies operating cloud platforms at scale, creates uncertainty over their longer-term operating environment. Jardine has property investments across Asia through its Hongkong Land unit.
The warning comes amid a separate setback for AI infrastructure fundraising. Nvidia-backed Australian data centre operator Firmus has withdrawn its planned initial public offering, with the Financial Times reporting that market volatility and investor concerns over valuations had undermined the float. The newspaper reported that investors questioned the gap between Firmus' ambitious expansion plans and its existing operational capacity. The company now intends to seek private funding.
On the same summit panel, TPG Inc executive chairman Jim Coulter cautioned against assuming that the eventual winners and business models in AI were already clear. He said the sector's rapid changes required investors to reassess their positions more frequently, even while maintaining longer-term investments in other areas. Coulter compared AI investing to pinball, where direction can change quickly, while likening more traditional investment themes to the repeated, steadier approach of ten-pin bowling.
