Why Johor's Data Centre Boom Faces a Resource Wall | Fiducis
The short version: Fiducis traces how Johor's 5.8GW data center pipeline outran its water and grid capacity — a cautionary preview of what's already unfolding in US buildout hotspots.
Our Take
Credit to Fiducis for laying out a pattern that should look familiar to anyone tracking this industry stateside: hyperscalers chase cheap land and lax approvals, permits get rubber-stamped faster than utilities can plan for them, and then the water and grid math catches up all at once. Johor went from quiet palm-oil country to a 5.8-gigawatt pipeline in a couple of years, and now the local water utility is quietly deferring approvals it already signed off on. That's not a foreign curiosity — it's a preview.
Here in the US, the same sequence keeps playing out under different zip codes: county commissions approve rezonings and tax abatements before anyone models the water draw for cooling towers or the substation upgrades needed to feed a single campus. Ratepayers and residents find out the deal was struck only after the trucks show up. Singapore's moratorium pushed the pressure north to Johor; when US grids or aquifers hit their own wall, that pressure doesn't disappear either — it lands on the next community with cheap power and a hungry planning department.
Check our facility map to see which US counties are already carrying that load, and if your area has a project moving through approvals, our take-action page has steps for getting the water and power terms on record before the ink dries.
This is GridWatch the USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Fiducis, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.