SoftBank Group, Grab Holdings and Petroleum Sarawak Berhad (PETROS) announced on Monday that they have signed joint development agreements covering 1.85 billion dollars of initial combined seed capital for AI infrastructure across Sarawak and Peninsular Malaysia. The total splits into 1 billion dollars from SoftBank Group, 750 million dollars from Grab and 100 million dollars from PETROS, and the programme carries a long-term target of five gigawatts or more of AI compute capacity.
The Sarawak project takes 1 billion dollars of that seed capital, comprising 800 million dollars from SoftBank, 100 million dollars from Grab and 100 million dollars from PETROS, and builds on the framework agreement the three parties signed in Kuching on October 8. Grab holds an option to increase its stake, which would reduce SoftBank’s, though SoftBank would remain the majority shareholder. The Peninsular Malaysia project takes the remaining 850 million dollars, 650 million dollars from Grab and 200 million dollars from SoftBank, with Grab as founding shareholder leading its development and bringing in long-term strategic investors as it scales. Further development is expected to be funded at project level through third-party equity and non-recourse project financing.
None of the money moves at once. The announcement says the investment will be deployed in stages, subject to projects achieving key development and customer contract milestones and to closing conditions, and that the parties will seek additional investors and hyperscaler customers. Grab chief executive Anthony Tan is expected to oversee both projects and appoint dedicated management teams, an affiliation Grab’s board has reviewed and approved, and SoftBank has agreed in principle to a five-year lock-up on Grab shares held directly by a group entity.
The structure is the first binding step in a programme that until now rested on a prime minister’s account. On October 26 this site reported Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s statement that Masayoshi Son had chosen Kuching and Peninsular sites for a proposed 50 billion dollar investment, a figure SoftBank had not confirmed and for which no structure existed. The signed version is far smaller at the seed stage, but it is documented: named parties, named amounts, a capacity target and the conditions that gate the spending. The facilities are to operate under Malaysia’s renewable energy use guidelines, with high-efficiency designs intended to reduce water use and reliance on local grids, in line with the National AI Action Plan 2026 to 2030.