Malaysia plans a law that would force data center operators to disclose their AI chip imports and power consumption, aiming to stop restricted hardware from being rerouted to China.
The country's investment and trade minister, Datuk Seri Johari Abdul Ghani, acknowledged that some companies rented space in Malaysian data centers, imported GPUs legally, then shipped them abroad. The Digital Ministry is now reviewing existing legislation to see whether authorities can act against entities that re-export processors covered by U.S. export bans. Johari said Malaysia wants imported accelerators used inside the country.
Under the proposal, operators would report how many GPUs they import, how much power they draw, where their facilities sit, and who the operators and hyperscale customers are. Oversight would run for a facility's whole life, not stop at project approval. Operators would also pay for all the electricity capacity they reserve. A site that books 100 MW and uses 50 MW still pays for both halves. The stated goal is to discourage reserving power a project may not need for another one to three years. Johari also said Malaysia would share facility information with U.S. counterparts on request.
Power is a sensible tripwire, but a blunt one. Nvidia's H100 and H200 SXM GPUs are rated at 700W and its B200 at 1,000W, and none necessarily draws that much under real workloads. A credible chip count would also need server configurations, the draw of CPUs, memory, storage and networking, and the facility's power usage effectiveness (the ratio of total power to computing power). Chips can also sit idle for a while after import. Power figures can flag a large mismatch. They cannot prove a number.
The capacity charge may do more of the deterrent work. It raises the cost of holding space for hardware that never runs, and it needs no forensic arithmetic to enforce.
The gaps matter. The minister did not say whether operators must report GPU models and serial numbers, or whether inspectors will visit sites. With 117 data center projects approved and 55 already operational, according to Johari, that is a lot of buildings to take on trust.