- The double-edged sword of data centre investments
- ChatGPT 5 is now live
IN Malaysia
Two Malaysians were set on fire in Thailand
A 30-year-old Thai male, Varakorn Pubthaisong, allegedly poured thinner on two Malaysians who were sitting on the steps of Big C Shopping Centre, where he subsequently chased the two Malaysians, identified as Ong Yik Leong, 26 and Gan Xiao Zhen, 27, and eventually set the duo on fire. Both victims suffered second-degree burns across multiple parts of their bodies and were reportedly in critical but stable condition. Doctors advised against transferring the victims back to Malaysia as burn wounds are pressure-sensitive and must be allowed to dry first. The Thai police have arrested the suspect.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DNIGNB5yyqu/?igsh=MTJzZWZ1MWljOHV6bw%3D%3D
Source: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/bangkok-two-malaysian-tourists-set-fire-big-c-5286091
Thailand’s Tourism and Sports Ministry Assistant Permanent Secretary, Seksun Ngawsuwan, said that the Thai Government will allocate a specific sum to assist with the victims’ medical expenses. He added that both victims were expected to require about a month of treatment in Thailand to ensure their wounds healed properly and without infection. So, how would this affect Thailand’s tourism industry? The short answer is not good. At the moment, Malaysia is the second-largest source market for the Thailand tourism sector, with 2.66 mil visitors coming from Boleh-land for the first seven months of the year. Thailand’s tourism industry already suffered a 6% drop in foreign tourist arrivals in the first seven months of 2025, compared to the same period last year. Additionally, the ongoing Thailand-Cambodia border conflict is costing the Land of Smiles USD92.6 mil per month. Compounded by the latest attack towards the Malaysian couple, the Thai tourism sector better be expecting the worst. Bila tengok balik, Thailand really need to mandi bunga or jumpa bomoh. The nightmare started with the skirmish with Cambodia, then the change of PM and now rakyat Malaysia, which are their major tourism ‘client’, kene bakar in Bangkok. Apa dah jadi ni Thailand?
Source: https://m.malaysiakini.com/news/751752
Data centre investments – is it a blessing or a curse?
According to an environmental think tank, RimbaWatch, it warned that Malaysia’s new data centres will release annual greenhouse gas equivalent to adding more than two million cars to the country’s roads. Projected to generate nearly 10 mil tonnes of carbon dioxide, data centres in Malaysia’s CO2 output will be equivalent to the emissions produced by entire countries such as Papua New Guinea in 2023. The outrageous rise in CO2 output by these data centres is mainly due to the fact that these data centres are energy guzzlers, raising the demand on Malaysia’s primarily fossil fuel-powered grid by 12,920 gigawatt-hours per year.
Source: https://theedgemalaysia.com/node/765780
Not only power, but data centres also need a lot of water for cooling purposes. Johor is struggling to keep up with the demand of the water-hungry data centres, to the point that the state is considering the use of alternative water sources, including wastewater. Previously, Johor state exco member Lee Ting Han said that some data centres are working together with Indah Water Konsortium (IWK) and Johor Special Water (JSW), to use ‘poop water’ to cool their data centres. Additionally, Johor state housing and local government committee chairman, Mohd Jafni Md Shukor, said that the Bridge Data Centre, located within the Johor Baru City Council’s area, is in the process of using 20 mil litres of alternative water per day. Perhaps investors should look north to build their data centres. At least takyah guna air tahi.
Around the SEA
Welcome GPT-5
After Elon Musk’s xAI released Grok 4 recently, which shocked the market, people expected the just-released OpenAI’s GPT-5 would throw its competitors out of the water. Tapi indah khabar dari rupa as GPT-3.5 received mixed reviews as the improvements from GPT-4 were ‘not a dramatic departure from what we’ve had before’, according to a developer named Simon Wilison. Although there are no formal standards to rank AI models out there, GPT-5 did not outrank all existing AI models on all benchmarks. One thing is for sure, the OpenAI model is the most used model with nearly 700 mil people using ChatGPT each week.
Source: https://theedgemalaysia.com/node/765941
Looking at the overall AI space, it is nice to see multiple companies such as OpenAI, xAI, Microsoft, and Meta are competing fiercely against each other to be the best, as healthy competition leads to better products for the consumer. However, one company keep dropping the ball and is just simply ‘lazy’, and the said company is Apple. Yes, Apple can blame the poaching of its talents by competitors (Meta poached its head of AI team with a USD200 mil pay package) for its mishaps in the AI space, but Apple’s AI direction is also not clear and has left its AI team with ‘a crisis of confidence’. For the past decade, Apple has seemed to prioritise more on share buybacks compared to product innovation as the company has spent USD704 bil on share repurchases, so much so that only 13 firms worldwide have a market capitalisation higher than the shares that Apple has bought back. A buyback, also known as a share repurchase, occurs when a company purchases its own outstanding stock shares to reduce their number on the open market. This strategic move aims to enhance the value of remaining shares by decreasing supply.
Source: https://www.macrumors.com/2025/08/07/apples-ai-problem-not-just-siri-talent-leaving/
For your EYES only
Happy 78th Birthday to PM Anwar Ibrahim. Enjoy the cool birthday wish made by his media team. Oh, btw, do you know that PMX is just one year younger than US President Donald Trump?
