Horizon: Power & Data Centers, Monthly Report, August 2026
ARC Group Securities LLC‘s research desk provides independent research for institutional clients, informed by the firm’s experience in cross-border capital markets.
The August report examines how Malaysia and Thailand are shifting the cost of powering AI data centers from households to developers, and where the resulting profit pool lands across the supply chain.
What’s in This Report
- Regulators stopped socializing the bill. Malaysia and Thailand have moved grid-upgrade costs onto developers, mirroring the approach the U.S. federal government and Pennsylvania took earlier in 2026.
- The bill is real but not yet a deterrent. Malaysia’s 8.3GW of contracted capacity predates the new tariff, and take-or-pay terms mean it gets paid regardless.
- The equipment shortage sets the pace, not the tariff. Multi-year lead times on transformers and turbines give suppliers the pricing power, not the data centers that must comply.
- Four supplier groups capture the money. Transformers and switchgear, on-site generation, power conversion, and cooling each have a distinct regional leader benchmarked against a global peer.
- The risk sits with regulators, not demand. Thailand has tied its tariff to household relief, and no comparable rule has been softened after industry pressure in either market.
About the Research Desk
The research desk at ARC Group Securities LLC provides research for institutional clients, complementing the firm’s existing capital markets business. The desk is led by David Riedel, who has three decades of experience in research, company analysis, and valuation across Asia and the United States.
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