Antonio A. Ver, March 23, 2026, Manila
Situationer
Disrupted supply chains and worldwide price shocks are just some of the inconvenient by-products of war. The loss of lives and destruction wrought are more inscrutable.
In the past, the market reserved a special place for the best product and another for the cheapest product. But lately the calculus dictates that products’ physical visibility takes front and center. One can buy only what can overcome the puzzles that lie between the farms and the markets.
In this light, the pivot to the Brunei Indonesia Malaysia Philippines – East Asia Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA) – Australia New Zealand (ANZ) Corridor makes sense. Shorter travel time makes more sense than longer travel time when it comes to the physical movement of goods.
Now more than ever, there is a need to look at possibilities beyond mere face value and more towards synergy, to create a whole that is much greater than the sum of its component parts.
Artificial Intelligence
The strategic value of the Australian region specifically highlights the National Electricity Market (NEM), Tasmania’s renewable stability, and the potential for specialized high-performance computing (HPC) projects, such as those currently under development in Queensland. Thus, this frames the connection between BIMP-EAGA and ANZ as a diversified Asia-Pacific strategy for latency-tolerant AI workloads, while maintaining a realistic assessment of necessary infrastructure and governance requirements.
The Material Ground of Intelligence: ANZ and EAGA as a “Conditional” Compute Corridor, The End of Placeless Computing
For two decades, the dominant metaphor for digital infrastructure has been the “cloud” – a weightless, placeless abstraction. That metaphor is collapsing. Artificial Intelligence, particularly large-scale model training, consumes electricity at scales that rival industrial manufacturing. A single hyperscale data center can draw 100–200 megawatts continuously; clusters under development are projected to reach gigawatt-scale by 2030.
Traditional hubs like Singapore face formal moratoria and grid saturation. This material grounding forces a re-evaluation of geography.
This essay analyzes whether the BIMP-EAGA region, in conjunction with Australia and New Zealand, could form a viable Asia-Pacific compute corridor. It argues that while these locations merit serious consideration, their success hinges on addressing infrastructure gaps and governance realism.
A Conditional Framework for Site Selection
The viability of these locations depends on transparently modeled variables: capital and operating expenditure (electricity tariffs and cooling), power system dispatchability, network connectivity (latency and redundancy), and regulatory stability (data sovereignty and permitting).
Energy: Beyond Baseload to Dispatchability
BIMP-EAGA: The region holds substantial resources, such as Sarawak’s 3,500 MW of hydropower and Mindanao’s geothermal capacity. However, grids remain fragmented. The challenge is ensuring 99.99% availability for hyperscale loads without dedicated generation.
Australia: The National Electricity Market (NEM) offers 65 GW of installed capacity. While transmission congestion exists, the mature electricity derivatives market allows for sophisticated price hedging. Tasmania, with 90% renewable generation, offers a high-stability, low-carbon alternative.
New Zealand: Offers an 85% renewable grid. While the market is smaller, the government’s 2025 infrastructure strategy prioritizes data centers with streamlined permitting.
Critical Minerals: Supply Chain Proximity
The physical infrastructure of AI depends on copper, nickel, and rare earths. Indonesia and the Philippines hold significant nickel reserves, while Australia’s Lynas Rare Earths operates a critical processing facility. Locating compute near these supply chains reduces logistics risk, particularly for integrated facilities that combine processing and component assembly.
Digital Connectivity: Realistic Latency and Redundancy
Model training is latency-tolerant, making BIMP-EAGA’s 35-70ms latency to Singapore and Tokyo acceptable. However, inference workloads requiring <50ms for interactive applications will still favor hubs like Johor or Batam. Australia’s east coast serves Oceania well but faces 80-120ms latency to Southeast Asia.
Governance Realism: Subregional Aspiration vs. State Capacity
BIMP-EAGA operates as “developmental regionalism,” coordinating infrastructure within the constraints of distinct national systems.
Australia and New Zealand offer higher regulatory stability but face their own complexities, such as Australia’s state-federal divisions.
Carbon Exposure and Future-Proofing
Corporate buyers increasingly require 100% renewable power. This favors Sarawak’s hydro, Tasmania’s wind/hydro, and New Zealand’s geothermal assets over coal-reliant grids in Kalimantan, unless dedicated renewable offsets are established.
Workload Segmentation: Training vs. Inference
The corridor is most competitive for Training Clusters, which prioritize low-cost power and land over millisecond latency. Inference, by contrast, will remain concentrated near population centers.
Scenarios for 2035
Scenario A (Strong Policy): Effective coordination attracts 500–1,000 MW of training capacity to EAGA.
Scenario B (Incremental): Investment remains concentrated in established hubs, with EAGA attracting 100–300 MW in isolated projects.
Scenario C (Carbon-Driven): Corporate mandates push demand toward high-renewable locations like Tasmania and New Zealand.
Conclusion: Conditional Promise
The BIMP-EAGA, ANZ regions offer genuine assets for a diversified Asia-Pacific compute strategy. The “cloud” is heavy, and its weight requires managing constraints into comparative advantages. Success depends not on resource abundance alone, but on the harder work of grid integration and regulatory coordination.
The Energy Forecast
“The Gulf countries, or Gulf Arab states, are a group of six nations bordering the Persian Gulf that make up the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC): Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). These countries are known for being major global energy hubs, holding significant oil and natural gas reserves.”
The pernicious effects of attacks in Iran and Lebanon have crippled the O&G dominance of the GCC.
Based on reports from March 2026, QatarEnergy shut down parts of its liquefied natural gas (LNG) production at the Ras Laffan Industrial City following Iranian missile and drone attacks. Reuters +1
- Production Halt: Several LNG facilities were hit, with reports of “sizeable fires and extensive further damage.”
- Duration of Closure: While some initial shutdowns were temporary, the damage from the attacks is severe, with QatarEnergy expecting to lose 17% of its capacity for three to five years.
- Market Impact: The shutdown has triggered a major surge in European and Asian gas prices due to a significant, long-term tightening of global supply.
- Force Majeure: QatarEnergy has declared force majeure on long-term contracts for LNG supplies bound for several countries, including Italy, Belgium, South Korea, and China. Reuters +3
The attacks and subsequent shutdown of the world’s largest LNG-producing facility have created a “multi-year hole in supply” rather than a temporary pause.”
March 19 (Reuters) – Iranian attacks have knocked out 17% of Qatar’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) export capacity, causing an estimated $20 billion in lost annual revenue and threatening supplies to Europe and Asia, QatarEnergy’s CEO and state minister for energy affairs told Reuters on Thursday.
Saad al-Kaabi said two of Qatar’s 14 LNG trains and one of its two gas-to-liquids (GTL) facilities were damaged in the unprecedented strikes. The repairs will sideline 12.8 million tons per year of LNG for three to five years, he said in an interview.
“And so now, in addition to that, I’m saying that everybody in the world, whether it’s Israel, whether it’s the U.S., whether it’s any other country, everybody should stay away from oil and gas facilities.”
Where do we go? (Next Chapters to Follow)
Henry Hub is irrelevant. 19 days one-way travel time, 38 days round trip. Malampaya natural gas asset is a euphemism. Plainly, it is not sustainable.
Too late to talk about oil depots and terminals, ports and tankage. These were proposed way back in the mid-90’s through early-2000. Energy planners did not listen. The national Biofuels program and Oil industry deregulation have failed. Were government’ forecasts wrong?
In-Text Citations
Indonesia Coal, Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, 2024, pp. 45–47
Malaysia gas & PETROS:
(PETROS, 2025, p. 28)
Brunei oil & gas:
(Brunei LNG Sdn Bhd, 2025, p. 12)
Philippines geothermal, hydro, gas:
(Department of Energy, 2024, pp. 67–70)
IEA mineral demand projections:
(International Energy Agency, 2024, pp. 92–95)
Indonesia nickel reserves:
(U.S. Geological Survey, 2025, pp. 118–119)
Indonesia nickel FDI:
(Indonesia Investment Coordinating Board, 2025, p. 33)
Philippines nickel reserves:
(U.S. Geological Survey, 2025, pp. 122–123)
Philippines critical minerals strategy:
(Mines and Geosciences Bureau, 2025, pp. 15–18)
Malaysia rare earth processing:
(Lynas Rare Earths Ltd., 2024, p. 41; Sarawak State Government, 2025, p. 8)
BIMP-EAGA Vision 2025:
(BIMP-EAGA Secretariat, 2017, p. 23)
Reference List
BIMP-EAGA Secretariat. (2017). *BIMP-EAGA Vision 2025: Connectivity, prosperity, and sustainability*. BIMP-EAGA.
Brunei LNG Sdn Bhd. (2025). Operational and export data 2024. Brunei LNG.
Department of Energy, Republic of the Philippines. (2024). Philippine Energy Plan 2023–2050: Mindanao and Palawan development corridor. DOE.
Indonesia Investment Coordinating Board. (2025). Foreign direct investment in downstream mineral processing: 2020–2024. BKPM.
International Energy Agency. (2024). The role of critical minerals in clean energy transitions (Rev. ed.). IEA.
Lynas Rare Earths Ltd. (2024). Annual report 2024. Lynas Rare Earths.
Mines and Geosciences Bureau, Republic of the Philippines. (2025). Critical minerals strategy 2025. MGB.
Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Republic of Indonesia. (2024). Indonesia Energy Outlook 2025. MEMR.
PETROS. (2025). Annual report 2024: Driving downstream value. PETROS.
Sarawak State Government. (2025). Sarawak rare earth development plan. Sarawak State Planning Unit.
U.S. Geological Survey. (2025). Mineral commodity summaries 2025. U.S. Geological Survey.
