Malaysia is betting on data centers to boost its economy. But experts warn they come at a price.

News Snapshot:

JOHOR BAHRU, Malaysia (AP) — Winson Lau has always had contingency plans. But he wasn't prepared for data centers. Lau relies on water and electricity to operate his thriving export business in Malaysia’s Johor province. His contingency plans in the event of an outage involve an intricate system of purifying wastewater through friendly bacteria and an alarm system to quickly switch to backup power. But these measures can’t compete with the gigantic, power-guzzling and thirsty data centers being built in Johor. The province is on track to have at least 1.6 gigawatts of data centers at any given moment from...