The Malaysia’s No. 1 technology city has attracted the tenancy of several large multinational companies in the financial and technology space. With the addition of Maybank into its list of tenants, it will see an 80 per cent take-up rate of its first Grade A, GBI rated corporate tower within the first year of completion, despite the pandemic.

On the relocation of the bank to i-City Malaysia, I-Berhad’s chairman Lim Kim Hong said that the office tower currently known as Sumurwang Tower will be renamed Mercu Maybank.

It was previously reported in a local media that the decision to relocate part of its headquarters’ operations is solely for business continuity management (BCM) and resiliency planning to ensure operations and service delivery remain undisrupted.
The new office space, will serve as an additional permanent alternate office site for the group to accommodate new work arrangements resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic, such as hybrid and remote work considerations for the group’s various functions and businesses.

i-City Malaysia is also deemed suitable for Maybank given its premium contactless corporate office design, Artificial Intelligence (AI) security features and Green Building Index (GBI) certification, which bodes well with Maybank’s sustainability commitments.

On the tenancy, Lim said, “we are very excited over Maybank’s decision to strategically expand its operations to i-City Malaysia. As developer of Malaysia’s No. 1 Technology City, we take great pride in offering unparalleled technology, high standards of quality and sustainability at a prime location. Being a digitally driven organisation ourselves, i-City Malaysia is a ready-made destination of choice for firms looking to relocate in search of world-class building and technology infrastructures.”

Lim added that the pandemic had accelerated the need for decentralisation of operations for BCM reasons and i-City Malaysia is fast becoming the location of choice.

“This Multimedia Super Corridor-certified integrated development is served by the Mother of Internet technology-related infrastructure, dedicated internet access (DIA) powered by a 400G capable high availability network. As such, i-City Malaysia is able to facilitate the development of the finance and information technology in the services industry.

“Our network connectivity is also geared up and future ready for deployment of 5G technology which will be deployed in the state of Selangor by next year, he said.
Spanning across 320,000 square feet, the Malaysia’s No. 1 Technology City has all the right ingredients to be the next regional financial hub as well as home to global fortune 500 companies not only with its technology integration, but also with its strategic location.

i-City Malaysia is connected to the Kuala Lumpur city centre by the Light Rail Transit 3 line and expressways. It is also strategically located near two airports - a 20-minute drive away Kuala Lumpur International Airport and Subang Skypark Airport respectively.

i-City Malaysia has a gross development value of RM10 billion and comprises corporate towers, cyber office suites, serviced residences, hotels, convention centres, medical wellness centre, data centres, financial hub, a 1.5 million square feet Central i-City shopping mall (jointly owned with Central Pattana Group Thailand) and a leisure theme park which was recognised by CNN Travel as among world's top 25 most colourful places and the brightest place in the world.

The vibrancy of i-City’s financial sector is best illustrated by the widespread presence of industry leaders, bolstering confidence for further expansion of the township. Leading and pioneering projects are already expressing keen interest to set up in i-City, with many of these foreign institutions encouraged to set up jointly-invested or wholly-owned operations in securities, funds, futures, insurance, pension management and fund advisory.

Upon completion, i-City will house 25,000 residents and 30,000 knowledge workers.
By the end of 2021, i-City will see the completion of DoubleTree by Hilton hotel. The hotel is slated to welcome its guests in 2022.

With the exponential increase in end-user data consumption and the need for speed, the use of interconnectivity and cloud-based applications to handle more bandwidth is ubiquitous in the data center infrastructure.

Given that I-City Malaysia is the first township in Malaysia that is integrated with a data park to fullfill its tenants’ growing bandwidth needs, it will add two more data centres -- to its existing tier-3 data centre which is operating since 2008, accomodating 100,000 square feet each to meet the surging needs of cloud computing facilities.