i-City - A Technology Golden Triangle in Selangor

CITY – TECHNOLOGY’s GOLDEN TRIANGLE

From the onset of i-City’s conceptualization and development about 15 years ago, technology had always been the underlying motivation which sparked all manner of activity. Recognition as the country’s first private sector MSC Malaysia Cybercentre development in 2008 typifies the founders’ vision and ambitions.

Today, it is still the only urban centre in Shah Alam and is home to ICT-centric businesses such as the Selangor Digital Creative Centre (an incubator and co-working centre of the state government), as well as home to the first Uptime Institute-certified data centre in the country. Uptime Institute is known to be IT industry’s most trusted and adopted global standard for the proper design, build and operation of data centers. 

I-Berhad founder and executive chairman Tan Sri Lim Kim Hong

i-City was also the first connected community in the South East Asian region when it adopted the Cisco Smart + Connected Community platform, making it the first development in the country that provided not only fibre optic-based connectivity to the unit as a basic utility, but also high speed broadband when dial-up modems were still commonplace. The Malaysian government’s recent comment about categorizing the provision of internet as a utility alongside water and electricity exemplifies the founders’ foresight. 

Influence of technology on a particular area is none the more evident in San Francisco deemed a poster child for the economic effects of technology-based companies taking control of urban areas, and its evolution over the years into the 2nd most expensive city in the world according to a recent annual Bloomberg Global City Housing Cost Index which analyzes more than 100 municipalities worldwide. While Toronto’s costs posted the biggest jump from a year ago to help it surge 18 places to rank 28th globally in the survey, and with Vancouver having the second-largest leap with 16 spots to 16th overall, Canada remains a steal compared to Hong Kong and San Francisco -- which maintained their positions as the world’s two most-expensive cities. This is based on four equal-weighted factors that comprise the index: the average monthly mortgage on a 1,000 square-foot home downtown, payments for a similar unit in the suburbs, and rents for a three-bedroom apartment in the city-center and on the outskirts of town.

 In a 15-mile radius within San Jose, less than an hour south of San Francisco sits six of the top 10 technology companies in the world with the largest body of highly successful talent pools. The area is littered with tech giants, from Apple and HP to Intel, Cisco and eBay. With the Silicon Valley of old running out of space and many millennials, the new generation of knowledge workers wanting to be closer to, if not in, a city with nightlife and culture, the likes of Google, Yahoo, Cisco and others have been led to open big offices in San Francisco. Spurred by tax incentives, Twitter also set up its headquarters in the City by the Bay in 2006, remains there till today.

San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee went even further to extol why his city is a good bet for millennials, and all other generations for that matter. "We have this incredible mix of faiths, languages and international cultures in San Francisco. It gives you that sense, if you are developing or designing products, that you're part of the world and having an impact. There's vibrancy here with different cultures that attracts people. That's why younger workers spend so much money to live here -- they're attracted to the city and our values."

i-City bears the hallmarks of what San Francisco is to the United States, and what it will be as the heart of Selangor’s Golden Triangle. While San Francisco’s status and prosperity has benefited from the presence of technology-based industry giants, i-City’s conscious adoption of technology in pushing the boundaries of its developments and product offerings will be a major draw card for the discerning and a key ingredient in widening its sphere of influence (and the eventual attracting of technology-based industry giants to re-locate). Considering that only about half of the approved GFA has been completed, there are ample opportunities for i-City to continue contributing to the economic development and prosperity of Shah Alam to cement its place as the heart of Selangor’s Golden Triangle. i-City will also be a platform within which the state government’s vision of being a smart state by 2025 will be realized. 

Smart Selangor is a strategic pivot that will interconnect the state’s ecosystems to foster SME growth and collaboration between government, foreign and local enterprises, and academic institutions. Smart Selangor seeks to provide the citizens of Selangor with a safe, well-administered environment within the framework of the following four pillars: Innovation, Connectivity, Social Unity and Sustainability. Aspirations are to enhance the quality of life, ensure environmental preservation, increase economic growth, create quality employment and strengthen fiscal position of the State.

The i-City we see unfolding before our eyes today is founded on the determination to offer a fully-integrated lifestyle township with the infusion of cutting edge technologies, characterized by a number of strategic alliances with some of the world’s leading lights. When completed, the entire i-City landscape will be an intelligent and international city comprising a shopping mall, corporate office towers, cyber office suites, serviced residences, hotels, apartments, leisure attractions, medical and educational hubs, as well as a data center and innovation center, a landmark and the Ultrapolis as envisioned.
Embedded in the development master plan of i-City were two building blocks: • A knowledge hub, exemplified by its MSC Cybercentre status, smart city, internet-of-things (IoT) and eventual artificial intelligence (AI) focus • A tourism destination On the runway today are 3 high-rise residential towers (i-Residence, i-Soho and i-Suite) housing 2,147 units which have already been fully-sold, completed and delivered to homebuyers, 3 themed high-rise residential towers (Liberty, Parisien, Hyde) housing 1,217 units which have also been completed, mostly-sold and handed over to buyers, and the Central i-City Mall developed as a joint venture between i-City and Central Pattana of Thailand. In 2020, the Double Tree by Hilton will open its doors to the waiting world with its 300 elegant rooms equipped with state-of-the-art technology, as well as a Grade-A office building decked with similarly advanced technologies. While the original development master plan was driven by two major building blocks, the next phase of i-City’s development will have 2 transformative goals: • Establishing Shah Alam as a major office location in support of the Federal and State Governments vision to be a knowledge economy • Creating a private sector medical hub for Shah Alam befitting its status as the state capital Against this backdrop, i-City will develop work places of the future – one which inspires innovation through the ability to focus, socialize, learn, collaborate and rejuvenate under a single space, and living spaces of the future – one which offers collaborative living spaces with quality facilities and office-standard technology. Offices are going to face a new group of tenants. Job functions with more physical attributes or lower social and/or cognitive requirements are likely to be automated. Increased office automation, digitalization, shared platforms and collaborative works encourage resources sharing and development of shared workspace providers. A relatively-recent concept (to Malaysia) of modular office buildings will be championed and showcased in i-City, one which will be the way of commercial development in the near future. Such a development offers businesses of any size, particularly small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to attain distinct identities in either a boutique and/or personalized office occupying a module of 4 floors (or two) in an entire tower which may contain 4 (or 5) modules. Work spaces will be designed in a way to allow for a more harmonious environment for collaboration, team shifting and flexibility, so that an employee can choose an appropriate area to work according to tasks at any given moment. By allowing individuals and groups to control their surroundings, it is envisaged that these co-working spaces will come alive, activated by the people. Recognizing the constant evolution of work trends and living patterns of the next generation, it is in similar vein that co-living spaces will also be introduced in this phase of i-City’s development. Such communes have been known to birth success stories of aspiring entrepreneurs, most famously of which is Mark Zuckerberg who reportedly rented a 5-bedroom home in California where early Facebook employees built the social network. As cities become more expensive, co-living also addresses some of the issues around urban living. Apartments are getting smaller while prices and rents get higher, making it harder for younger workers to buy/rent their own place. While there will always be demand for traditional condominiums or serviced apartments, especially for those with families, the fact remains that millennials crave their own kind of space defined by their needs. Co-living brings these demographic shifts together. By the middle of the next decade, and likely home to 20,000 residents (of the 25,000 targeted) and 25,000 knowledge workers (of the 30,000 targeted) by then, the final phases of i-City’s development will be embarked on. By such time, a total of 20 towers would already have indelibly and unmistakably marked the skyline of Shah Alam. For shareholders of i-Berhad, master developer of i-City, investments into a timelessly dynamic instrument with a combination of potentially vast capital gains and healthy dividend flows will bear great rewards.