History of Cyberjaya

Cyberjaya used to look something like this.

If you came out in this direction back in the mid-nineties, you would have found yourself standing in the middle of a palm oil plantation in what is now known as Cyberjaya.  Malaysia had plenty of palm oil plantations at that time, but what they did not have was a city specifically designed to facilitate the IT and hi-tech industry.  So from 1997 the transformation began in earnest as modern Cyberjaya started to emerge from the jungle.  Kind of appropriate really, as the whole enterprise was founded in the attempt to move the Malaysian economy away from agriculture and towards manufacturing and tech industries.


This was a government driven project originally, although different developers have become involved over the years as the government has taken a less hands-on approach and let private enterprise take the lead.  It's been quite a dramatic change already: even the lake which separates Cyberjaya and Putrajaya is man-made.

The initial development concentrated on building up the infrastructure and commercial properties, at the expense of residential and entertainment sites.  Which has been the main problem with the city to date.  Cyberjaya is still seen as something of a ghost town, whose resident population is considerably lower than the number of people who work here.  There's just not that much to do, which is why the construction of Cyberjaya's first mall - the unfortunately named D'Pulze - is so eagerly awaited.  WIth cinema and bowling already signed up and the mall scheduled to open in early 2014, the hope is that this will provide a reason for people to hang around.

Cyberjaya has changed dramatically in just the last 3 or 4 years from what was pretty much a wasteland dotted with offices and the (very) occasional retailer, to the beginnings of a real city.  And judging from the amount of construction in progress right now, it's going to be a very different place in another 5 years from now.