Kenyalang Smart City: Miri’s RM5b Next-Gen Urban Hub

Kenyalang Smart City (KSC) in northern Miri is set to become one of East Malaysia’s most ambitious smart urban developments—a RM5 billion integrated city that blends healthcare, education, clean energy, data infrastructure and tourism. Developed by Imasa Dinasti Sdn Bhd, a subsidiary of TAK Group of Companies, the 543-acre project sits near the mouth of the Baram River and aims to position Miri as a new regional hub within Borneo and Southeast Asia. While Kuala Lumpur (and the wider Klang Valley) remains the heart of the national economy and kl property demand, projects like KSC show how Malaysia is expanding its growth story into strategic secondary cities, creating fresh opportunities for investors, businesses and talent.
At the helm of the Kenyalang Smart City vision is TAK Group founder and chairman, Teo Ah Khing—a Sarawak-born architect and urban designer with more than three decades of experience in large-scale master planning. Teo’s track record includes involvement in the master plans for Putrajaya, the Federal Administrative Centre in Kuching, the Port of Tanjung Pelepas, and international projects such as Dubai’s Palm Deira, Palm Jebel Ali, Madinat Al Arab and the Meydan Racecourse & City.

Teo Ah Khing’s return to build a Sarawak legacy

Teo’s personal story is closely tied to Sarawak. Born in Kuching and raised in Miri as the youngest of 10 siblings in a fisherman’s family, he went on to study architecture at the University of New South Wales before pursuing a Master of Architecture in Urban Design at Harvard University. His early career took him to Australia, Japan and Singapore, where he worked on major infrastructure and urban design projects with internationally renowned firms like John Andrews and Nikken Sekkei.
In 1993, he founded Teo A. Khing Design Consultants and began shaping master plans across Southeast Asia and the Middle East. Now, with Kenyalang Smart City, he is channelling his global expertise back into Sarawak with a long-term goal: to create a complete, future-proof city that integrates economic activity, liveability and resilience. As he often emphasises, urban design is not about building big—it is about building something complete.

A three-phase smart city master plan

Kenyalang Smart City will be developed over three phases between 2025 and 2038, on land roughly comparable in size to Desa ParkCity in Kuala Lumpur and about half that of Bandar Utama in Selangor. The master plan integrates residential, commercial, tourism, clean energy, healthcare, higher education and digital infrastructure.
Phase 1 (2025–2028) will introduce several catalytic components:

Engineering resilience: flood management and climate preparedness

One of the key challenges in developing land near rivers and coastal zones is flood risk. Teo and his team tackled this head-on by carving out 200 acres of retention and holding ponds designed to temporarily store excess rainwater and tidal flows before safely releasing them.
Instead of relying on a conventional 50-year horizon, the team undertook a 100-year forecast of tidal and rainfall patterns to ensure KSC’s infrastructure can withstand extreme scenarios. This level of planning is meant to reassure investors that billions committed into KSC will not be undermined by future climate risks—an increasingly important factor for institutional capital and ESG-focused investors evaluating Malaysian real estate markets, whether in Miri or kl property corridors.

Fudan University brings a regional healthcare and education hub to Miri

A cornerstone of Kenyalang Smart City’s positioning is its strategic partnership with Fudan University, one of China’s top universities and a leading institution in medical sciences. On June 11, an agreement was signed between Imasa Dinasti and Fudan University to establish the Fudan University Joint Research Center for Innovative Drug Development in Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine.
The centre will act as KSC’s flagship biomedical facility, supported by a collaboration with the Sarawak Biodiversity Centre. It will host:

Three blocks of two-storey buildings for research and teaching
Facilities for up to 200 researchers and PhD students
Labs specialising in pharmaceutical sciences, traditional medicine, biotechnology, ethnobotany and biodiversity
Phytochemical analysis, molecular biology and tissue culture facilities
Training infrastructure such as classrooms, lecture halls, teaching labs and demonstration gardens
To support researchers, doctors and visiting academics, The One KSC Residence Serviced Apartment and Fudan House will provide modern serviced accommodation with co-living suites and flexible layouts. With an estimated GDV of RM130 million, this mixed-use component is slated for launch in 4Q2025.

KCEC: a transit-oriented business, culture and events hub

Another key Phase 1 component is the Kenyalang Convention & Exhibition Centre (KCEC), envisioned as a transit-oriented development (TOD) combining business events, hospitality, culture and technology within a 300m walkable radius. The KCEC cluster will include:

Convention and exhibition halls
A business hotel
Retail galleria
Performance arts centre
Sarawak Heritage & Cultural Museum
Technology centre gallery
Anchored by a proposed inter-region bus terminal under a public–private partnership model, KCEC will act as a mobility and events gateway, supporting cross-border business, tourism and talent exchanges. An urban “Knowledge Axis” will link Fudan University’s main campus to Kenyalang Lake, reinforced by green corridors, shaded walkways and public spaces that encourage social and academic interaction.

Lagoon Park, commercial squares and smart tourism

Tourism and leisure activities will be anchored at KSC Lagoon Park, built around a nine-acre waterbody surrounded by IoT-enabled smart resort villas, serviced apartments, co-living suites and mixed-use podiums featuring F&B and retail. The waterfront district is designed as blue–green infrastructure—blending ecological water management with placemaking, recreation and wellness-focused tourism.
Commercial activity will be clustered at KCEC Square, a pedestrian-friendly precinct with shopoffices, shaded colonnades and integration with micro-mobility options such as e-scooters, bike-sharing and EV drop-off bays.

Future phases: healthcare city, SEA campus, clean energy and data

Phase 2 brings Fudan Healthcare City, anchored by the doughnut-shaped Fudan Huashan Specialist Hospital—planned as a 450-bed tertiary facility specialising in oncology, elder care and medical tourism. The hospital will deploy Fudan’s proprietary “Medical Technology 6.0” framework, incorporating AI-assisted diagnostics, telehealth robotics and cloud-integrated medical records.
The Fudan University SEA Campus will be the institution’s first fully fledged postgraduate and research campus outside China, focusing on both Western and traditional medicine—helping address doctor shortages and building a knowledge and innovation economy in Miri and the wider region.
To underpin KSC’s sustainability, a 200MW solar farm will supply renewable energy for hospitals, data centres and mission-critical facilities, integrated with smart metering, real-time carbon monitoring and ESG dashboards. Phase 3 will add a 50MW Tier III+ data centre cluster to power healthcare analytics, fintech, governance systems and research workloads.

Cross-border connectivity and regional opportunity

Kenyalang Smart City’s northern Miri location gives it strategic proximity to Brunei. Plans are underway for high-speed connectivity via Brunei’s undersea cable, providing low-latency digital infrastructure directly to KSC. At the same time, Sungai Tujuh at the Sarawak–Brunei border is expected to evolve into a land port, with discussions in place to move cargo from Brunei’s Muara Port into KSC’s logistics ecosystem.
With flight times of roughly five hours or less to major Asian markets including India, China, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore and Indonesia—representing around 3.8 billion people—KSC’s regional reach is significant.

What Kenyalang Smart City means for Malaysia’s broader property story

While Kenyalang Smart City is rooted in Miri, its implications extend to Malaysia’s overall urban and investment narrative. It reflects how the country’s growth is no longer confined to traditional cores like the Klang Valley and kl property hot spots, but is diversifying into new innovation corridors backed by education, healthcare, data and clean energy.
For investors, developers and homebuyers, KSC demonstrates the type of integrated, ESG-aligned, transit-oriented and knowledge-driven city model that will increasingly shape Malaysia’s future.
As Teo puts it, the goal is not just to build another project—but to build a city, a hometown and a legacy. For those tracking Malaysia’s evolving property landscape, Kenyalang Smart City is a development to watch closely alongside opportunities in Kuala Lumpur and other key growth regions. To explore how Malaysia’s urban transformation—from KL to Miri—translates into real estate opportunities, visit klproperty.cc for insights, trends and curated project highlights.