Singapore has long been a data centre hub for Asia Pacific with over 70 data centres and 1.4GW of capacity, but a squeeze on power and land led to a data centre moratorium that went into effect in 2019.
2022 saw that pause in data centre development lifted, with a pilot data centre call for applications launched to facilitate the sustainable building of new data centre capacity.
Equinix, Microsoft, GDS and a consortium between AirTrunk and Byte Dance were awarded 80MW of capacity between them in July 2023, but the new plans from the Ministry of Communications and Information will more than triple the available power.
300MW will be made available “in the short term”, while more capacity could be allocated for companies that use green energy.
The latter will be challenge, Singapore gets over 90% of its energy from natural gas, and green credentials without the use of carbon credits has been a challenge for operators looking to meet sustainability goals.
The plan, dubbed the Green Data Centre Roadmap, was announced at the Digital Sustainability Forum, a part of ATxSummit.
The roadmap aims to improve data centre efficiency in two ways, encouraging the use of green energy and focusing on efficiency.
It aims to accelerate data centre’s energy efficiency at hardware and software levels and allow industry and end-users to put in place best-in-class technologies to maximise efficiency, capacity and economic potential.
The plan aims to accelerate data centre’s use of green energy to expand capacity, and explore how Singapore can deploy this at scale over time to maximise space for continued data centre growth.
