Singapore - a technology hub for Asia

Welcome to i3news! To kick off the Year of the Dragon, we’re looking East to examine some of the challenges facing the data centre sector in the APAC region. We’re specifically highlighting Singapore, where our APAC regional office is located, and?market forces including land and power availability as well as a change in legislation is affecting operations.?

July 2023 saw Singapore end a four-year long moratorium on data centre development – a measure put in place in 2019 to stop the climate effects of new builds, and redress power capacity challenges in the country.??

It was announced then that four major data centre operators – Equinix , 微软 , AirTrunk and GDS International - can commence building around 80MW of capacity.

In the intervening period, the country has experienced the global pandemic accelerating digital transformation across all industries, followed by the meteoric rise in AI demand. With restrictions now lifted, the data centre market is growing quickly, but what next for Singapore and how will its sustainability goals and energy efficiency requirements affect new designs and developments??

We’ve listed three questions operators face and how to address them.?

What is the best way to manage temperatures in data centres??

Singapore’s tropical climate presents an opportunity to do data centre cooling differently.

A national standard to guide deployment and operation of data centre in tropical climate was launched in June 2023, and pilot trials, referencing to the standards, were conducted at several operating DCs, showing promising improvements in energy efficiencies.

This has been nicely demonstrated with the recent announcement of National University of Singapore (NUS) 's College of Design and Engineering (NUS CDE) testbed data centre for tropical countries.??

This trial aligns with the country’s Research, Innovation and Enterprise 2025 goal to position Singapore as a centre for green products and services, by aiming to reduce its energy and water consumption by 40%?

At i3, our experts see cooling as a high agenda topic not just in Singapore, but also in other parts of the world. A recent article by our UK MD Luke Neville CEng explores the current challenges with extreme weather causing data centre failures. Also, how different approaches such as liquid cooling could offer sustainability advantages from ongoing efficiency, to extended IT product lifecycles and reduced water requirements.?

How can data centre operators manage space limitations??????

It’s no secret that Singapore faces land challenges when it comes to scaling out data centres. Sometimes operators may need to look further afield for support, as Iceotope Technologies Limited ’s Nathan Blom highlighted in a recent opinion piece, there is potential for alliances with Malaysia, due to its lower cost and environmental advantages. At the same time, location remains an important criterion for any new build data centre, and there are compelling reasons to be located within the economic power hub that is Singapore. When it is impossible to scale out, the only way is up, as i3 demonstrated with its feasibility study of high-rise green data centre, as reported in @datacenterdynamics.??

High rise is yet another opportunity to rethink the way we can re-imagine existing data centres as well as new facility designs to not only meet sustainability requirements, but to increase efficiency and reduce energy waste and sometimes noise in multi-purpose, multi-tenant, built environments.??

What about cyber security????

As AI uptake grows, data centre operators in Singapore, will need to consider its impact and use on both the attack and defence aspects of cyber security. The new Cybersecurity (Amendment) Bill will now include digital infrastructure aiming to prevent widespread service disruption caused by hackers. With this, decision-makers must act to put in place good management practices, ensuring systems, equipment and the software that supports them are properly maintained, updated and protected.??

At i3, our teams are leaders in MEP cyber-security and utilising design to ensure the security of physical infrastructure. i3 Founder and Chair, Ed Ansett , will be addressing this topic from the platform at W.media’s Singapore Cloud & Datacenter convention this summer. Check back in the coming months for more details!??

If any of these considerations have sparked questions for you, please leave a comment. Building future-state data centres, which are smart and sustainable, can only be achieved through the collective effort of our industry. In the next newsletter, we’ll be looking at Africa and the new opportunities being presented to its data centre sector.?