Singapore is advocating for green data centres in response to the increasing strain on energy supplies as the demand for artificial intelligence grows.
TakeAway Points:
- As the demand for AI and computing develops, the city-state unveiled a green data centre plan on Thursday to support its goals for the digital economy.
- The plan calls for “green energy deployments” to increase capacity by at least 300 megawatts in the near future.
- The need for energy has increased in tandem with the need for AI. In a paper released on Wednesday, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change stated that this has put demand on national energy networks that must be controlled in the near future.
Green Data Centre
Singapore is advocating for green data centres in response to the increasing strain on energy supplies as the demand for artificial intelligence grows.
With the need for AI and computing growing, the city-state unveiled a roadmap for green data centres on Thursday to help achieve its goals for the digital economy.
“As the demand for digital and AI compute continues to rise, the need for data center capacity will grow,” Senior Minister of State for Communications and Information Janil Puthucheary said on Thursday.
Green Data Centre Purpose
The strategy intends to add 300 megawatts of capacity or more in the foreseeable future through “green energy deployments.”
The use of energy-efficient IT equipment, providing incentives or awards for resource efficiency, and improving the energy efficiency of all Singaporean data centres are all part of the plans to expand data centre capacity.
“Data centers here also tap on Singapore’s broader international position as a business and digital hub,” Singapore’s Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) said in a press release.
IMDA promotes and regulates Singapore’s communication and media sectors.
“As demand for AI has grown, so too has demand for energy. This has created strains on national energy networks, which need to be managed in the short term,” Tony Blair Institute for Global Change said in a report on Wednesday.
The demand for data centres, which store the massive volumes of data needed to train and implement AI models, has increased due to the AI boom. These facilities are also very energy-intensive.
The need for Sustainable Energy
The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change stated that even though businesses like Microsoft and Google are making significant investments to promote the use of sustainable energy, governments must keep providing the incentives for them to do so.
According to Puthucheary, data centres are the “largest indirect carbon emitter” in the information and communications industry.
“They contribute to 82% of Singapore’s ICT sector emissions, and account for 7% of Singapore’s total electricity consumption.”
Based on data from the international real estate services company Cushman & Wakefield, Singapore is the sixth-largest data centre market in Asia-Pacific and the second-largest in Southeast Asia.
According to IMDA, Singapore is home to more than 70 cloud, enterprise, and co-location data centres that can accommodate higher-intensity workloads for artificial intelligence as well as cloud platforms and digital services.
Power constraints have “pushed data centre operators to further assess untapped and smaller markets worldwide,” according to Cushman & Wakefield, as the global data centre market reaches new highs in 2023.
