Singapore-Based Singtela Develops Green Energy Driven Data Centres

Singapore-Based Singtela Develops Green Energy Driven Data Centres

Singtela has launched an AI development initiative in Singapore and the region, partnering with global and local ecosystem partners in AI, renewable energy, sustainable technologies, and talent development. The company is expanding its regional data center business by building new, green, sustainable, and hyper-connected AI-ready data centers in markets beyond Singapore, such as Indonesia and Thailand. This initiative is part of their efforts to scale their business in these regions.

Singtela unveiled the project at the launch of its new data center brand Nxera, attended by Singapore’s Deputy Prime Minister and Co-ordinating Minister for economic policies, Heng Swee Keat. Central to the initiative are four sets of strategic memoranda of understanding (MOU), including collaborating with NVIDIA to make AI adoption more accessible in Singapore and across the region; tapping the renewable energy expertise of Gulf Energy, Medco Power, Sembcorp and TNB Renewables to accelerate Nxera’s journey towards net-zero emissions.

Bill Chang, Chief Executive Officer of Nxera and Singtel’s Digital InfraCo unit, said, “The launch of the Nxera data center brand is a key milestone for our data center business as we look to expand our footprint in the region beyond 200MW over the next three years.” He added, “Digitalisation shouldn’t come at the expense of our decarbonization efforts. In fact, it should accelerate our efforts. Given our aim to achieve operational net-zero emissions for our data center business by 2028, these partnerships are critical to laying the groundwork for turning digitalization into a driver for decarbonization. Of course, we are also doing our utmost to support the Singapore government’s recently announced National AI Strategy 2.0 and green ICT agenda.”

Singtel’s Key Initiatives:

Supporting national and regional AI development

Singtel’s Digital InfraCo unit and NVIDIA collaborated on opportunities to support Singapore’s updated National AI Strategy 2.0 and create new value through AI. In becoming an NVIDIA cloud partner in the region, Singtel claims to democratize AI access for enterprises, large and small, to NVIDIA GPU clusters hosted in Nxera’s AI DC platform in the region. Customers can leverage Singtel’s extensive fixed broadband network, submarine cables and 5G high-speed network connectivity together with the patented Paragon cloud platform to orchestrate their AI workloads in a multi-network and multi-cloud environment.

Driving sustainable growth through renewable energy partnerships

To achieve operational net-zero emissions by 2028, Nxera claims to be working with leading energy players such as Sembcorp in Singapore and Gulf Energy, Medco Power and TNB Renewables in the region to tap on their renewable energy initiatives. Gulf Energy and Medco Power partnered in Nxera’s data centre joint ventures in Thailand and Indonesia respectively.

Test-Bedding Sustainable Solutions For Commercial Deployment Regionally.

Nxera aimed to achieve the lowest PUE and the highest water usage efficiency as part of developing the most sustainable data center platform to power the AI future. In the area of sustainable technologies, Nxera and its partners, comprising local enterprises Deston and SGP Global as well as global leaders QCT, Shell, Stulz, and Supermicro, claim to establish a co-innovation platform to develop and test liquid and immersion cooling and also water-saving technologies. When these technologies are operationalized, they are to be implemented in DC Tuas in Singapore and data centers in the region. DC Tuas is estimated to have a PUE of 1.23 at full load and claims to be one of the lowest PUE and most efficient data centers in Asia.

Nxera also intends to develop a smart IoT and digital twin platform with local software company Red Dot Analytics to monitor, manage and optimize its data center operations. It uses the platform’s predictive and simulation capabilities to achieve better overall energy efficiency and operational resiliency.

Creating New Regional Training Academy To Build A Strong Talent Pipeline

Nxera is creating a Regional Sustainable Data Centre Academy in collaboration with institutes of higher learning to develop talent for the industry, which is facing a shortage due to the rapid growth in data center capacity in Southeast Asia. The academy claims to launch in mid-2024 with the Singapore Institute of Technology, Nanyang Polytechnic, Singapore Polytechnic, Temasek Polytechnic, and Institute of Technical Education as its first partners. It is expected to train more than 150 students annually, particularly in new areas of data center development, such as sustainability and high-density AI environments, to create high-value jobs in Singapore and the region.

Serving the digital infrastructure needs of hyper scalers and enterprises, Nxera is currently developing three AI data center projects. The new 58MW DC Tuas in Singapore and data centers with partners Telkom and Medco Power in Indonesia and Gulf Energy and AIS in Thailand claim to increase its total pipeline capacity to more than 200MW from its current operational capacity of 62MW in Singapore. These new data centers are to be standardized for customers across countries to give those with multi-country operations a consistent experience and greater speed to market, and Nxera claims to continue to execute this approach as it expands its footprint in Asia Pacific.