Greening Singapore’s Data Centres

Singapore’s vision of becoming a leading digital hub depends on the strength of its trusted digital infrastructure, with data centres sit at the core. These facilities power cloud services and digital platforms across critical sectors from finance and healthcare to logistics and public services. As organisations scale their adoption of artificial intelligence (AI), the underlying infrastructure must keep pace: AI workloads drive higher power density, greater cooling needs, and increased operational complexity. At the same time, Singapore must stay on track with its national climate commitments.

The opportunity, and the test, is whether Singapore can add compute capacity while reducing carbon intensity. Achieving both will require coordinated action across policy, industry and the wider ecosystem: cleaner power, more efficient design, smarter operations, and stronger talent pipelines.

Why data centres matter to Singapore’s competitiveness

Data centres are no longer “back-end infrastructure”. They are enablers of economic competitiveness, supporting digital services, connectivity and the performance required for data-intensive applications. As AI adoption grows, demand is shifting towards high-density, high-resilience environments that can support accelerated computing.

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Hybrid cooling (air-cooled aisles and direct-to-chip liquid cooling) combines air cooling with liquid cooling systems to balance efficiency, density and deployment flexibility

But data centres are also resource-intensive. In a tropical climate, cooling loads are significant and land constraints sharpen the need for more space- efficient designs. These realities make efficiency and sustainability not just “nice to have”, but fundamental to future growth.

The policy direction: growth, conditional on greener outcomes

Singapore’s Green Data Centre Roadmap signals a clear direction of travel: the country intends to enable additional data centre capacity while raising expectations around sustainability and efficiency. In practice, this means progress will depend on measurable improvements, such as better energy efficiency, more effective cooling approaches and greater access to low-carbon or green energy. The roadmap also emphasises the role of partnerships and innovation to help the ecosystem move faster. Initiatives such as the low‑carbon data centre park on Jurong Island serve as testbeds for these innovations, providing a proving ground for next‑generation technologies.

What “AI-ready and low-carbon” looks like in practice

AI readiness is not a single feature. It is a combination of power architecture, cooling capability, operational discipline and resilience, delivered in a way that remains efficient as workloads scale. From an infrastructure standpoint, several pathways matter most:

• Power efficiency and distribution that can support higher rack densities while reducing losses.

• Next‑generation cooling, including liquid‑based approaches, to manage heat more efficiently than traditional air‑cooling alone.

• Operational optimisation, including AI‑enabled monitoring and control to reduce waste and improve performance over time.

These themes align with how sustainable data centres are being shaped globally through smarter systems, tighter control and continuous improvement.

Industry action: how ST Telemedia Global Data Centres is contributing

At ST Telemedia Global Data Centres (STT GDC), sustainability is embedded as a business priority because a resilient digital future must also be a responsible one. In 2024, STT GDC reported that 78.5% renewable energy usage across the Group, alongside continued progress towards carbon‑neutral data centre operations by 2030.

In Singapore, this translates into practical initiatives focused on reducing emissions while supporting performance for next‑generation workloads. These include:

• Deploying advanced cooling approaches suited to high-density compute environments;

• Applying AI‑driven operational optimisation to improve efficiency;

• Trialling lower-carbon alternatives such as hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) for backup generation, where appropriate.

The goal is not innovation for its own sake, but innovation that delivers outcomes: lower carbon intensity, stronger resilience and consistent performance.

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With direct-to-chip liquid cooling, liquid coolant flows directly to cold plates on CPUs/GPUs, enabling efficient heat removal at the source and space-efficient cooling with compact CDUs.

FutureGrid Accelerator: building capability for the next generation of power and AI infrastructure

One of the most important constraints for AI infrastructure is power,specifically how it is delivered efficiently at scale. In Jan 2026, STT GDC launched the FutureGrid Accelerator, positioned as Southeast Asia’s first live High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC)‑powered AI infrastructure testbed. Located at Nanyang Technological University’s Electrification and Power Grids Centre (EPGC) on Jurong Island, the testbed is jointly developed with LITEON, supported by ERI@N and Amperesand, and designed to demonstrate HVDC integration with real AI workloads.

Beyond technology validation, the initiative also connects to a broader priority: building skills and pathways for the workforce needed to support next‑generation digital and energy infrastructure.

In parallel, industry academic collaboration helps ensure Singapore develops the specialist capabilities required for the future. STT GDC is working closely with Singapore Polytechnic (SP) to advance applied research and talent development in sustainable digital infrastructure. This collaboration focuses on partnering innovative solutions for energy efficiency, cooling technologies, and AI‑driven optimisation, while equipping students with practical skills in sustainability and automation. By engaging academia directly, STT GDC helps to prepare the next generation of engineers and technologists to tackle the challenges of building low‑carbon, AI‑ready data centres. The partnership with SP exemplifies how industry and education can work hand in hand to accelerate the adoption of green technologies while nurturing future talent.

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Celebrating the official launch of the FutureGrid Accelerator officiated by Ms Gan Siow Huang, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs and Trade & Industry; a new benchmark for HVDC-powered AI infrastructure in the region.

Managing the trade-offs of cost, maturity and speed

Greening data centres is not without friction. New technologies often carry higher upfront costs, and some low‑carbon pathways remain early‑stage. Even when solutions exist, the challenge is deploying them at scale without compromising reliability, safety and time‑to‑market.

Regional competition adds pressure: other hubs are also investing in sustainability to attract workloads and capital. For Singapore, the advantage will come from being a place where the ecosystem can prove, scale and operationalise next‑generation solutions quickly, while maintaining credible standards.

Looking ahead, scaling what works

Looking ahead, Singapore’s path forward involves

• Scaling low-carbon and renewable energy access and integration;

• Designing new facilities for high-density, efficient operations from day one;

• Raising the baseline through standards and adoption across the ecosystem; and

• Continuing to develop talent in AI infrastructure, power systems, sustainability and automation.

The Roadmap provides the direction; innovation initiatives such as the FutureGrid Accelerator provide places to test and learn; and industry collaboration provides the momentum.

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With immersion liquid cooling, servers are fully submerged in dielectric fluid, delivering high-efficiency cooling and maximising compute density in a reduced footprint.

Conclusion

Greening Singapore’s data centres is both an environmental necessity and a strategic imperative. The question is not whether Singapore will grow digital infrastructure, but how it will do so, by raising efficiency, reducing carbon intensity and building the capabilities required for AI at scale.

STT GDC’s work from sustainability progress across its portfolio to initiatives such as the FutureGrid Accelerator reflects an approach grounded in outcomes: performance, resilience and responsible growth.

By aligning policy, technology, and partnerships, Singapore can continue to strengthen its position as a future-ready digital hub, one that is also credible in its sustainability ambitions.

Article contributed by: Mr. Yeo Teong Chuan, Head of R&D, ST Telemedia Global Data Centres and Mr. Mohammad Ubaidullah MOHAMED IDRIS, Lead (Smart Facilities Management), Singapore Polytechnic

This article was first published in the Singapore Green Building Council’s SG Green magazine Building Greener Data Centres For A Sustainable Digital Future on 30 March 2026.