Oracle in discussion to establish cloud data centre in Batam

Oracle is in discussions with the Indonesian government to establish a cloud data centre in Batam, according to a report from Bloomberg.

I'm not surprised, as I've heard industry insiders mention this since last year.

Why Batam?

But why is Batam an appealing location for new data centres? There are several reasons.

• Designated Free Trade Zone.
• 13 subsea cables; more on the way.
• Future access to renewable energy.

However, there are disadvantages too.

As someone I spoke to grudgingly conceded, costs can be higher compared to other parts of Indonesia - since practically everything is imported.

The SIJORI strategy

Earlier this year, I wrote about how Batam is part of SIJORI, now SG+, a plan to build a supercluster of interconnected data centres across Singapore, Johor and Batam.

The idea is to create clusters of data centres in close proximity to Singapore, overcoming the Lion City's inherent limitations and allowing the region to punch far above its weight.

This makes the report welcome news for Singapore. Indeed, Singtel's Nxera is also developing a data centre there in partnership with Indonesia's Telkom and Medco Power.

Nongsa Digital Park

While the report noted that the decision is not final, Nongsa Digital Park is the favoured location. Let's just say I have very high confidence that it'll be the chosen location.

There are several other data centres currently at Nongsa, and I've heard unverified reports that additional land will be acquired to expand the park.

Oracle currently has two cloud regions in Singapore, and last year announced a US$6.5 billion plan to build a similar facility in Malaysia.

What do you think of Batam and Nongsa?