Unsightly, noisy data centres? Not in Singapore

Residents are protesting about large, noisy data centres in their neighbourhoods. But not us. Here's why.

Have you read reports of locals up in arms about data centres in their backyards? Complaints typically include them being an eyesore, polluting, and noisy.

Thankfully, this doesn't happen in Singapore, and to my knowledge, not in Malaysia and Indonesia either. Here's why it isn't an issue here.

Industrial areas only

Singapore data centres are located in industrial estate. This means they are rarely next door, but further away, among other industrial buildings.

Whether greenfield or repurposed from an industrial building, they are also dedicated buildings thanks to requirements such as the MAS Technology Risk Management Guidelines.

Directives include:

• Financial institutions must perform TVRA*.
• Focus on physical security, unauthorised access.
• Continuous monitoring, prompt response to incidents.

*Threat and Vulnerability Risk Assessments.

They're multi-storey

Land is scarce here, and building upward addresses this challenge. This means data centres are multi-storey with a compact footprint, instead of taking up the entire neighbourhood.

Oh yes, they don't usually have basements, due to issues such as firefighting access and condensation.

If you must know, the tallest colocation data centre in Singapore is Equinix's SG5 at 9 storeys - I toured it in 2022.

Not (too) big or noisy

The diesel backup generators used in data centres create a din when running. Fire up a bank of them, and the entire neighbourhood knows.

However, this hardly happens with the stable power grid in Singapore.

In addition, the newest data centres are mammoth facilities of over 100MW. They are much smaller here - the largest colocation data centre here is Singtel's upcoming Tuas West at 58MW.

Data centre sustainability a global issue

To be clear, data centres do pose a challenge to sustainability given the huge amount of water and electricity they consume.

Yet we can't just switch all our digital systems off either. To address this, Singapore first had a lengthy three-year moratorium, before switching to a controlled growth strategy.

Earlier this year, the IMDA also unveiled the Green Data Centre Roadmap, which outlines an ecosystem approach to building more sustainable data centres.

You can read about it here:

• Part A: Dissecting Singapore's 300MW allotment for data centres
• Part B: What's next for data centres in Singapore

So those unwelcomed data centres? It's not a problem here.