Erik Isakson | Digitalvision | Getty Pictures
SINGAPORE — Singapore is pushing for inexperienced information facilities because the explosive demand for synthetic intelligence places a pressure on vitality assets.
Town-state launched a inexperienced information heart roadmap on Thursday to assist its ambitions for the digital financial system as demand for AI and computing grows.
“Because the demand for digital and AI compute continues to rise, the necessity for information heart capability will develop,” Senior Minister of State for Communications and Data Janil Puthucheary mentioned on Thursday.
The roadmap goals to supply not less than 300 megawatts of extra capability within the close to time period, with extra by “inexperienced vitality deployments.”
Plans to supply extra information heart capability embrace elevating vitality effectivity of all information facilities in Singapore, deploying energy-efficient IT tools in addition to providing incentives or grants for useful resource effectivity.
“Information facilities right here additionally faucet on Singapore’s broader worldwide place as a enterprise and digital hub,” Singapore’s Infocomm Media Improvement Authority mentioned in a press launch. IMDA promotes and regulates Singapore’s communication and media sectors.
“As demand for AI has grown, so too has demand for vitality. This has created strains on nationwide vitality networks, which must be managed within the quick time period,” Tony Blair Institute for World Change mentioned in a report on Wednesday.
The AI growth has boosted demand for information facilities which home giant quantities of information required to coach and deploy AI fashions, making them extraordinarily vitality intensive.
Whereas corporations like Microsoft and Google are investing closely to extend the usage of clear vitality, governments have to proceed to create the incentives for corporations to take action, mentioned the Tony Blair Institute for World Change.
Information facilities are the “largest oblique carbon emitter” of the knowledge and communications sector, mentioned Puthucheary. “They contribute to 82% of Singapore’s ICT sector emissions, and account for 7% of Singapore’s complete electrical energy consumption.”
Singapore is the second-largest information heart market in Southeast Asia and the sixth-largest in Asia-Pacific, in response to information from world actual property companies agency Cushman & Wakefield.
Singapore homes greater than 70 cloud, enterprise, and co-location information facilities, which is ready to host cloud platforms, digital companies, and higher-intensity workloads for AI, in response to IMDA.
As the worldwide information heart market hits new highs in 2023, energy limitations have “pushed information heart operators to additional consider untapped and smaller markets worldwide,” mentioned Cushman & Wakefield.
