SINGAPORE - Data centres in tropical countries such as Singapore consume a lot of energy as they need to power cooling systems that allow the equipment to operate within a certain temperature range.
But a newly introduced standard aims to make data centres here more energy-efficient and help them save money by making it possible to operate at higher temperatures, the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) said on Thursday.
Operating temperatures could be gradually increased to 26 deg C or more, allowing these centres to benefit from cooling energy savings of between 2 per cent and 5 per cent for every 1 deg C increase.
The standard establishes guidelines for the industry to safely raise the operational temperatures of data centres in hot tropical climates and at higher humidity levels, IMDA said.
IMDA said cooling systems can account for up to 40 per cent of a data centre''s total energy consumption, with many operators choosing to operate their equipment at temperatures of 22 deg C and below.
Data centres were responsible for about 7 per cent of the Republic''s total electricity consumption in 2020, according to the Ministry of Trade and Industry.
As at January 2022, there were more than 70 operational data centres in Singapore.
The new standard was announced by Senior Minister of State for Communications and Information Janil Puthucheary at the Singapore Expo on Thursday. It comes under the newly launched Digital Connectivity Blueprint.
Speaking at ATxEnterprise – part of the Asia Tech x Singapore event – Dr Janil said one data centre operator that adopted the new standard saved an estimated $250,000 per year in energy costs.
"We invite more data centre operators to use this standard to achieve greater cost savings for themselves and to promulgate sustainability at a wider level across the data centre sector," he said.
The cooling of data centres in a warmer tropical climate environment presents additional challenges as more energy is used to operate the cooling systems, IMDA said. It added that it has worked with several data centre operators here to test the new standard.
One of them, United States-based Digital Realty, reduced its total energy usage by 2 per cent to 3 per cent by raising temperatures by 2 deg C at two of its 4.5MW data halls – rooms within data centres containing infrastructure such as computer systems and data storage.
Digital Realty''s Asia-Pacific operations vice-president Jon Curry told The Straits Times that no "detrimental effects or impairment" were observed during the trial, which ran from December 2022 to May.
Mr Curry added that as part of the firm''s sustainability efforts, it had also installed solar panels at two of its three data centres here.
The Government Technology Agency has also begun testing higher temperatures in a government data centre, as part of its own sustainability initiative, IMDA said.
IMDA added that it is working with the Building and Construction Authority to update the Green Mark scheme for data centres.
The scheme sets energy-efficiency and sustainability benchmarks for the industry in line with the new standard to encourage greater adoption of the guidelines.
IMDA said that in the future, the authorities aim to establish a road map for net-zero data centres to be powered by renewable energy, taking into account requirements such as land and power-generating sources.
Other regions have also introduced initiatives to make data centres – which were responsible for 300 tonnes of carbon emissions worldwide in 2020, according to the International Energy Agency – more sustainable.
In Europe, more than 100 companies and trade associations have signed the Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact, which aims to have cloud infrastructure services and data centres achieve climate neutrality by 2030.
In his speech, Dr Janil noted that Singapore is collaborating with companies such as IBM and Microsoft to promote the implementation of green software.
Green software is designed in a way that limits its energy consumption and impact on the environment.
Dr Janil added that Singapore is also a supporting member of the European Green Digital Coalition – a group of companies using digitalisation to support sustainability efforts – while IMDA has joined the Green Software Foundation, an industry-led effort to foster collaboration for sustainable software development.
Digital infrastructure company Equinix, Inc. and the Centre for Energy Research & Technology (CERT) under the National University of Singapore''s College of Design and Engineering (NUS CDE) have announced its plan to set up a Co-Innovation Facility (CIF) in Singapore to "accelerate the testing and development of innovative solutions focused on low-carbon energy, high-efficiency cooling, circularity, and energy efficiency optimisation for data centres".
Equinix says accelerating these innovations will shape the future of digital infrastructure and services in Singapore and other tropical locations, as well as address sustainability goals.
Equinix notes that Singapore''s digital economy has grown at a compound annual growth rate of close to 13% since 2017, contributing 17.3% to its gross domestic product (GDP) in 2022[1]. and furthermore, according to the recent 2024 National Budget, Singapore is strengthening its position as a global business and innovation hub by investing more than $740 million into Artificial Intelligence (AI) over the next five years2].
"As digital demands accelerate, data centres have become the foundation of today''s digital economy. To support digital growth more sustainably, data centres need to explore new ways to reduce energy consumption and implement energy efficiency solutions to cope with increased workloads and processing requirements.
To be built inside Equinix''s upcoming SG6 International Business ExchangeTM (IBX®) data centre, the CIF aligns with Data Centre of the Future Initiative toward building cleaner, more efficient data centres around the world. This CIF will be an open research hub for leading global technology innovators, data centre technology partners, academia, and customers to co-develop and trial core and edge technologies that deliver reliability, energy efficiency, and cost efficiency."
With an initial investment of US$4 million from Equinix, the CIF will serve as an incubator to trial innovations such as enabling the integration of clean and renewable energy sources and alternative power generation, with the aim of assessing their ability to operate at scale. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) will also be utilised by the facility along with other advancements, such as liquid cooling, which is becoming more vital as AI makes data processing more compute intensive. The facility will also trial Cognitive Digital Twin (CDT) capabilities of predictive maintenance and upgrades to address challenges faced by current data centre models.
Yee May Leong, Managing Director, Singapore, Equinix, said: "The effects of climate change are being felt around the world, and it is becoming increasingly urgent to embed best practices in every aspect of our operations. By replicating our successful Co-Innovation Facility from Ashburn and expanding our collaborative efforts in the Asia-Pacific region, we are reaching a significant milestone in advancing our "Future First" sustainability agenda. It will accelerate the development of cutting-edge technologies and apply real-world solutions to help reduce the carbon footprint of the growing number of data centres worldwide."
Liquid cooling: This advanced cooling method reduces energy consumption and noise while optimising space. It also increases the potential for waste heat reuse, supporting circular data centre models.
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