ST Engineering announces fourth data centre, adds 7.5 MW of capacity to portfolio

ST Engineering on Tuesday (Jun 25) broke ground for a new data centre, which will add about 7.5 MW to its capacity.

The new facility in Jurong will bring the total capacity of the technology, defence and engineering group to over 30MW from across four data centres. The new capacity was secured before the recently announced 300MW allocation to data centres in May. (See *Amendment note)

Situated in a gazetted area where access is restricted, the centre prioritises physical security, said Vincent Chong, the group’s chief executive officer, in his opening address.

When completed, the data centre will be a Tier 3 facility, equipped with backup power and cooling in case of disruptions, so that sensitive information and artificial intelligence (AI) workloads are protected.

“It will uniquely cater for highly secure AI workloads and critical information infrastructure systems,” said Chong.

Low Jin Phang, president of digital systems in ST Engineering, said the group would continue to pursue opportunities in the critical-infrastructure space, and seek to set itself apart with its physical and cybersecurity edge; it will also aim to balance business growth with market demands and opportunities.

Capital expenditure on the data centre will be S$120 million over the next three years. The centre will meet the ISO 27001 international standard for cybersecurity, and the ISO 42001 standard for responsible AI development. The power usage effectiveness (PUE) will be 1.25, below the Green Mark Platinum threshold of 1.3 set by the Building and Construction Authority and the Infocomm Media Development Authority.

About 2,400 sq m of solar panels will be installed on the east-facing facade of the building to partially power the data centre. The operating temperature in it will be kept at 26 deg C; ST Engineering’s proprietary evaporative cooling solution, the Airbitat DC Cooling system, will reduce the amount of energy needed for cooling.

Plans have been made to improve the cooling capacity with solutions such as immersion cooling, in which servers are immersed in a coolant, and closed-circuit water-cooling systems.

“As technology evolves, we will work with partners and customers to adopt renewable energy to save power,” said Low.

*Amendment note:This article previously stated ST Engineering secured part of the new 300MW allocation for data centre, IMDA has clarified that it has not allocated new capacities to ST Engineering for their data centre. The capacity from the new data centre is not part of the 300MW capacity that IMDA announced in the Green Data Centre Roadmap.