SINGTEL’S regional data centre business, Nxera, is partnering Malaysia telco TM to develop data centres, starting with a data centre campus in Johor, the joint venture (JV) said on Tuesday (Jun 18).
“This strategic partnership aims to serve the needs of hyperscalers, next-generation AI application providers and enterprises pursuing accelerated digitalisation and cloud in the region,” the companies said in a joint statement.
Located in Iskandar Puteri, about 16 km from Singapore, the data centre campus will be the largest to date for both TM and Nxera.
It will be built to the latest standards of reliability, security and sustainability while offering the best local and international connectivity.
With its close proximity to subsea cable links between Singapore and Malaysia, the data centre will be well-placed to support the increasing demand from both countries’ digitalisation and development initiatives, the JV said.
Bill Chang, chief executive officer of Nxera and Singtel’s Digital InfraCo unit, said in addition to data centres, the JV will expand the submarine cable connectivity between Singapore and Johor. Additionally, the JV will partner institutes of higher learning in Malaysia to nurture talent for the industry.
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Chang said: “Our strategy of developing data centre sites with close proximity to our operations in Singapore allows us to capture spill-over demand from our customers and help them scale their business with confidence.”
The initial phase of the data centre is planned for 64 megawatt (MW) and can be scaled up to 200 MW in response to market demand. This high-power density campus will be able to host large computing and artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities such as those required by cloud hyperscalers and GPU-as-a-Service providers.
It will feature technologies such as liquid cooling to support high-power density workloads and operations efficiently.
Nxera is developing three new AI-ready data centres in the region in addition to 62 MW of existing capacity in Singapore. This includes a new 58 MW data centre in Tuas, and data centres with partners in Indonesia and Thailand.
Nxera’s total pipeline capacity is set to increase from its current operational capacity of 62 MW in Singapore to more than 200 MW in the region in the next three years.
Shares of Singtel closed 1.2 per cent or S$0.03 up at S$2.58 on Tuesday before the announcement.
