Cushman & Wakefield Data Centre Update Singapore Autumn 2020

Development on new phases continues despite the unspoken moratorium, with several major cloud services increasing their local platforms

Despite the unofficial moratorium on new site development, Singapore continues to lead the greater APAC region in data centre innovation and often as the first market reviewed for regional market entry. Phased buildouts are still continuing...

Development on new phases continues despite the unspoken moratorium, with several major cloud services increasing their local platforms

Despite the unofficial moratorium on new site development, Singapore continues to lead the greater APAC region in data centre innovation and often as the first market reviewed for regional market entry. Phased buildouts are still continuing, with Digital Realty, Equinix, and Iron Mountain all underway on additional capacity and new entrant AirTrunk continuing their initial local campus. Major global cloud services continue to view Singapore as a first-tier location for new releases, with Google Cloud, Alibaba, and Oracle all making further inroads in coming months, and Tencent recently established a Singapore office to focus on regional expansion.

The prize for each platform lies not only in Singaporean business, but to allow local capacity to serve regional deployments across Southeast and greater Asia for large multinationals. As demands grow on local infrastructure, it remains to be seen if Singapore will lose workloads to developing lower cost markets, whether that be Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, or elsewhere. The trade-off would be a loss in connectivity and available services, though if local capacity is unable to develop it may prove a needed shift. Despite this potential shift in future, for the time being Singapore will likely attract companies concerned about regional political issues, as Naver’s move from Hong Kong indicates. Anecdotal reports indicate that further moves for communications, media, and financial organizations are being mooted, suggesting a major opportunity for those few who are fortunate to have available capacity.

All in all another positive several months for Singapore, with the possibility of more good news ahead.

Download the Report