Digital Infrastructure Bill

Order for Second Reading read.

Mr Deputy Speaker: Minister for Digital Development and Information.

4.41 pm

The Senior Minister of State for Digital Development and Information (Mr Tan Kiat How) (for the Minister for Digital Development and Information): Mr Deputy Speaker, on behalf of the Minister for Digital Development and Information, I move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time".

Sir, we are introducing the Digital Infrastructure Bill to put in place the foundations for the next phase of our digital economy and society, by ensuring that our digital infrastructure services are resilient, secure and environmentally sustainable, so that businesses and Singaporeans can continue to rely on it.

I will first explain why the Bill is needed, so that Members can better understand how the Bill supports Singapore's long-term competitiveness and growth. I will then explain the Bill's key features.

Primarily, the Bill establishes two licensing regimes: first, for the security and resilience of foundational digital infrastructure services, namely major data centres and cloud services; and second, for the environmental sustainability of data centres. Finally, I will cover the key administrative and enforcement provisions that support these regimes, as well as related amendments to the Cybersecurity Act.

The latest Singapore Digital Economy Report shows that our digital economy contributed $144.1 billion, or 19.3% of our gross domestic product (GDP) in 2025. This contribution goes beyond the Information and Communications sector. Around two-thirds of our digital economy comes from digitalisation in the rest of the economy, including important sectors such as finance, trade and manufacturing.

Think also about how much we depend on digital services, such as digital banking and payments, ride-hailing apps, e-commerce and the many services that we transact with in our daily lives. We use them to carry out financial transactions, check health records and access Government services.

Some of these digital services serve essential needs and carry sensitive data. These digital services, in turn, rely on the underlying digital infrastructure they run on to store, process and move their data. This includes data centres, which are secure facilities that house large numbers of servers and other computing equipment, and cloud services, which let businesses and organisations use computing power, storage and other digital resources at scale without having to own and operate all that equipment themselves.

Many different digital services often rely on the same data centre or cloud service provider. When it is disrupted, the impact is not confined to one digital service. Many services can be affected at once and the impact can ripple across our economy and society.

This is what makes this infrastructure important and why its disruption can have systemic impact. When such foundational infrastructure is disrupted, many activities we take for granted can come to a standstill.

For example, a March 2021 fire in a data centre in France disrupted millions of web services, including those of banks and government agencies. In October 2023, a data centre cooling system issue in Singapore affected online banking and payment services provided by major banks for more than 12 hours, resulting in 2.5 million failed payments and automated teller machine (ATM) transactions. And in September 2025, a battery fire occurred at South Korea's national government data centre and disrupted one of the government's cloud storage systems. Years of data were lost and some of it could not be recovered.

These incidents had different causes. But they point to the risks we are concerned about – technical failures and misconfigurations, power and cooling issues, fires or other physical incidents, and cyberattacks. Any one of these can disrupt the infrastructure that many businesses and organisations rely on.

Besides resilience, we also need to plan for the long-term growth of data centres as we use digital technologies more extensively. For instance, demand for compute – the processing power needed to run digital services and artificial intelligence (AI) – is rising quickly, driven in large part by the demand for AI services.

But an expanding data centre footprint can further strain Singapore's limited resources, such as land, power and water. This calls for long-term planning, disciplined growth and robust gatekeeping to ensure that this growth stays within what our resources can sustainably support.

At this point, it is useful to look at what is happening elsewhere in the world. The sharp rise in demand for compute, particularly from AI in the last few years, has made data centre development a much more contested and politicised issue in many countries. Governments are responding in different ways, reflecting their own resource constraints, market structures and planning systems. In some jurisdictions, however, governments are now having to respond after rapid data centre growth has already created pressures around electricity, water, land, local impacts and economic benefits.

We are seeing new planning and regulatory measures, project pauses and in some cases, moratoriums, even where significant investments have already been proposed or committed. These developments underscore the value of working through difficult trade-offs early, before they become harder to resolve and begin to affect business confidence, jobs and the wider economy.

With your permission, Sir, may I ask the Clerks to distribute a handout on recent developments around the world, including in our region, around data centres. Members can see that Singapore is amongst a small number of countries that have taken steps, started several years ago, to manage and steward data centre growth.

Mr Deputy Speaker: Please proceed. [A handout was distributed to hon Members. Please refer to Annex 1.]

Mr Tan Kiat How: Sir, Singapore has always sought to take a longer-term approach. We plan ahead and work through these trade-offs before they become acute, so that we can create as much room as possible for our digital economy and society, as well as for our AI ambitions, while staying within our resource and environmental constraints.

We have done this by working closely with industry, progressively raising standards, testing new approaches and allocating scarce data centre capacity carefully to support our national and digital economy needs. In other words, our approach has been to anticipate pressures, work through the trade-offs early and make room for growth rather than wait for a crisis to force our hand.

The Digital Infrastructure Bill is the next important step in this effort. We are not starting from scratch. We have been working on these challenges for some time together with industry, progressively raising standards and testing what works before moving to a statutory baseline.

For security and resilience, the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) developed the Advisory Guidelines for Resilience and Security of Cloud Services and Data Centres in consultation with industry, and released them in February 2025. The guidelines draw on international and industry best practices and standards. They also build on the Multi-Tier Cloud Security Singapore Standard introduced in 2013, which has been enhanced over the years.

For sustainability, we have worked with industry to develop standards, best practices and benchmarks, including tropical data centres, IT energy efficiency and liquid cooling, over the years. We have managed data centre capacity growth carefully since 2019 to ensure new data centres adopt best-in-class sustainability practices, for example, under the Data Centre – Call for Application exercises. More recently, we set out our long-term plans in the Green Data Centre Roadmap released in May 2024.

We are not starting from scratch. We are building on this foundation. The proposed Digital Infrastructure Act builds on these foundations. Over the years, these measures have raised standards and improved industry practice. But they are voluntary, and voluntary measures cannot ensure consistent outcomes across the sector.

For security and resilience, because a single disruption can affect so many services at once, it is not enough for most providers to meet high standards. All major providers need to meet a common baseline. For sustainability, voluntary standards leave each operator to improve at its own pace. But to create headroom for the sector to grow, we need all our data centres, not only the new ones, to be resource efficient.

The Digital Infrastructure Bill changes this. It gives IMDA the statutory tools to play two important roles.

First, as a gatekeeper, IMDA can require the major digital infrastructure providers and commercial-scale data centres covered by the Act to be licensed and to meet a common baseline of standards. Second, as the sector regulator and standards-setter, IMDA can progressively update those baseline requirements as risks, technology and industry practices evolve. A standard that is good enough today may not be good enough five or 10 years from now.

Put simply: to set a clear floor, make sure everyone covered by the regime meets it, and raise that floor over time when it is practical and necessary.

Sir, before I turn to the technical provisions, let me set out the considerations that guided the design of this framework.

First, proportionality. We should regulate where there is a clear policy need and calibrate the requirements to the risks and the nature of the infrastructure involved. The Bill therefore takes a targeted approach, focusing the strongest obligations on infrastructure where disruption would have systemic impact, while applying sustainability requirements more broadly across the commercial-scale data centre sector.

Second, we draw on global best practices and international standards but adapt them to Singapore's circumstances. **** We are a tropical, land-constrained city; our data centres are often designed differently from those in other markets, and the profile of users and workloads here is distinctive. A requirement that works well elsewhere may not be directly applicable to Singapore.

Third, we should not front-run technological developments. Cooling, energy-efficiency, power-management and low-carbon energy technologies are still evolving. If we lock in particular technologies or prescribe the most stringent requirements before they have matured, we may narrow our future options and create unnecessary transition costs for businesses.

Our objective is not to be the most stringent on paper, but to set requirements that are effective, practical and sustainable over time. We should start with what is practical and meaningful today, rather than wait for every pathway to be fully developed, while preserving the flexibility to strengthen the standards as technologies mature and become more cost-effective.

Fourth, the Digital Infrastructure Bill must fit within the wider Government framework. It is not an all-purpose instrument for every issue associated with digital infrastructure. A new data centre is not only a digital-infrastructure decision; it also has implications for land, electricity, water and our wider resource system. These broader questions are managed through their respective national frameworks and the whole-of-Government planning process. The Digital Infrastructure Bill should complement those regimes, not duplicate them.

Finally, the framework must provide certainty while remaining capable of evolving. Businesses making multi-decade, multi-billion-dollar investments need clear expectations and reasonable transition periods. At the same time, the detailed requirements must be able to develop as technology, risks, energy pathways and industry practices change.

Some may be concerned that the Bill introduces additional regulation and costs and may lower Singapore's attractiveness to investors. We are mindful of the business cost imposed by regulation. That is why we have consulted extensively on the Bill and will continue to do so as we develop the detailed requirements.

But the alternative to clear regulation is not necessarily less regulation. For long-term, capital-intensive investments, businesses value assurance that rules will be reasonable, predictable, credible and consistently applied.

This Bill provides that certainty by setting out the regulatory framework clearly, while giving us the flexibility to calibrate the detailed requirements as circumstances evolve. This is how we seek to support investment and growth without waiting for emerging pressures to become crises.

Sir, I look forward to Members' support for this approach and to their constructive views on how we can continue to strengthen this approach as we move forward.

Let me now turn to the Bill. Some of the terms are technical, so I will explain them in plain language as I go.

The Bill establishes the legislative framework to hold major digital infrastructure service providers to baseline security and resilience standards and data centre operators to baseline environmental sustainability standards. The Bill sets the overall legal framework, and the detailed technical requirements will sit in subsidiary legislation and Codes of Practice – in other words, the regulations and operating rules under the proposed Act, which we will continue to develop in consultation with industry.

This is a deliberate design: the framework should be stable, but the standards should not stand still. This lets the technical rules evolve as circumstances and technology change.

The Bill comprises nine Parts.

Parts 1 and 2 relate to preliminary matters and the administration of the proposed Act by IMDA, including key definitions and the scope of application of the proposed Act.

Part 3 establishes the framework for the licensing and regulation of major digital infrastructure service providers, including obligations relating to the security and resilience of these services.

Part 4 establishes the framework for the licensing and regulation of data centre operators, including obligations relating to the environmental sustainability of data centres.

Parts 5 and 6 provide for reconsideration and appeals against specified decisions, and the enforcement powers available to IMDA.

Parts 7, 8 and 9 contain miscellaneous provisions, related amendments to the Cybersecurity Act 2018, and the savings and transitional provisions.

Let me start with Part 3. We are targeting the underlying infrastructure whose disruption could affect many businesses and organisations at the same time. We will start with two types of services.

The first is major data centre facility services. The regime will cover data centre facility services provided in a data centre with a critical IT load, of at least 10 megawatts. Critical IT load is the rated size of the data centre's computing power supply – the maximum electrical power it is designed to deliver to the servers and other IT and telecommunications network equipment it houses.

To be clear, it is not the amount of electricity the data centre consumes at every moment. The regime covers both large co-location data centres that host equipment for customers, and cloud data centres used by cloud providers to serve their customers.

The second is major regulated cloud computing services that generate at least $100 million in average annual revenue from users in Singapore over the preceding three years and provide either Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) or Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS). These are the underlying cloud infrastructure and platforms on which many digital services are built. Think of it as a building. IaaS provides the basic structure, while PaaS provides the common systems and services running on top of it. Many different applications can depend on these same underlying layers.

We are regulating major IaaS and PaaS services because a serious disruption at these foundational layers can affect many businesses and digital services at the same time. We are not covering Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), because these are generally finished applications used by customers rather than the common infrastructure underneath them.

We have set thresholds so that the statutory obligations apply only to the major providers whose disruption could affect a significant number of businesses and organisations. This reflects the proportionate and risk-based approach I described earlier. Providers of these services will have to apply to IMDA for a major digital infrastructure licence, and licensees must take measures to ensure the security and resilience of their major digital infrastructure services.

Broadly, they must: (a) implement processes and measures to ensure the physical and cybersecurity of their services and minimise the likelihood of unexpected service disruptions; (b) put in place business continuity and disaster recovery plans – plans to keep essential operations going and to restore services quickly when disruptions occur; and (c) notify IMDA of the occurrence of prescribed cybersecurity incidents or service delivery disruptions.

The detailed technical rules will be set out in regulations and Codes of Practice under the proposed Act, as provided in clauses 15 and 16. In developing them, we will draw on the Advisory Guidelines I mentioned earlier, as well as relevant international and industry standards.

The Codes of Practice may also set different requirements for cloud data centres and co-location data centres. This is in response to industry feedback received during the public consultation that the two types of data centres operate differently.

Let me turn to Part 4, which establishes a licensing regime for data centres in Singapore to ensure their environmental sustainability. The licensing regime will apply to: operators of data centres in Singapore with a critical IT load of at least three megawatts, regardless of whether the data centre serves third-party customers or is used by the operator for its own purposes.

To give Members a sense of scale, three megawatts is roughly comparable to the power demand of a major suburban shopping mall. This covers the commercial-scale data centres we are concerned about, while excluding smaller server rooms. It will therefore cover cloud data centres, co-location data centres and enterprise data centres – that is, data centres used mainly for a company's own internal systems – if they meet the threshold.

This regime will apply to both existing and new data centres.

New data centres are generally designed and built to higher energy-efficiency standards. But a significant proportion of Singapore's data centre capacity is housed in existing facilities.

If we want the entire sector to be more sustainable, we need to improve the efficiency of those existing data centres too. We plan to do so progressively over time. The pace must balance the need for renewal against business realities, like investment and depreciation cycles.

As with the security and resilience regime, the detailed technical rules will be set out in regulations and Codes of Practice under the proposed Act, as provided for in clauses 35 and 37. In developing them, we will draw on existing initiatives, such as the Green Data Centre Roadmap, the Building and Construction Authority (BCA)-IMDA Green Mark for Data Centres, as well as international standards.

Clause 35 of the Bill sets out the duty to meet environmental sustainability requirements for licensed data centre operators. It provides for IMDA to prescribe requirements in three areas: (a) facility-level energy efficiency; (b) IT equipment-level energy efficiency; and (c) facility-level water efficiency.

We are putting in place the legal basis for all three areas now, but will take a staged approach in introducing requirements.

At the outset, licensed data centre operators will be required to meet facility-level energy-efficiency requirements, measured through power usage effectiveness (PUE). PUE tells us how much extra electricity a data centre uses on top of the power that goes directly to its servers and IT equipment, for example, for cooling and power systems. The closer the PUE is to 1.0, the less energy is being used for these supporting functions, and the more efficient the facility is.

We recognise that PUE is a useful starting point, but it does not capture every dimension of sustainability. Over time, as measurement approaches and technologies mature, we can consider how other indicators should complement PUE and other efficiency measures.

In the future, we may consider requirements for IT equipment-level energy efficiency and facility-level water efficiency. Each will require a different approach.

For IT equipment, data centre operators often do not own or manage the servers their customers install and have limited visibility over when these are refreshed. We will encourage operators to work with their customers to understand their equipment efficiency and refresh plans and will consult industry before introducing any requirements.

For water, data centres that use more than 60,000 cubic metres of water a year must already comply with PUB's mandatory water efficiency management practices, which apply to all large water users. PUB can also impose water efficiency requirements on new facilities or projects in prescribed industries, where the projected annual water use equals or exceeds a prescribed threshold, currently set at 60,000 cubic metres of water a year. The Bill allows us to set water efficiency requirements for both new and existing data centres, if these become necessary as the sector grows and cooling technologies change.

These requirements will be more challenging to meet for existing data centres, which were designed and built for different technical and operating environments.

Date centres operators have told us that they support the policy objectives of the new regime, but have asked for sufficient transition time to meet the new requirements, especially where significant upgrades or rebuilding work is needed.

We understand these concerns. Dara centres are long-term and capital-intensive investments. It is therefore our priority to ensure a smooth transition. We will continue to work with data centre operators and other affected stakeholders on the details, including implementation and transition timelines.

Beyond these baseline sustainability requirements, the Bill also allows IMDA to hold data centre operators to the commitments they make when securing scarce new data centre capacity, such as through the Data Centre – Call for Application and the Strategic Digital Infrastructure Scheme (SDIS). These conditions apply where an operator made such commitments to secure data cente capacity.

Under these capacity allocation exercises, operators are assessed not only on how environmentally sustainable their data centres will be, but also on the wider value they bring to Singapore, for example, investment and business spending, good jobs and talent development, innovation, research and development (R&D), and partnerships with our local ecosystem.

The Bill refers to these as strategic and economic contributions. Where an operator has made such commitments as part of its application for scarce data centre capacity, clauses 25 and 27 allow IMDA to take them into account and make them conditions of the operator's licence. If a commitment helped an operator secure scarce capacity, it should not remain merely a promise on paper.

In assessing strategic and economic contributions, clause 25(4) requires IMDA to have regard to the opinion of the Economic Development Board (EDB). Where an operator is alleged to have breached a strategic and economic licence condition, clause 39(6) also requires IMDA to have regard to EDB's opinion before taking enforcement action. These recognise the role of EDB in negotiating, monitoring and evaluating the fulfilment of these commitments. In practice, EDB will first work with operators to understand and resolve any lapses, before enforcement action is taken.

Operators awarded capacity under the second Data Centre – Call for Application and the SDIS have also committed to source a substantial share of their electricity from eligible low-carbon energy pathways. The Bill allows these green energy commitments to be licence conditions too.

If a green energy project fails to deliver and the operator draws more electricity from other sources than it committed to, clause 39(3) allows IMDA to require the operator to make good the shortfall. This can include transferring eligible carbon credits – which are credits representing verified reductions or removals of emissions – to offset the additional emissions and, where the other electricity source is cheaper, paying an amount representing any cost savings derived from not meeting its commitment. This reflects our approach to maximise value from the compute capacity we have in Singapore.

We recognise that we have to manage the growth of data centres carefully as they use scarce resources, such as land, power and water. But this does not mean imposing an arbitrary cap on this growth as it may curtail the vibrancy of the economy and the opportunities that this would bring to enterprises and workers and limit the future capabilities of digital services that Singaporeans rely on.

That is why we are not seeking to attract every megawatt of data centre capacity we can. Instead, we seek to maximise the value that data centres add to our economy and society. Scarce capacity should not simply be allocated; it should be put to productive use and deliver the value that was promised.

We need to grow our data centre sector responsibly and strategically to ensure that our scarce resources are used efficiently and that data centre investments continue to generate lasting value for Singapore over the longer term. Sir, this Bill establishes the statutory framework to help us achieve that objective and provides the regulatory levers to support our broader approach to new data centre and compute capacity growth in Singapore. Taken together, these requirements and commitments will help ensure that our data centre sector continues to support the growth of our digital economy.

Sir, let me now turn to the key administrative and enforcement provisions that support the two licensing regimes.

Part 6 of the Bill provides IMDA with the necessary investigation and enforcement powers. These include powers to obtain information and documents to assess compliance with the proposed Act or licence conditions, and to conduct investigations in relation to any offence under the proposed Act.

At the same time, we recognise that during administration or enforcement, operators may be required to provide IMDA with commercially sensitive or other confidential information. The Bill therefore contains safeguards governing the disclosure of information.

Clause 60 provides for the preservation of secrecy in respect of information obtained in the administration or enforcement of the Act. Broadly, persons to whom the secrecy obligation applies must not disclose information obtained in the performance of their functions or duties, except if necessary to carry out such functions or duties, or where it is lawfully required by a Court or lawfully required or allowed by legislation. IMDA may also disclose the information in any of the circumstances in clause 60(7).

Sir, the last part of the Bill is Part 9, which provides for the transition into the new licensing regimes.

Clause 71 provides for existing providers of major digital infrastructure services and operators of data centres that fall within the scope of the Bill to continue providing the service or operating the data centre for six months starting on the date of commencement of Parts 3 and 4 of the Act respectively. If the provider or operator applies for a relevant licence within that six-month period, the person may continue providing the service or operating the data centre until IMDA decides on their licence application or the application is withdrawn.

I would like to clarify what this six-month period means. It is meant as a period for existing entities to apply for their licences. It does not mean that all regulatory requirements must be met within six months. The timelines for meeting these requirements will be set out together with the detailed requirements, in consultation with industry.

Clause 18 gives the Minister for Digital Development and Information emergency powers. Broadly, these can only be used when a threat to a major digital infrastructure service creates a serious and imminent threat to Singapore's national security, defence, foreign relations, economy, public health, public safety or public order.

In such cases, the Minister may need timely information and coordinated action beyond what the other regulatory measures provide for. The Minister may therefore authorise or direct any person or organisation to take the measures needed to prevent, detect or counter the threats.

The Bill also includes safeguards. Information obtained under these measures may only be used or disclosed for limited purposes, such as countering the threat, and misusing it is an offence. Legally privileged information is also protected from compulsory disclosure.

Sir, let me turn to enforcement and let me say a few words about how we approach it.

The Bill provides IMDA with a range of tools from directions and censure to financial penalties, and the suspension or revocation of licences. These allow IMDA to respond in proportion to the seriousness of each breach.

However, where non-compliance arises, IMDA's general approach in the first instance will be to work with licensees to understand the circumstances and where appropriate, require them to take remedial steps. For major foundational services, we will also be mindful of continuity for users. The purpose of regulation is to fix the problem, not create a second problem for users.

Where enforcement action is necessary, IMDA will consider relevant facts and circumstances of each case in determining the appropriate response. These include the nature and seriousness of the contravention, its impact and the steps taken by the operator to rectify the breach.

The maximum financial penalty for most breaches under the Bill of $1 million or 10% of the licensee's annual turnover in Singapore, whichever is higher, is a maximum, and is not an automatic penalty. IMDA will consider the same factors in determining an amount proportionate to the gravity of each case.

The Bill provides avenues for recourse against certain decisions made by IMDA. Clauses 44 and 45 provide for a two-step process under which an aggrieved party may first apply to IMDA for a reconsideration of its decision and, if the party remains dissatisfied following reconsideration, subsequently appeal to the Minister.

This applies to key decisions, including those on licence grant or renewal, licence conditions, directions, financial penalties and the suspension or revocation of licences. An application for reconsideration must be made within 14 days of the initial decision, and an appeal to the Minister within 30 days of the decision on reconsideration.

This framework allows IMDA, as the sector regulator with the relevant technical expertise, the opportunity to reconsider its decision and address the issues raised by the affected party in the first instance. It also facilitates the resolution of matters by the appropriate level where possible, while preserving an avenue of appeal to the Minister if the affected party remains dissatisfied following IMDA's reconsideration. The Minister may also establish an Appeals Advisory Panel to advise on an appeal.

Finally, let me turn to the related amendments to the Cybersecurity Act. Part 3D of the Cybersecurity Act remains the framework for addressing cybersecurity risks relating to major digital infrastructure services. This Bill complements it to cover non-cyber risks.

To ensure consistency between the two regulatory frameworks, Part 8 of the Bill makes related amendments to the Cybersecurity Act.

Clause 70 harmonises the definitions of "foundational digital infrastructure service" and "data centre facility service" in the Cybersecurity Act with those in this Bill. This ensures that the Cybersecurity Act substantially uses the same concepts when referring to the same terms as the Digital Infrastructure Bill. Clause 70 also inserts a new definition of "digital infrastructure service" in the Cybersecurity Act.

This is broadly aligned with the definition in the Digital Infrastructure Bill but is extended to include digital identity management services for the issuance and validation of certificates for authentication of websites, computer systems, application software or connected devices. Doing so retains the policy space for the Cybersecurity Act to strengthen the cybersecurity of these services, which in turn underpin the security of many other digital services.

We recognise that major digital infrastructure service providers that are licensed under Part 3 of this Bill and designated under Part 3D of the Cybersecurity Act will be subject to requirements under both regimes.

To reduce the operational burden for these providers, the Ministry of Digital Development and Information (MDDI), IMDA and Cyber Security Agency of Singapore (CSA) are working closely together to harmonise overlapping requirements and streamline regulatory processes where appropriate.

The Bill also requires IMDA's Codes of Practice to be consistent with those issued under the Cybersecurity Act.

Sir, let me conclude in Mandarin, please.

(In Mandarin): Mr Speaker, most Singaporeans may never step into a data centre in their lifetime. But our daily lives are becoming increasingly dependent on them. Whether it is using CDC vouchers, logging into Singpass, making online payments, booking medical appointments or running a business, all these activities are underpinned by stable cloud services and data centres.

This Bill seeks to safeguard not only our digital lives but also the foundations of Singapore's future economic development. Singapore has always planned ahead and does not wait for problems to escalate into a crisis before taking action.

Hence, we are putting in place a framework early with IMDA as the gatekeeper, by setting out clear baseline standards first and then raising the bar progressively as technology and risks change.

With limited resources, we must make the best use of every resource available. Our aim is not maximum compute. It is maximum value from compute.

( In English ): This Bill is fundamentally about planning ahead. Most Singaporeans may never step into a data centre. But much of what we do every day depends on one. So, we should put the right rules in place before problems become a crisis.

The Digital Infrastructure Act will give IMDA the tools to be an effective gatekeeper and standards-setter: to set a clear baseline for security, resilience and sustainability; to make sure regulated operators meet that baseline; and to raise the bar over time as technology and risks change.

We will start with standards that are practical and effective today, and improve them as the pathways become clearer. This is not regulation at the expense of competitiveness. Reliable infrastructure, clear rules and good stewardship of scarce resources are part of what makes Singapore a trusted place to invest and do business.

Our ambition is not maximum compute. It is maximum value from compute – for Singapore, our businesses and our people. Not just for now, but well into the future. Sir, I seek to move.

Question Proposed.

Mr Deputy Speaker: Mr Sharael Taha.

5.23 pm

Mr Sharael Taha (Pasir Ris-Changi): Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir. I rise in support of this Bill.

I was heartened to hear Senior Minister of State Tan speak earlier about the importance of growing Singapore's digital infrastructure while strengthening its resilience and sustainability. I think we are very much aligned on that direction, and I would like to take that thinking one step further and approach this Bill from a broader strategic question: what kind of digital infrastructure does Singapore need if we truly aspire to be a leading global hub for AI?

Because the question before us is no longer simply about how we regulate data centres. It is about how we position Singapore for the next phase of the AI economy, and how we ensure that every megawatt of scarce energy we commit creates the greatest possible economic and strategic value for Singapore.

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

Because data centres are no longer simply buildings that store data. In an AI economy, compute is infrastructure.

Just as ports enabled Singapore to become a global trading hub, airports connected us to the world and our power grid enabled industrialisation, data centres and the computing capacity within them, will increasingly underpin the next phase of our economic growth. And because Singapore has finite land, finite energy and finite carbon capacity, we cannot compete simply by building more.

Singapore's digital economy has grown significantly. It now contributes more than $128 billion, or 18.6% of gross domestic product (GDP). Our data centre sector has grown alongside it. As stated by the Ministry, Singapore has more than 70 cloud, enterprise and co-location data centres, and when this Bill was introduced, our data centre capacity had grown to more than 1.6 gigawatts.

The importance of this infrastructure will only increase with AI. AI needs compute; compute needs data centres; and increasingly sophisticated AI applications require enormous amounts of computing capacity, reliable connectivity and energy.

So, if Singapore wants to be an AI hub, we must ensure that the infrastructure supporting that ambition can grow with it. But therein lies the challenge. Data centres already account for around 7% of Singapore's electricity consumption, with this expected to rise significantly as our digital economy expands. By 2030, it has been estimated that 12% of our electricity consumption will be from data centres.

This is therefore not simply a digital policy question. It is simultaneously an economic, an energy, a sustainability and a strategic-resource question. The objective cannot be unlimited growth. Neither should the answer be to constrain growth to the point where the next generation of AI infrastructure simply goes elsewhere.

The challenge before us is therefore to achieve intelligent growth, more compute, more economic value and greater strategic capability from every unit of scarce energy that Singapore commits. That is the lens through which I have several clarifications on this Bill.

Firstly, the Bill introduces important thresholds based on critical IT load. Critical IT load essentially measures the electrical capacity available to the computing and network equipment within a data centre. At three-megawatt critical IT load, data centres enter the sustainability licensing regime. At 10-megawatt critical IT load, qualifying data-centre facility services come with the major foundational digital-infrastructure regime for security and resilience.

My first question is therefore: how much of our existing data centre landscape will these thresholds capture? The Ministry has said that Singapore has more than 70 data centres and more than 1.6 gigawatts of capacity. This puts the simple average capacity at around 23 megawatts per data centre, although actual facility sizes vary significantly.

Could the Senior Minister of State share how many existing facilities exceed three-megawatt critical IT load, and how many exceed 10-megawatt critical IT load? More importantly, what percentage of Singapore's total data-centre capacity do these facilities represent now and in the future?

This matters because the industry is changing rapidly. A recent CBRE report shared that new data centre builds across Asia-Pacific now average more than 100-megawatt critical IT load. Against that backdrop, three megawatts and even 10 megawatts are relatively low thresholds. Does this therefore mean that, in practice, virtually every substantial new data centre built in Singapore in future will be regulated under these regimes? If so, that may well be appropriate, and we should understand the breadth of coverage we are legislating for.

I strongly support the objective of making our data centres more energy efficient. But the economic consequences of how we implement these requirements matter too.

This Bill enables PUE requirements to be imposed. PUE tells us how much total energy a data centre consumes relative to the energy actually reaching its IT equipment. The closer to 1.0, the more efficient the facility is. Yet the Bill itself does not prescribe the eventual numerical PUE requirement. That will come subsequently through subsidiary regulation and regulatory requirements. The Ministry has also acknowledged industry feedback concerning implementation and transition.

Singapore's Green Data Centre Roadmap indicates a broader PUE ambition of 1.3 or lower, while the second Data Centre – Call for Application launched in December 2025 requires successful applications to obtain Green Mark Platinum and achieve PUE of 1.25 at 100% IT load or better. Can the Ministry therefore clarify the PUE levels that we are working towards? Will it be 1.3 or lower? Will the same requirement with same limits apply to a brand-new AI-optimised facility and a legacy data centre constructed years ago? And critically, how will PUE be measured? Will it be a design PUE? PUE at full IT load or annualised operating PUE? Each measure can produce quite different results.

In his speech, Senior Minister of State Tan Kiat How shared that these requirements will also apply to data centres that are already in operation. This is important because, for an existing facility, achieving a significantly tighter PUE may require substantial retrofitting – from cooling systems to electrical infrastructure and other equipment. And retrofitting an existing facility can be considerably more complex and costly than designing a new facility to meet these standards from the outset.

From the handout that was shared, it is also useful to consider how other jurisdictions are managing this challenge. China applies mandatory national energy-efficiency standards principally to new and expanded data centres, while we are porposing to apply to both new and old data centres. Virginia applies specific approval requirements to large data centres, defined as those above 25 megawatts, while we are proposing to apply to date centre above three megawatts and 10 megawatts. Malaysia, meanwhile, has sought to influence resource efficiency through national tax incentives tied to efficiency and sustainability criteria.

Different jurisdictions have therefore adopted different approaches – through standards, approval thresholds or economic incentives – to balance data centre growth with resource constraints. Against this backdrop, could the Senior Minister of State share whether the Ministry has assessed the cost per megawatt of compliance, particularly for our existing data centres? Because ultimately, good regulation should raise standards, but it should do so while preserving Singapore's competitiveness.

This is important because our competitors are moving very quickly. The Asia Pacific Data Centre market is experiencing extraordinary expansion, driven by cloud and AI demand. The availability of power is increasingly determining where this investment lands. Look just across the region. By the first half of this year, Johor had 1,110 megawatts operational, another 602 megawatts under construction and a total development pipeline of approximately 3.1 gigawatts. Bangkok's pipeline has reached approximately 2.1 gigawatts. Jakarta's is approximately 1.7 gigawatts. These are no longer peripheral markets. They are becoming major digital infrastructure hubs in their own right.

Singapore's constraints are increasingly pushing larger requirements towards neighbouring Southeast Asian markets, even as Singapore positions itself as a premium hub for specialised AI workloads. This leads me to ask: has the Ministry benchmarked the total regulatory and operating cost per megawatt in Singapore against these competing markets? And factoring in the cost of retrofitting and regulatory compliance, how will Singapore's total cost per megawatt compared to cities across the region?

And as we introduce higher security, resilience and sustainability standards, which I support fully, how will we ensure that the cumulative cost does not inadvertently accelerate the movement of future investments elsewhere?

Mr Speaker, perhaps the most important question is not "how many gigawatts of data centres should Singapore have, or what gigawatt threshold should we set?" The better question may be, "what value can each gigawatt create for Singapore?" We should not seek to win a regional competition simply by accumulating megawatts. Regional players have more land. Other markets may have cheaper power. Singapore's competitive advantage must therefore lie elsewhere.

We should ask how our regional digital ecosystem can be structured so that Singapore captures the highest value and most strategically important layers of the data centre economy. Can Singapore become the preferred location for high-value cloud services, financial workloads, sovereign and sensitive workloads, mission-critical interconnection, AI inferences and regional digital command-and-control?

Can large-scale, power-intensive compute operate across a broader regional ecosystem while Singapore remains its trusted, connected and high-value core? And most importantly, as AI reshapes the global economy, can we measure success in economic value per megawatt, AI capability per megawatt and strategic value per megawatt?

This also means our digital infrastructure strategy cannot be separated from our energy strategy. If compute becomes an increasingly important strategic resource, then access to reliable, competitive and progressively greener electricity becomes an important component of Singapore's AI competitiveness. Mr Speaker, in Malay, please.

(In Malay): Mr Speaker, in this AI era, data centres are no longer simply places to store data. They are critical infrastructure that will drive the economy and jobs of the future.

Singapore aims to become a leading AI hub. To achieve this ambition, we need more computing power. But Singapore has limited land and energy.

So, the question is not simply how many megawatts of data centre capacity we can build. The more important question is: how much value can we generate from every megawatt?

We must ensure that every megawatt generates greater value for Singapore – by attracting high-value investments, strengthening our AI capabilities, and most importantly, creating more high-value jobs for Singaporeans.

At the same time, our data centres must become more efficient, sustainable and resilient.

In the global AI race, Singapore may not have the most land or the cheapest energy. But our advantage must lie in the value we create.

Every megawatt must deliver greater value – for our economy, for our AI capabilities and for jobs for our people.

( In English ): Mr Speaker, I support this Bill because security, resilience and sustainability are necessary foundations for our digital economy. But regulation is only one side of the equation.

The other is ambition. We should regulate our data centres to be more efficient, that is no doubt about that. We should require them to be resilient. We should demand that scarce resources are used responsibly. But at the same time, we must create the conditions for Singapore to capture the next generation of cloud, compute and AI investment. It must be a balance that we must continuously strive to achieve. Because in an AI economy, compute capacity will increasingly translate into economic capability.

For a resource-constrained country like Singapore, our strategy therefore cannot simply be more megawatts. It must be better megawatts. Megawatts that support higher-value economic activity and higher-value-added jobs. Megawatts that strengthen our AI capabilities. Megawatts that reinforce our position as a trusted digital hub. And megawatts that generate disproportionately greater strategic value for Singapore. With these clarifications, Mr Speaker, Sir, I support the Bill.

Mr Speaker: Ms He Ting Ru.

5.38 pm

Ms He Ting Ru (Sengkang): Mr Speaker, countries and corporations all around the world are scrambling to meet AI-driven data for data centre capacity. Yet we need to ask if this arms race compromises our ability to meet our climate targets, despite the expectation that long-term global temperatures would rise by over 1.5°C relative to pre-industrial levels within the next few years, falling way short of our collective goal to keep global warming beneath this threshold.

During the debate on the Motion for our future economy, tabled by my Workers' Party colleagues in July, I noted how our economic strategy has to centre on societal flourishing and environmental sustainability. Likewise, the Government's approach to data centre development should always lean towards our people and planet.

While the sustainability and resource efficiency requirements for data centres instituted in this Bill are definitely a step forward, Singapore must lead by example in driving sustainable, responsible and people-centric technological growth. This does not mean being anti-growth or anti-data centres. Instead, our approach to data centres has to prioritise our people's needs, mitigate socio-economic impact of data centre development and boost transparency regarding the admissions profiles of data centres. We should always be cognisant of how these policies have an impact beyond our shores.

Data centres, wherever they are located, take a sizeable toll on electricity and water grids. When data centres roll into town, neighbouring communities can see their electricity and water supplies disrupted while utility bills skyrocket. Energy and water requirements are even worse for data centres located in hot tropical regions, such as Singapore and require more cooling relative to centres located in cooler climes.

Forty-four percent of experts surveyed by the Sustainable Energy Association of Singapore (SEAS) in this year's State of Energy Transition Survey, believe that data centre growth would lead to increased pressure on energy supply and infrastructure, while another 31% felt that there would be a greater demand for energy storage and grid upgrades. Even with our 2019 pause on new data centre construction, the Energy Market Authority (EMA) data show that our electricity consumption by the information and communication sector, which includes data centres, more than doubled from 2019 to 2024.

We also have to consider who pays the bill for the required upgrades to our grid to accommodate this anticipated new load. EMA's electricity tariff structure indicates that any additional expenditure on grid upgrades is borne by the customer under the non-fuel component of the electricity tariff. This would be on top of price variations triggered by fluctuations in fuel costs, such as price increases, arising from geopolitical conflicts.

According to the reply to a Parliamentary Question I filed earlier this year, the Government announced that it launched a Data Centre – Call for Application 2 exercise only after assessing that the supply of electricity and other resources could support the added data centre capacity without compromising other needs.

I hope that any future data centre capacity will be introduced only if our grid infrastructure can support the additional energy usage comfortably and that the cost of upgrades required, if any, should not be borne by consumers. Could the Senior Minister of State also clarify how specifically is our green energy supply able to meet this projected additional demand, given that the recent Data Centre – Call for Application 2 exercise stipulates that 50% of a data centre's energy needs must be supplied via green avenues.

SEAS also sites obstacles, such as current energy procurement mechanisms being ill-suited to the needs of low-carbon energy, lack of industry expertise in structuring power purchase agreements, difficulties faced by data centre operators in securing early access to green energy sources and the nascency of regional low-carbon energy projects.

Concerns have also arisen regarding the availability of low-carbon energy sources to power the planned Jurong Island Green Data Centre Park. Also, with imported power projected to form a significant portion of our green energy supply, I asked back in January last year, about the measures instituted by the Government to address potential pricing and supply shocks.

As clean energy is currently commercially bound by fragmented power purchase agreements between importers and consumers, would the Government consider establishing a centre procurement agency for low-carbon energy to strengthen their bargaining power and leverage economies of scale?

Data centres are also thirsty for water. A single large AI data centre uses roughly 1.2 billion litres a year for cooling. The United Nations (UN) projects that by 2030, AI data centres worldwide will consume as much water as 1.3 billion people use daily.

In Singapore, the PUB expects our national water consumption to almost double by 2065, with two-thirds of the increase expected to come from non-domestic consumption. While we now have our Four Taps programme, the reality is that Singapore's water resilience depends on costly, energy-intensive sources. Given this, I asked in May this year how such growth might strain our water supplies, especially with the Water Agreement with Malaysia expiring in 2061 and higher energy prices from the Middle East crisis raising the cost of energy-intensive desalination.

The Minister's reply stated that the Government plans water infrastructure ahead of demand, but I was unable to get any further specifics. Even so, I hope any future data centre developments will take full account of the fragility of our limited water resources. Data centre operators already meet the PUB's water efficiency benchmark of 2.1 cubic metres per megawatt-hour, compared against the 2.2 cubic metres per megawatt-hour in 2021. IMDA's Green Data Centre Roadmap seeks to reduce it to below two within 10 years. What has been our progress on this and will operators' water efficiency be publicly reported?

Besides water and electricity, data centres also take up large amounts of what is truly one of our scarcest resources – land. Every plot we allocate to data centres is space that could have gone to housing, parks, greenery or community spaces. And when we run out of space, we clear more forests or reclaim more land from the sea. Indeed, low carbon energy generation was nuanced to be the impetus for the Western Island project.

With the urban heat island effect contributing to our concrete jungle warming twice as fast compared to the rest of the world, we must directly look at how data centre construction contributes to this problem.

Data centres also emit a lot of heat owing to cooling systems pumping out hot air from the equipment into the atmosphere, with studies measuring higher temperatures of up to 500 metres downwind of a data centre. We should thus require environmental impact assessment (EIAs) to be conducted prior to key data centre construction which factored in the potential heat and noise emitted from the data centre as well as the climatological impact of such developments in any associated loss of biodiversity if land is cleared.

A mitigation plan to alleviate its environmental impact must also be developed similar to how Scotland mandated EIAs to be conducted for data centres with capacities above 50 megawatts. We must likewise institute similar requirements for any proposed new data centres above a certain capacity.

While data centres in Singapore are largely clustered around industrial areas, there are some, such are those located in Defu and Jurong West that are also near residential neighbourhoods. While clause 25 of the Bill allows the Government to refuse to award a licence if it goes against the public's interest, we need more information about how it determines whether a development is in the public's interest.

These are issues that those of us living in Singapore need greater clarity on. In view of our recent experience in engaging with concerned residents over the decision to develop Maju Forest and Gillman Barracks, how can we more meaningfully engage the public in decisions made about data centre developments? How will the Government meaningfully take feedback into account in the final decision on whether and where to build our data centres?

Transparency is key to sustainable and responsible data centre development. Clause 36 of the Bill requires licensees to regularly report their compliance with the provisions under this Bill and the conditions of their licences. What metrics must operators report under this clause?

Notably, it appears that operators are not required to publicly report such data. While there may be concerns about commercial secrecy, the existential nature of our climate goals means that we have to tilt the scales more in favour of closer monitoring of our energy consumption attributable to data centres.

We would not be alone in doing this. The European Union's (EU's) Energy Efficiency Directive requires data centre operators to report metrics, such as their water and power consumption to a common public database, which allows the public to keep track of data centres' consumption of our shared planetary resources. Just like we mandate listed companies and large non-listed companies to publicly report carbon emissions, requiring disclosures, such as water consumption, energy needs and noise pollution should be considered.

Mr Speaker, while the remit of this Bill focuses on data centre operations in Singapore, climate change is a global concern and the impact of our actions would naturally be felt beyond our borders.

High demand for data centre space in Singapore, driven by our status as a major financial and technological hub, has resulted in spillover effects in the surrounding Johor region and Riau Islands. While undoubtedly boosting economic opportunities, reports have also started to emerge about disruption to the lives of local communities and ecosystems.

Johor, in particular, has grown into a major data centre market in its own right, coming in third in Asia, behind Tokyo and Singapore, with life IT capacity of 1,110 megawatts. Yet, these data centres, a significant portion of which serves Singapore-based business operations, have also resulted in increased strain on Johor's electricity grid and is projected to account for approximately 40% of the state's total electricity demand by 2035. This has also adversely affected local communities with residents near data centres in Johor reporting lower water pressures, and noise and dust pollution from data centre construction. Such disruptions to daily life have even spurred angry residents to protest against such data centre projects.

In Indonesia, with data centre capacity nascent relative to Singapore and Johor, we see many green industry projects, including some aimed at exporting up to 3.4 gigawatts of low-carbon electricity to Singapore, sufficient to power approximately 595,000 households annually. Despite what seems like spare capacity, there are still households who are not connected to the local grid who still continue to rely on diesel generators for electricity there.

Industrial developments have also resulted in the displacement of local communities. For instance, over 800 households were forcibly removed from their homes for the construction of Sembcorp's Tembesi Industrial Park, while the risk of relocation lingers over the residents of Dapur Tiga due to plans to build a renewable energy and smart Eco Industrial Park on the site.

Even as we strive to protect our land and natural resources to meet our own climate obligations, we have to be aware of the impact on neighbouring communities. Our policies must also be sensitive to how we affect the lives and livelihoods of those living beyond our shore.

When it comes to the approval of clean energy imports, does EMA consider how the power generation infrastructure would affect the surrounding community and environment, and is there space for us to render technical assistance to mitigate any untoward impacts of such projects?

Singapore has a global footprint in the data centre industry. In addition to having the highest proportion of data centre capacity in both Johor and Batam, at 37% and 62% respectively, Singapore-based data centre operators are present as far afield as Europe and Australia. Prominent operators such as DayOne and Bridge Data Centres are headquartered here, while Temasek Holdings back several operators, such as Ascendus, Mapletree, ST Telemedia, Nxera and Keppel. Temasek was also part of a consortium that purchased AI data centre operator, Allied Data Centres for a record $51.8 billion, while Anthropic is partnering with GIC and Macquarie Asset Management to build AI data centres for the cloud developer.

Given this, can we require Singapore-based data centre operators to report their carbon emissions from their overseas data centre operations, whilst also Government-linked operators to enact sustainability measures for their overseas operations?

As many large Singapore-based companies procure compute capacity from regional data centres, could we require such a cooperation to lease from operators to implement sustainable practices, similar to the principles under France's duty of vigilance law?

Mr Speaker, amidst our climate emergency, data centre projects need to sit alongside the urgent need to meet our climate targets. Calls for the public to exercise individual responsibility by saving electricity and water ring hollow if we allow data centres to guzzle up excessive amounts of energy and water resources.

Our already limited land should also be prioritised for uses that enable human flourishing instead of merely satisfying the ever-growing appetite of capital, with data centre projects carried out, sensitive to the surrounding environment and communities.

We all have a stake in our planet. Thus, it is important to hold industry to account for carbon emissions and resource consumption in a way that is fair. We should also aim to mitigate the effects that our policies governing data centre construction have beyond our shores.

It would do us a world of harm if the benefits of frontier technologies and are disproportionately and unsustainably lining the pockets of hyperscalers at the very expense of our existence as a planet.

If we pride ourselves as a global technological hub, then perhaps, it is time to ensure that our policies ensure that advancements in technology are also carried out sustainably with its fruits reaped by the people for societies to flourish. While I support the Bill, I hope that the Ministry will consider these points I have raised.

Mr Speaker: Mr Henry Kwek.

5.54 pm

Mr Kwek Hian Chuan Henry (Kebun Baru): Mr Speaker, Sir, I rise in support of the Bill. I will make three points. First, on resilience and why wider reporting makes our digital infrastructure more reliable and more secure. Second, on sustainability, and how we can raise standards in a way that is fair to existing operators. And third, why data centres matter to Singapore's future and for Singapore to flourish.

Let me start with resilience. For many years, companies have come to Singapore for three things: trust, knowledge and connectivity. Data centres are at the heart of all three. That is why companies keep their knowledge here: their data, their AI models and their records. Companies place the knowledge here because they trust us to keep it safe and to keep it available.

This Bill strengthens that trust for two reasons.

The first is reliability. The outages that Singaporeans remember are sometimes not caused by hackers. In October 2023, a cooling fault at a data centre disrupted DBS and Citibank services for about 14 hours. Around 2.5 million payment and ATM transactions could not go through. In September 2024, a battery fire at a data centre in Loyang took more than a day to put out, and disrupted cloud services. Neither was a cyber breach. Incidents like these would have to be reported under the law.

The second reason is security. Attackers no longer go only for the servers. They go for the systems that keep the servers running: the power, the cooling and the building controls. Many of them are run by software too. So, an attack on these systems may look, at first glance, like ordinary faults. One operator, looking at one fault, cannot tell the difference.

But our agencies can. With wider reporting, Government agencies will see incidents throughout the whole sector. They can connect the dots, and spot a coordinated attack early, while there is still time to respond.

Some may ask: do the large operators not already have continuity and recovery plans? Many do. What the Bill adds is a common baseline that can be enforced. So, every major facility is prepared, including for problems that have nothing to do with servers.

Let me now turn to sustainability. Data centres use real resources. They use land, electricity and the same scarce resources that Singapore has a lack of. But nevertheless, I am heartened that the Bill takes a balanced approach. It not only sets a higher standard for new data centres but also requires existing ones, from three megawatts upwards, to meet energy-efficiency requirements.

I think it is a right approach. We cannot ask new operators to be best in class, while older facilities stay as they are.

But efficiency is only half of the picture. Senior Minister of State Tan has shared how past Government actions in the past have shaped the growth of our data so we can balance responsibility with efficiency. But the broader point is this: how have we actively shaped how capacity is added and on what terms.

At the same time, we should also be fair to operators who have built under earlier rules and now facing new obligations. I am glad that the Ministry have given existing data centres sufficient time to make the transition. I hope that IMDA can also consider the investments that operators have already committed and the physical limits of each site. Not every older data centre can be rebuilt to the standard of a new one. And for those that cannot meet the new standards, I hope we can help them to exit in an orderly way, with enough time for the customers to move.

Some may say that electricity, land and water are too precious for us to be patient. I understand the view. But Singapore is already a high-cost location for data centres. Operators who only want cheap capacities have every reason to go elsewhere, including the nearby data centres in our surrounding countries and cities.

So, many of those that are remaining here today are only here because their work needs to be here. Our aim should be to raise their standards and not push everybody out.

That brings to my third and final point: why data centres matter to Singapore.

In every other developed country, these costs have led to some level of pushbacks against data centres, and we may hear similar views here, including in this Chamber. But I think that having fewer data centres is not necessarily the right answer for Singapore. Let me explain why.

Singapore matters to the world precisely because we are a hub for many things, all in one place. We are a hub for air and sea transport, for finance and for regional headquarters. We are a hub for semiconductors, pharmaceuticals and technology. We host multilateral institutions and we are trusted with data, all within a small island of only 735 square kilometres. Every one of these activities now depends on computing power especially AI.

In 2024, our digital economy made up 18.6% of GDP. And with AI, more of these activities will depend on compute power even more. And there are also two separate kinds of AI work. The first is training, which is building an AI model. This can be done elsewhere where power is cheap. We do not need to compute for this. The second is inference, which is using the model to answer, and decide and answer in real time. Inference must therefore sit close to where it serves – the ports, the banks, the hospitals – and it must sit under laws that the users trust. So, if we send this capacity elsewhere, we send part of our hub away with it.

Having enough data centre capacity for our core needs is not only about helping one industry. It is about our people's jobs, it is about our relevance to the world, it is about our future.

For those who feel that we should have fewer data centres, there are three questions I hope we can answer: which of our hub activities are we prepared to give up? Where would our data and our AI then sit and under whose law? And what would replace the jobs that depend on them?

I think the real question is not whether Singapore should have data centres. It is how many, how good and on what terms. This Bill gives us a sound answer. It makes our data centres more resilient and more efficient. It holds our operators to green energy and economic commitments that they have made in return for scarce capacity, so that every megawatt that we allocate brings back value to Singapore.

Sir, let me conclude. This is a fast-moving field and no law will get everything right the first time. This Bill will be reviewed and refined as we go along, I am sure. I thank the Ministry and IMDA for consulting the industry closely, and I hope that they continue to do so, but the Bill sets the right direction. Sir, I support the Bill.

Mr Speaker: Mr Dennis Tan.

6.02 pm

Mr Dennis Tan Lip Fong (Hougang): Mr Speaker. For a decade we have governed the industry through certification schemes, technical standards and the conditions attached to tend this. And the Government's own consultation paper concluded that these measures alone could not ensure consistent sustainability outcomes across the sector, necessitating a statutory regulatory framework.

Licensing enforceable conditions, audit powers and penalties of up to $1 million or a 10th of an operator's Singapore's turnover give the regulator what it needs. And I welcome them.

I welcome in particular the energy efficiency duty reaches data centres already operating. Singapore is a regional data centre hub with a total capacity of 1.6 gigawatts and a framework covering only new builds would have left a significant portion of the sector untouched.

I also welcome clause 39 3(b) which allows IMDA to recover the cost savings obtained where an operator breaches a license condition, limiting the amount of proportion of electricity that may be drawn from a specified energy source. This removes any financial incentive to breach such a condition.

I have questions on four matters: the exemptions, the standards to be set under this Bill, carbon emissions requirement and the publication of consumption data.

The exemptions. Clause 35 exempts four categories of data centres from the licensing and efficiency requirements. Data centres operated by telecommunications, electricity and gas licensees are exempt from where they are used for the licensees' regulated activities or for activities ancillary to those regulated activities.

Government operated data centres situated in Government owned or occupied facilities and data centres operated by public authorities and facilities they own or occupy are exempt without the activity-based limitations that apply to some of the other exemptions.

For example, in October last year, JTC and the EDB set aside some 20 hectors on Jurong Island for low-carbon data centre park capable of supporting up to 700 megawatts. While such facilities are expected to be operated by commercial operators, the scale of the project illustrates the significance of the exemption. If a public authority were itself to operate a qualifying data centre in premises it owns or occupy, Part 4 would not apply.

Why are data centres run by Government agencies and Statutory Boards exempt from the same statutory energy and water efficiency requirements that apply to licensed operators? What measures would ensure that data centres run by Government agencies and Statutory Boards meet the same energy and water efficiency standards as licensed operators, so that the exemption does not undermine the Bills purpose of making the sector more efficient?

Furthermore, clause 65, empowers the Minister to exempt any person or class of persons from any provision of the Act by order published in the Gazette. Unlike an order made under clause 66, such an exemption order need not be presented to Parliament. May I ask will the Ministry undertake to report to this House any exemption granted under clause 65 from Part 4 of the Act?

Next, the standards. The Government has already set efficiency standards for new data centres. The main measure is PUE, which compares the data centres' total electricity use with the electricity used by its servers. A figure of 1.25 means that for every unit of electricity the servers use, another quarter of a unit goes on cooling and other overheads.

IMDA's second Call for Application for Data Centres in December 2025 required a PUE of 1.25, improve of 1.3 in a pilot exercise together with green mark platinum certification, and at least half the power drawn from green sources.

For data centres already operating, clause 35 requires them to meet whatever efficiency standard is prescribed and clause 67 allows different standards for different classes of licensees. The Act itself sets no period for older facilities to reach the standard, so I would like to ask the Senior Minister of State what PUE standard existing data centres will be required to meet whether different standards will apply to different classes of facilities and how long older facilities will be given to achieve compliance?

On water, clause 35 allows water efficiency standards to be prescribed, but the Ministry's response in the public consultation says none will be set when the Act first takes effect.

In May 2024, the Government disclosed that large data centres in 2021 use a median of 2.2 cubic metres of water for every megawatt hour of electricity used by their servers and said that IMDA would work with PUB to bring this down to 2.0 or less over the medium term.

PUB has since published a sector benchmark of 2.1 cubic metres per megawatt hour. I would like to ask the Senior Minister of State when will water efficiency standards be set and does the Government still intend to bring the sector to 2.0 cubic metres per megawatt hour or below? The Call for Application set a figure for electricity efficiency and none for water. Will the next Call for Application include one for water usage too?

In the meantime, clause 25 requires IMDA to consider a data centre's water efficiency before granting a licence. PUB already publishes a water efficiency benchmark for data centres based on the water use figures that every user drawing at least 60,000 cubic metres a year has had to submit since 2015. Will IMDA use that benchmark when it assesses water efficiency under clause 25?

Next, on carbon emissions compliance. The Bill allows IMDA to impose a licence condition requiring an operator to mitigate emissions associated with non-low carbon electricity by acquiring a surrendering eligible international carbon credits. Separately, if an operator breaches a condition limiting the use of electricity from a specified energy source, IMDA may be required to transfer credits to the Government to offset the additional emissions caused by the breach.

The Bill does not, however, prescribe a percentage limit on the extent to which eligible international carbon credits may be used to meet an emissions-related licence condition.

Under the carbon tax regime, a taxable facility may use eligible international carbon credits to offset no more than 5% of the taxable emissions. Government has explained that this facility level limit is intended to ensure that industry continues to prioritise emissions reductions domestically. The tax is levied on about 50 facilities in the manufacturing, power, waste and water sectors.

Data centres drawing electricity from the grid indirectly bear a carbon price because of power generation companies may pass some of their carbon tax cost through electricity tariffs. However, standalone data centre operations do not appear to fall within the prescribed sectors directly covered by the carbon tax merely because they consume grid electricity.

So, will a limit comparable to the 5% carbon tax limit apply when international carbon credits are used to meet an emissions related condition under this Bill? If not, what limit or safeguards will apply to ensure that operators continue to prioritise low carbon electricity and emissions reductions over the purchase of credits? Will the Senior Minister of State also clarify how the emissions impact of a data centre will be taken to account when licensing decisions are made and whether this consideration should be expressly stipulated?

Clause 25 permits IMDA to consider the emissions characteristics of the electricity used. The proposed use of carbon credits and the bearing of the data centres energy consumption on Singapore's international emissions reductions commitments but leaves the weight to be given to these matters to the authority.

Next, publication of available consumption data. Mr Speaker, clause 36 requires licensees to report to IMDA each year on whether they are complying with the Act, their licence conditions and the Codes of Practice. It does not expressly require annual reporting or publication of absolute electricity and water consumption for the sector, nor does it require publication of aggregate sector wide totals. Because PUE is a ratio, a data centre can become more efficient each year while using more electricity each year simply by adding service, and the same is true of the sector as a whole. This House and the public will not know how much electricity and water data centres use or how quickly that is growing.

The Government already has the data. Every large water user, including data centres, has reported its water use to PUB each year since 2015, under mandatory rules. And the Government's own estimate of data centre electricity use was calculated from EMA data. Neither agency publishes a current total for the data centre sector. The most frequently cited official figure is that data centres accounted for about 7% of Singapore's electricity consumption in 2020. That figure is now several years old and does not show how electricity use has evolved as capacity and computing intensity have grown along with the recent boom in data centres demand.

Some jurisdictions with large data centre sectors do publish these figures. Ireland's statistics office has published annual figures on data centre electricity use since 2020, compared from electricity metre readings. Its latest release shows data centres used 23% of the electricity metered in Ireland in 2025, up from 5% in 2015. Virginia's legislature commissioned an independent study, which highlighted the substantial generation and grid investment that may be required if data centre demand continues to grow rapidly and estimated that the industry support some 74,000 jobs.

When my hon friend, Sengkang Group Representation Constituency (GRC) Member of Parliament, Ms He Ting Ru asked on 7 January 2025 what proportion of Singapore's total electricity consumption would be accounted for by data centres once their capacity increased by at least a third, the reply restated the Government's commitment to add 300 megawatts of capacity but did not provide the projected proportion of national electricity consumption.

In February this year, the hon Member for Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC, Ms Elysa Chen asked what proportion of our fresh water supply data use, or failing that, how much water in volume? PUB collects data centres' water use every year, yet the entire reply was one sentence, saying that most of the water supplied to data centres is NEWater rather than fresh water.

Clause 60 requires IMDA to keep confidential what operators disclose and I accept that individual operators have good reasons for this. The design and security of a data centre should not be public and neither should one's company's commercial figures.

However, aggregate usage statistics for the whole sector would reveal neither. It would not identify any operator. It would inform the public what the efficiency standards in this Bill are meant to achieve, whether the sector's use of electricity and water is being kept within what our grid and water supply can sustain.

This Bill does not require IMDA to publish such aggregate figures, but I call on the Government to publish such sector level data so that the public can see whether the efficiency standards in this Bill are working and whether the sector's use of electricity and water remains within what our grid and water supply can sustain. Mr Speaker, in Mandarin, please.

(In Mandarin): Mr Speaker, the data centres are an important infrastructure for Singapore's digital economy. But they also consume a substantial amount of electricity and water. In the past, the Government relied mainly on industry standards and voluntary measures to promote energy conservation. I support its decision to strengthen regulation through legislation.

However, I hope that the Government will provide more clarification on several issues.

First, some data centres operated by Government departments and Statutory Boards may be exempted. If these data centres also consume substantial amounts of electricity and water, should they not be required to meet the same energy and water efficiency standards, and be subject to the same accountability and oversight, rather than being exempt from these standards?

Second, what energy use efficiency standards will existing data centres be required to meet in the future, and how much time do they have to complete this transition?

Third, will the Government publish electricity and water consumption data of the entire industry, so that the Parliament and the public can understand whether these measures are truly effective and whether the growth of data centres remain within the limits that Singapore's energy and water resources can sustain.

Mr Speaker, notwithstanding the questions above, I support this Bill.

( In English ): In conclusion, Mr Speaker, this Bill gives Singapore, for the first time, a law written specifically for data centres, covering how they use electricity and water. My questions are meant to make sure it works as intended – that the exemptions for Government agencies and public authorities do not leave part of the sector outside its standards; that operators know the energy and water standards they will be held to and when; and that Parliament and the public can see the results.

So, notwithstanding the clarifications I have sought, Sir, I support the Bill.

Mr Speaker: Ms Lee Hui Ying.

6.17 pm

Ms Lee Hui Ying (Nee Soon): Mr Speaker, Sir, I rise in support of the Bill. Much has been said about the importance of embracing AI to spur economic innovation – innovation to create higher-value jobs for Singaporeans; innovation to improve the delivery of our Public Services; and innovation to improve Singaporeans' overall quality of life. Even as Singapore seeks to benefit from AI, we are mindful that any benefit Singaporeans can reap from AI depends on the AI working.

On this, we have seen extensive efforts over the years by the Government to attract infrastructure investment from all over the world such that we now have one of the highest concentrations of data centre capacity per capital in the region. As we increase scale and reliance on data, we need to also start having the right governance frameworks in place.

To ensure we can fully secure these advantages and continue to build upon our robust foundations, we must ensure our regulatory frameworks evolve in tandem with our technological ambitions. Therefore, I wish to clarify on four key areas on this Bill: first, security and resilience; second, sustainability; third, the implementation of standards; and fourth, the jobs and economic opportunities that this endeavour will unlock for Singaporeans.

First, security and resilience. I appreciate the Ministry and the relevant agencies' proactive efforts to strengthen the security and resilience framework surrounding our digital infrastructure. Data centres are the bedrock of our digital infrastructure. If our digital infrastructure falters, our financial systems, our healthcare delivery and our essential public services will falter with it.

However, given the stakes, I must stress the critical importance of end-to-end resilience. While the current provisions in the Bill, particularly sections 17 to 22, grants the authorities extraordinary regulatory and operational powers to intervene, I would like to ask the Senior Minister of State if the Government considers going one step forward to safeguard our sovereign interests. Specifically, would the Government consider providing IMDA with "step-in" rights to put critical data centres under a statutory trust or receivership if it deems the existing operators to be unable or unwilling to act in the public's interest?

Such a decisive measure would only be invoked under severe circumstances, including but not limited to, first, a fundamental failure to sustain the operations of the data centre, which threatens widespread service disruptions; second, a failure to cooperate with public officers and investigation teams during a breach or crisis; and third, the operator being deemed to be operating under malicious intent towards Singapore.

While drastic, having such a legislative backstop ensures that no private entity can compromise the existential digital lifelines of our country. Can the Senior Minister of State share if such mechanisms have been considered or if they might be introduced in future iterations of our regulatory framework?

At this point, I want to clarify that this is advocated in the interest of the industry. Singapore's success in attracting data centre investment is dependent on the profitability of the data centres. This is, in part, dependent on the willingness of the market to host their data in data centres based in Singapore. By empowering IMDA with "step-in" rights, we are telling the markets that the Government will serve as a guarantor for Singapore's data centres, that we would ensure the continued operation of data centres in the event of an emergency, so that data centres will continue operating for limited periods of time to allow companies to migrate their data to alternative centres.

Next, sustainability. Data centres are resource intensive. Every step we take forward risks leaving a larger environmental footprint. They consume vast amounts of electricity and require significant volumes of water for cooling. While I note the regulatory frameworks being put in place to manage these environmental impacts, I believe we must look beyond mere regulation.

I spoke about this during the Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment's Committee of Supply this year. How can Singapore ensure our AI development is climate-aligned? I wish to ask the Senior Minister of State, what active steps are the Government taking to develop green technology for data centres? How are we helping operators learn from the "best in class" around the world and import such cutting-edge technologies into our ecosystem, such as advanced liquid cooling or AI-driven energy optimisation?

How does the Ministry intend to quantify Singapore-specific emissions arising from AI development? Is there a framework to measure and publicly disclose the carbon footprint associated with large-scale AI infrastructure? How is the projected energy demand being incorporated into Singapore's long-term carbon modelling and emissions trajectory planning? Are there plans to implement carbon taxes on AI infrastructure to encourage responsible use?

To truly own this space, we must also have an ecosystem that is able to innovate in green technology. Will we be investing into research into this area with local universities, research institutes and public institutions, such as Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR)? Or a programme to involve major data centre players to co-fund with the Government or contribute to the R&D of sustainability technology for data centres? If we can pioneer breakthroughs in tropical data centre efficiency, we solve not only a local problem but potentially, a regional one.

This brings me to a broader strategic point. The demand for digital infrastructure is exploding and with it, an urgent need for sustainable solutions. Will the Government look into further developing our local green sector to capitalise on this? By test-bedding green digital infrastructure technologies here, we can groom a new generation of local enterprises equipped to export these sustainable solutions to the region and further abroad, turning this strategic vulnerability, our limited resources, into a strategic economic export.

Next, standards. Standards are inherently good. They harmonise expectations, make operational environments predictable and are highly conducive for businesses when they engage in long-term capital planning.

I note there is an intent for the scope of this Bill to be expanded in the future to introduce other efficiency requirements and baseline standards. However, while businesses appreciate certainty, they are highly deterred by ambiguity regarding future compliance costs. Could the Senior Minister of State clarify the timelines for the consultation and implementation for future standards? Industry players need adequate runways to adjust their operations, to upgrade their legacy hardware and to train their personnel. More importantly, how can we assure the industry and avoid being seen as imposing a "slippery slope" of creeping regulation?

The industry is watching closely. We want to attract top-tier digital infrastructure investments but if operators fear that regulatory goalposts will constantly shift under the guise of evolving standards, they may look elsewhere. So, this is the delicate balance between safeguarding public interests and maintaining our status as an attractive, pro-business hub. How can the Ministry ensure that future standards are strictly risk-based, empirically justified and developed in deep partnership with the industry?

Finally, I would like to touch on what this really means for the everyday Singaporean. At the heart of our economic policy is the creation of good jobs for Singaporeans. What specific jobs and economic opportunities does the Government foresee being created in this endeavour? As we tighten security requirements, there will undoubtedly be a surge in demand for cybersecurity professionals, cloud architects and digital forensics experts. As we push for greener data centres, we will need sustainability engineers, green facilities engineers and energy specialists. How is the Government working with our institutes of higher learning to ensure our workforce is ready to step into these higher-value roles? Mr Speaker, Sir, in Mandarin, please.

(In Mandarin): I support this Bill. There has already been considerable discussion about embracing AI to drive economic innovation.

What is the purpose of innovation? It is to create higher-value jobs for Singaporeans, provide more efficient public services and improve the overall quality of life for Singaporeans. For Singapore to benefit from AI, AI itself must be able to operate in a stable and reliable manner.

What does this mean for Singaporeans? At the heart of our economic policy is, and has always been, the creation of good jobs. May I ask what specific jobs and economic opportunities the Government expects these efforts to create?

As we tighten security requirements, there will undoubtedly be a significant increase in demand for cybersecurity professionals, cloud architects and digital forensics experts. To make data centres greener, we will need environmental engineers, green facilities engineers and energy specialists. How is the Government working with our institutes of higher learning to ensure that our workforce is prepared and equipped to take on these higher-value roles?

( In English ): Mr Speaker, Sir, the Digital Infrastructure Bill is a timely and necessary intervention. It sets the guardrails for our next phase of growth, ensuring that as we reach for the immense benefits of a digital-first economy, we do so on a foundation that is secure, resilient and sustainable. This will ensure that Singapore remains the premier digital hub of Asia.

Notwithstanding these clarifications, I support the Bill.

Mr Speaker: Mr Louis Chua.

6.28 pm

Mr Chua Kheng Wee Louis (Sengkang): Mr Speaker, I support the introduction of the Digital Infrastructure Bill, and I will spend most of my time on Part 4. I have been following developments in the data centre industry closely in recent years and have asked a number of Parliamentary Questions on it. I believe it is useful to provide some context to our debate today with statistics drawn from the replies to those questions.

In February 2021, I asked the then-Minister for Trade and Industry how many data centres had been approved for construction over the preceding five years and on what terms any moratorium had been imposed, since it was widely understood in the industry that a moratorium had been in place since 2019. Minister Chan Chun Sing replied that 14 data centres with 768 megawatts of IT capacity had been approved on industrial state land in those five years, against 12 data centres and 307 megawatts in the five years before. Approved capacity had grown 2.5 times in half a decade, and the Government had responded in 2019 by pausing the release of state land for data centres.

I welcomed that pause then and I still do. It was an honest acknowledgment that land, power and water are scarce here in a way they are not in most jurisdictions we compete with.

In January 2022, I asked again about capacity and limits. The then-Minister for Trade and Industry, Mr Gan Kim Yong, replied that there were more than 70 operational data centres with about 1,000 megawatts of available IT capacity, and that we would henceforth be selective and anchor only facilities best-in-class in resource efficiency.

Where are we now? In February this year, the Minister for Digital Development and Information told this House that we still have more than 70 data centres, but total capacity exceeds 1.4 gigawatts. Her Ministry's press release of 8 September puts it at over 1.6 gigawatts today. It is unclear to me whether the recently awarded 200 megawatts of capacity is part of the 1.6 gigawatts, or whether capacity is now slated to reach 1.8 gigawatts. In any case, in November 2024, replying to my Sengkang colleague Ms He Ting Ru, she also confirmed that our operational data centre capacity per capita exceeds that of Beijing, Hong Kong, Seoul, Sydney and Tokyo.

In recent years, compute demand has expanded rapidly, driven by AI, autonomous systems and other data-intensive applications. That demand is translating into demand for data centres across the world. Governments are now confronting the consequences for electricity grids, water, land, emissions and household affordability. Roughly, a dozen United States (US) states have seen data centre moratorium bills filed in sessions and more than 300 local moratoriums have been adopted across 17 states in the US.

In July, New York became the first American state to impose a statewide pause, suspending environmental approvals for data centres of 50 megawatts and above for up to a year while an environmental impact statement is prepared. Its Governor cited the risk that such development would hike up utility bills, deplete natural resources and create uncertainty for New Yorkers.

My speech today will thus be largely focused on Part 4 of the Bill, but I will first speak briefly on Part 3.

I support the introduction of a new licensing regime to strengthen the security and resilience of major cloud services and data centres in Singapore. The Ministry's own examples from the press release make the case, including the October 2023 cooling failure that disrupted more than 2.5 million banking transactions and over 810,000 access attempts.

However, I return to my exchange with Senior Minister of State Tan Kiat How in this House on 5 May 2026, when we debated AI-enabled cyber risks. The Senior Minister of State confirmed then that the Government does not have access to Anthropic's Mythos model and was not aware of any local bank that had been granted access.

In June this year, it was reported that Anthropic would extend Mythos to a further 150 organisations in more than 15 countries, which according to a Financial Times' article included countries, such as Australia, Canada, France, Germany, India, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea and Switzerland, as well as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the EU's cybersecurity agency. None of the jurisdictions named in that reporting was in Southeast Asia and critically, Singapore does not appear to be one of them.

Mr Speaker, no licensing regime can close that asymmetry. Under clause 15, the Bill will require our major operators to defend themselves to a prescribed standard, yet we are not equipping our nation and our operators with the best-in-class tools available. Rather than leaving it to commercial decisions, may I ask the Senior Minister of State whether the Government has stepped up diplomatic and government-to-government representations, to secure access to the top-tier models for our CSA and our critical information infrastructure owners?

This is especially so given how Deputy Prime Minister Gan has described our partnership with the US as one "that is mutually beneficial, deeply integrated and anchored in trust", and that beyond economics, our ties extend to defence, technology and innovation. Further, given that Anthropic opens its Singapore office later this month and since OpenAI has had its Asia headquarters here since 2024, is their presence and our trusted partnership with the US being leverage on in those conversations?

Moving on to Part 4 of the Bill, the philosophical question that we need to ask ourselves is this: do we actually need this many data centres?

I am not arguing that Singapore should reject cloud computing, AI or companies, such as the leading hyperscalers and frontier AI labs. In fact, if the additional capacity awarded were earmarked for sovereign purposes, or for the so-called "HDB model" for compute that I proposed in this House in August, then that would be a very welcome development. The question is whether hosting a very large stock of data centres is genuinely a comparative advantage for Singapore, and whether this is the aspect of the AI supply chain that we want to compete in.

We have swung from having a data centre moratorium to wanting to provide at least 300 megawatts of additional capacity in the near term, with much more through green energy deployments. And in the short span of four plus years, data centre capacity has risen by some 60% from about one gigawatt to 1.6 gigawatts.

On the industry association's own advocacy figures, drawn from a 2023 study, data centres here add over $2 billion a year to our economy, or about 0.3% of GDP, while employing 7,000 people directly and a further 17,000 through the supply chain, or about 0.7% of employment in total. Set against a sector that consumed about 7% of national electricity back in 2020.

Meanwhile, Johor has more than 1,100 megawatts of operational capacity and an incoming pipeline as high as more than 8,500 megawatts according to a consultancy report; and Johor does not face the same land constraints that we do. But our comparative advantage lies in hosting the decisions, the capital and the engineers.

I agree that there needs to be a certain level of local data centre capacity on sovereign considerations, but my question to the Senior Minister of State is, does the Government intend to set a target level of data centre capacity, whether it is in megawatt terms or in terawatt hours, as a share of our national electricity consumption? If there is to be no ceiling, under what specific circumstances will capacity be released beyond the 200 megawatts of Data Centre – Call for Applications 2 and the "much more" additional capacity through green energy deployments?

To the specifics of the Bill, clause 35 requires licensees to meet prescribed energy, water efficiency and equipment-level energy efficiency requirements. Clause 36 further requires regular reports to the Authority, which may be audited. Clause 37 allows for Codes of Practice, but these have no legislative effect, even as non-compliance may be enforced under clause 38. Regardless, I did not see any requirement for public disclosures of such information in the Bill.

Hong Kong appears to have moved the other way. From 21 September this year, data centres there are brought within the mandatory energy audit regime under its Buildings Energy Efficiency Ordinance for the first time on a five-year lease cycle and the technical data collected in the new data disclosure form is to be published on the Electrical and Mechanical Services Department's website for public inspection.

Operators here already disclosed at portfolio level without evident commercial harm. Equinix reports an average annual PUE of 1.37 for 2025 and 96% miniable coverage. Digital Realty 2025 Impact Report reports 93% renewable energy coverage.

I hope the Government can consider requiring the publication of PUE and water usage efficiency at facility level, or at the minimum the operator level, with a transition period for older assets. I would also ask that the Government publish an annual aggregate of the sector's electricity and water consumption, in absolute terms and as a share of national consumption to better allow the public to understand what these technical numbers actually mean.

Next, on green energy commitments. In his reply to my question of 10 September on Data Centre – Call for Applications 2, the Minister for Trade and Industry replied that the four provisionally awarded projects carry a combined 200 megawatts, around 12% of our total data centre capacity, that their demand will be drawn primarily from the national grid supplemented by onsite solar, and that more than half of that capacity will be powered by Singapore-based low-carbon generation from building-integrated photovoltaics and fuels, such as biomethane, ammonia and hydrogen.

Take 200 megawatts of critical IT load at the roadmap PUE of 1.3, running at a conservative 80% utilisation. That is roughly 1.8 terawatt hours a year, of which more than half, say 0.9 terawatt hours, must come from Singapore-based low-carbon generation.

Our entire national solar fleet, once we reach the raised target of three-gigawatt peak in 2030, is expected to generate about 2.8 terawatt hours a year. EMA itself notes solar can realistically supply only around 10% of our projected energy needs by 2050.

So, on those assumptions, which I am happy to stand corrected, the Singapore-based low-carbon commitment of Data Centre – Call for Applications 2 alone is equivalent to roughly about a third of everything our national solar fleet will produce in 2030. And Data Centre – Call for Applications 2 is just about 12% of our current data centre capacity.

Mr Speaker, sunlight falling on Singapore is a fixed quantity, as is the amount of solar energy we can generate from it. While data centres may sign power purchase agreements with local generation companies, it merely re-allocates a constrained national resource. While biomethane, ammonia and hydrogen are additional pathways, it remains unclear just how much green energy is being generated and expected to be generated in the near future from these sources. Will the Senior Minister of State provide further clarity on how the Government plans to ensure that the data centre operators from Data Centre – Call for Applications 2 and potentially the rest of the sector can meet their green energy commitments locally?

Further, even as I welcome the intention to prescribe a facility-level energy efficiency requirement under clause 35, I would ask whether it will be set at a PUE of 1.3 and whether it will bind existing facilities, as adding more data centres still raises Singapore's absolute emissions and consumption, particularly as the increasingly denser AI server racks filled with advanced chips consume significantly more electricity than legacy co-location data centres.

Based on statistics from EMA, Singapore consumed 58 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2024, with the information and communications sector growing 12.3% in that year alone. EMA's own Electricity Demand and Supply Outlook forecasts system peak demand growing 2.4% to 4.8% a year to 2034, an increase of two to 4.3 gigawatts. In 2030, the base case peak is 9.4 gigawatts against an upper bound of 10.8 gigawatts, with generation of 67,600 gigawatt hours against 80,400 gigawatt hours. EMA states explicitly that the upper bound reflects demand from emerging high-demand industrial and digital sectors, naming data centres.

Can the Senior Minister of State share his Ministry's projections for data centre development over the next 10 years, and whether our electricity generation capacity and green energy generation capacity can meet the electricity demand from data centres, and whether the current planning assumptions still allow for our reserve margin of 27% to be met comfortably for power system reliability?

Further, how much has the 60% increase in additional data centre capacity over the last four years contributed to electricity prices, what are the associated costs of infrastructure upgrades and how much is the incoming data centre capacity expected to impact household electricity prices?

The question of who pays is an important one. In the US state of Virginia, home to the largest concentration of data centres globally, regulators authorised a separate rate category for the largest electricity consumers, including data centres, to enable the charging of differentiated electricity rates while also implementing an electricity consumption tax of 1.1 cents per kilowatt hours on data centre operators. US regulators are also increasingly considering large load tariffs, to fairly allocate and recover associated costs to accommodating significant power demands of large customers, such as data centres.

Mr Speaker, I welcome the move to implement two new licensing regimes to strengthen the security and resilience of major cloud services and data centres and the environmental sustainability of data centre operations in Singapore. On the former, I hope that the Government can support licensees and other critical infrastructure providers in Singapore with access to the best tools available; and on the latter, I hope that we can seriously consider the aspect of the AI supply chain that we want Singapore to compete in. Notwithstanding my clarifications and reservations, I support the Bill.

Mr Speaker: Deputy Leader.