CNA reported that Singapore’s parliament passed the Digital Infrastructure Bill on 7 October, requiring operators of data centres with a critical IT load of at least 3 megawatts to be licensed. Existing and new facilities will also have to meet energy-efficiency requirements, including requirements for power usage effectiveness.
At a critical IT load of at least 10MW, centres classed as major co-location or cloud facilities will fall under a separate licensing regime. It will also cover major cloud service providers whose Infrastructure-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service offerings generate at least S$100 million in average annual revenue from Singapore users over the preceding three years.
Nineteen MPs debated the bill for more than five hours across two days. MP Sharael Taha asked about compliance costs for existing data centres and how they compare with those of regional competitors. Senior Minister of State for Digital Development and Information Tan Kiat How said Singapore had received more than 20 applications in its recent data centre call. On electricity costs, Tan said data centres pay for dedicated grid connections, while the costs of wider grid upgrades are shared among users through the existing charging framework.
