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.

Debate resumed.

Mr Speaker: Ms Poh Li San.

6.43 pm

Ms Poh Li San (Sembawang West): Mr Speaker, data centres are not just critical infrastructure but have become a political flashpoint across the world. They require hard conversations about the trade-offs and policy choices. Building data centres is not a design problem. It is a competition among political values.

First, AI is driving the transformation of Singapore economy, and a robust data centre infrastructure is the foundation for our computing power. However, these centres take up land, water, power and create a ton of electronic waste. Some harmful impact on environment can be minimised by regulation, but they cannot be completely neutralised. We must weigh these costs carefully.

Data centres also open up new points of fragility. They are a single source of national level failure either due to technical, operational glitches or targets of cybersecurity attacks. From Ukraine to the Persian Gulf, data centres have been targets of espionage and cyberattacks, as well as physical attacks. The rise in use of AI makes these centres more vital than ever.

This second issue of security also requires careful scrutiny. With so many critical functions dependent on data centres, their security and resilience levels must be kept state-of-the-art. This will not come cheap. The higher cost will in turn mean that Singapore-based data centres are necessarily priced higher. They should also go towards those activities most critical to our country. Examples are power generation, telecommunications, finance, business and transport. These functions, which require a lower threshold of security or which are less crucial, such as entertainment and social media, service providers can choose cheaper and less fortified data centres outside Singapore.

It was not so long ago that we put a stop to unbridled growth of data centes. A moratorium on data centres was imposed in 2019 to manage the unsustainable consumption of electricity. It was only lifted in 2022 under strict sustainability requirements. Notwithstanding, it still did not address the security and resilience aspect for data centres. Hence, this Digital Infrastructure Bill is timely, as we scale up our national AI ambitions.

In fact, in Senior Minister of State Tan Kiat How's response to my supplementary question during the September Sitting, he highlighted that the Government will maximise the economic value of every megawatt brought into Singapore. We want both growth and sustainability. With his assurance, I support the Digital Infrastructure Bill and agree this is the correct and comprehensive approach to regulate data centres.

Given our limited land, water and electricity resources and our commitment towards Net Zero by 2050, we will have to put a cap to our total data centre capacity. Currently, we have 1.6 gigawatts on mainland and the Government will build another 700 megawatts in Jurong Island. That brings the total of 2.3 gigawatts for some 6.2 million population or 370 watts per capita. This is more than double the average of 158 watts per capita in the US.

We also have a big concentration of IT, AI, social media, e-commerce and banking companies. They will use high volumes of compute power. Moreover, quantum computing will enter mainstream use in another three to five years, further adding the demand for data centres and potentially in an exponential manner. So, my question is, will the 2.3-gigawatt data centre capacity be enough? If not, what will we do and what is the trade-off?

Mr Speaker, I had earlier pointed out the need to prioritise critical functions. The Digital Infrastructure Bill does not categorically prescribe what are the functions that can be allowed to tap into data centres housed in Singapore. I ask for the Ministry to consider including this prioritisation criteria at the start in terms of usage allocation. Otherwise, we may come to a point where critical functions may be crowded out of data centres access because less critical but more lucrative functions can pay better.

We cannot and must not rely on the price mechanism to protect national security. My question is that if that situation happens, do we then force these non-critical functions out to overseas data centres or use cloud services off overseas data centres? Or do we continue to build more data centres beyond the 2.3-gigawatt capacity? Then we run up against our Net Zero goal. What industries then must make way for more data centres? What happens to the livelihoods of those in these industries that may be less lucrative?

These questions may sound far into the future now, but as we have seen in recent years, time is moving at a speed faster than it did. For our long-term policy planning, we should think about such possibilities. Mr Speaker, notwithstanding my reservations, I support the Digital Infrastructure Bill.

Mr Speaker: Ms Eileen Chong.

6.49 pm

Ms Eileen Chong Pei Shan (Non-Constituency Member): Mr Speaker, most Singaporeans have never been inside a data centre. But when we scan a payment QR code, access services via Singpass, or video-call a loved one overseas, we are relying on one.

Data centres are the physical backbone of the modern digital world, powering our daily activities, essential services and our economy. We tend to only notice them when something goes wrong. And things do go wrong.

In October 2023, technical issues with the cooling system at a data centre during a planned upgrade disrupted Singaporeans' access to banking services. While the outage lasted less than 24 hours, its impact was significant – more than 2.5 million payments and ATM transactions could not be completed, and there were over 810,000 failed attempts to access digital banking platforms. In September 2024, it took Singapore Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) two days to complete the damping down operations following a fire in a battery room at a Loyang data centre.

Neither incidents involved a cyberattack. It was the physical infrastructure that failed.

We have a Cybersecurity Act that deals with actors who mean harm to our digital infrastrcuture. But it does not deal with a cooling system that malfunctions, a battery that catches fire, or a power supply that fails. It is thus timely to introduce legislation that addresses these non-cyber risks which also affect the security and resilience of major data centres and cloud service providers.

The Bill also takes an equally important step on sustainability, by placing the resource efficiency of data centres on a statutory footing. My colleagues have earlier set out what is at stake in that respect: our power, our water, our land and the communities beyond our shores who absorb what we displace. I share those concerns and I will not repeat them.

I would instead like to focus on asking: once we accept that that trade-offs must be weighed, who weighs them, against what and how would Singaporeans know?

Almost every substantive requirement in this Bill will be prescribed later, in regulations and Codes of Practice. While this preserves flexibility and ensures that the requirements keep pace with technological developments, it also means that those details will not come before this House at subsequent readings of this Bill. So, even as I support the Bill, I would also appreciate the Senior Minister of State's clarifications about how it will work in practice.

Operators in this sector are not lightly regulated today. They already answer to the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) for the Green Mark, to PUB for water efficiency plans, to SCDF for fire safety and to their own customers for a stack of international certifications. This Bill adds a new licence on top. My clarifications today are about how the Bill will add to, rather than compete with, what already exists.

First, on the licensing itself. Will the application, audit, annual report and the renewal of the license be designed as a single streamlined process, with one form and one set of supporting documents? Will information an operator that has already given to IMDA under one limb be carried across, rather than requested again under another?

Second and more substantially, on harmonising with what already exists. Operators today already navigate a wide spread of credentials. Some carry legal force through the building regime. Some are national standards. Some are voluntary international frameworks to meet customer demands. I note that the draft Bill gives IMDA the tools to recognise these credentials: clause 67(3) allows different provisions for different classes of operators; clause 69 allows regulations to incorporate external standards by reference.

Sir, I have four clarifications for the Senior Minister of State.

First, will the subsidiary legislation provide that holding a valid, accredited certification, such as a BCA-IMDA Green Mark Gold Plus or Platinum rating for Data Centres, or SS 564, creates a rebuttable presumption of compliance with the clause 35 requirements?

Second, will an audit report produced for an accredited framework, such as ISO 50001 or Green Mark, within the preceding 12 months or 24 months be accepted towards the annual reporting and audit obligation under clause 36? An operator should not have to be audited on the same data twice, in the same year, for two different regulators.

And third, will the Ministry use clause 67(3) to set a lighter reporting route for smaller and single tenant facilities, reserving full third party statutory audits for the larger ones: say those, perhaps, at 10 megawatts and above? While hyper-scalers easily absorb extra audit overheads, mid-tier local operators should not have to choose between paying for an audit and funding the physical equipment upgrades that the audit recommends.

And fourth, will IMDA's verification protocols be aligned with existing accreditation bodies, such as the Singapore Accreditation Council-accredited certification bodies, so that we are not building a parallel audit profession to check work that has already been checked?

Third, on non-cyber risks that are not regulated by IMDA alone. Fire safety sits with SCDF under the Fire Safety Act. Building standards sit with BCA. Water efficiency sits with PUB. These agencies all answer to different parent Ministries and I am not suggesting that IMDA take over any of their functions. But this Bill does give IMDA a new instrument – licence conditions. An operator will read the licence conditions as the authoritative statement of what is expected of it.

So, I would be grateful if the Senior Minister of State can confirm that these conditions for the license, most of which will be laid out in subsidiary legislation, will be settled amongst the relevant agencies before they are issued, so that operators work to meet one set of coherent conditions rather than having to reconcile three or more sets of expectations.

I ask as this because there will be times where these requirements might pull against one another, and there should be clarity on how that will be resolved. I would like to illustrate this with the fire at the Loyang data centre in September 2024. The batteries involved were lithium ion. It is the same technology that our green energy policy encourages data centres to adopt, because it helps them store renewable power and ride through power outages.

And when the fire in the Loyang Data Centre started, the sprinklers did what they were designed to do: sprinkle water. This, plus water spraying from the SCDF's firefighting operations subsequently led to the server room experiencing water accumulation and leaks, resulting in heightened risk of electrical short circuits. This led to a decision for an emergency power shutdown, which further disrupted service provision.

I cite this example to illustrate how the measure that protects the building may not be the same measure which protects the service. While I am in no position to say which should yield to the other, if at all, an operator designing a battery room should get a clear, single non-conflicting answer about what is expected.

Another example is what is written into clause 25(2)(b) of the Bill, which requires IMDA to have regard to both energy efficiency and water efficiency. While next-generation liquid cooling promises to optimise both, legacy air-cooled facilities that are retrofitting their systems will face operational friction. Traditional evaporative cooling towers shed heat efficiently to save power, but consume heavy volumes of water. Dialling back water use without immediate capital upgrades can then drive energy consumption up.

So, this Bill names both statutory duties, but offers little clarity on how IMDA will weigh energy versus water metrics during license evaluations for legacy facilities. So, I have three clarifications in this regard.

First, where the requirements pull against one another, whether within the criteria set out in clause 25, or with requirements of other agencies, what will guide IMDA's decision in striking a balance? Can the Senior Minister of State share an example of how such tension would be resolved in practice?

Second, will compliance with the new licence conditions be taken as satisfying, or at least, as aligned with, the baseline expectations of the consulting agencies, so that an operator which has already met its license requirements is not later told by another agency that it has fallen short of something else?

And third, will the Codes of Practice under clauses 16 and 37 draw on the lessons of past incidents, including standards for lithium ion battery storage safety, redundant cooling switchover and physical isolation between plant rooms?

Mr Speaker, these are questions about implementation rather than intent of the Bill. No serious operator or service provider would object to being held to a standard. But what would wear them down is being held to varying standards that have not been reconciled. Clarity is not a concession to business, it is the condition on which compliance will happen. Notwithstanding my clarification, Sir, I support the Bill.

Mr Speaker: Dr Neo Kok Beng.

6.59 pm

Dr Neo Kok Beng (Nominated Member): Mr Speaker, Sir, I welcome and support the Digital Infrastructure Bill. Digital infrastructure is foundational to Singapore's economy and society. I intend to keep my speech short and therefore, there are five areas of concerns for the Ministry to consider or clarify.

The first area is the licence types, grants and a renewal duration. The Bill states two categories: foundation digital infrastructure that is 10 megawatts or above; and a data centre that is between three and 20 megawatts. Can the Senior Minister of State clarify that if a foundation digital infrastructure requires two licences, and if so, if it is possible for an foundation digital infrastructure to submit using one licence rather than have a duplication, or if there are other concerns which result in two applications of licences?

The second area is the change of control. Clause 30 defines a change of "5% controller" to be notified within seven days. We know that the equity structures of data centres could be cross-holdings and could be many possible options, where people invest with different equity structures. So, there might be situations where equity engagements might be complex due to different crossholdings. Can the notification period be extended by the licensee through formal request rather than the strict seven days?

One important issue is the Code of Practice. The Bill mandates heavy penalties, up to $1 million or 10% of the annual total turnover for non-compliance with the Code of Practice. While that is good, however, under section 14, IMDA will issue the Code of Practice subsequently.

The industry licensees, the operators and engineers are being asked to navigate in this architecture where the destination is very clear, we need to regulate and have the licence, but the Code of Practice is not clear, because it is only going to come soon. So, the Code of Practice defines the precise performance standards, which is a work in progress.

I would like to request more clarity into the composition of the panel that defines the Code of Practice. Does it include representation from the industry, besides the authority? How will the industry's perspectives and viewpoints be included?

Area four of concern is balancing sustainability with innovation. The Bill introduces the Data Centre Operator Licence for facilities of three megawatts and above. To enforce environmental sustainability, we know that our green electricity is currently in short supply. However, we cannot allow the code of practice to be so rigid such that we cannot move for the current operators.

Moving PUE from 1.3 to a strict 1.25 creates big obligation for at least the current operators to invest in their current legacy facilities. I think this needs to be taken into consideration, and taking the equipment's amortisation lifetimes and usage lifetime into concern, rather than fix it very tightly in a certain regulatory period.

If done too quickly, the rush to hit these sustainability metrics could threaten the very operational resiliences we are trying to protect.

We do have new standards that we pioneer on liquid-to-air cooling prototype based on Singapore Standards SS726 for high-density AI clusters. Well, air cools. So, lesser water, no water, this will spike the PUE. And maybe a balance between the PUE and the water usage effectiveness might be considered in this case. This can be considered in a "sandbox" way that we can balance and experiment what are the good usage of innovations and technology.

Our Code of Practice must be there for dynamic, outcomes-based and adaptive to the physical realities of developing technologies.

The last area is area five – the professional framework for technicians, engineers and technologists involved in digital infrastructure. We can build the most secure, greenest digital fortresses in the world, but we still need the people to operate it.

These high-performance data centres of today are no longer simple real estates with just things like racks and servers being plugged in, with heavy air-conditioning systems. They are hyper-complex, mission-critical infrastructure combining advanced power telemetry, mechanical engineering, AI workload distribution and cybersecurity. If we are thinking of structural resilience as a legal mandate, we must therefore treat the competencies of our engineering workforce as a regulated, strategic national priority.

To achieve this, we should not just upskill the top tier, the engineering group, but also the technician or the operations unit. I note that the Institute of Technical Education also has certificates, or Nitec and Work-Study Diplomas that are related to data centre operations. We should create a register for the entire engineering stack – from technician, technologists or engineers to internationally recognised professional standards.

I highly recommend that we start exploring skills accreditation for chartered engineering status and registry for digital infrastructure engineers, technologists and technicians.

In light of that, would the Ministry support the development of a Singapore Data Centre Body of Knowledge which will consolidate all the knowledge and experiences of the industry, including the various Singapore Standards such as the SS564, the sustainable data centre; SS697, tropical data centre standards; SS715, energy efficiency of data centre for IT equipment; and SS726, liquid cooling in tropical data centre.

By embedding all these specific professional registries into our ecosystem, we ensure that every person touching our digital infrastructure is bound by clear professional accountability, continuous professional development and rigorous ethical standards.

In conclusion, Mr Speaker, Singapore's competitive edge means that we always have to rely on stable, trusted and yet highly agile business environment. Of course, the digital infrastructures provide much of that currently. I would urge the Ministry and IMDA to adopt a highly collaborative, consultative enforcement posture during this transition period. Sir, with these concerns and clarifications, I support the Bill.

Mr Speaker: Mr Saktiandi Supaat.

7.06 pm

Mr Saktiandi Supaat (Bishan-Toa Payoh): Mr Speaker, Sir, I rise in support of the Bill which introduces licensing and regulatory frameworks for crucial digital infrastructure and data centre operators.

In Singapore today, digital infrastructure is the invisible bedrock of our economy. It enables PayNow and Community Development Council Voucher payments, Singpass services, cloud storage and workplace software. The global AI revolution is now driving unprecedented demand for such infrastructure.

This Bill is a timely and necessary step to keep our "digital gateways" resilient, secure and sustainable, just as earlier generations did for our airport and seaport. But we must ensure that resilience and sustainability do not erode competitiveness, impose undue burdens on local enterprises or leave our workforce behind. I will address five areas in my Bill speech.

The Bill introduces a security and resilience licensing regime for major co-location and cloud data centres with a critical IT load of at least 10 megawatts, and major cloud service providers earning at least $100 million in average annual revenue from Singapore users. It covers operational risks including technical failures, power outages and fires, complementing cyber-risk management under the Cybersecurity Act.

In practice, however, the line between an operational failure and a cyber incident can be blurred. A cooling system failure may be a hardware malfunction or a cyber-intrusion into a facility's Operational Technology network. How will IMDA coordinate with the CSA in such dual-faceted incidents?

The Government's consultation response says MDDI, CSA and IMDA will streamline both regimes. Where reporting requirements overlap, licensees need report only to IMDA, which will share relevant information with CSA. Could IMDA simply be the single port of call for digital infrastructure operators, leaving CSA to obtain what it needs from IMDA?

During a crisis, operators should focus on recovery and mitigation, not navigate duplicative reporting.

Compliance also has a cost. Licensees must implement rigorous security risk management measures and business continuity plans. Major MNCs may readily absorb these costs, but how will the Ministry keep the burden proportionate?

Detailed requirements will be set through Codes of Practice after industry consultation. What is the expected implementation timeline and have the proposed standards been benchmarked against other jurisdictions to keep Singapore attractive for global tech investment?

Second, impact on local enterprises and SMEs. Sir, I turn to the downstream impact on local enterprises and SMEs.

I have emphasised in this House that supporting local SMEs and attracting global MNCs are not competing choices. Major cloud providers and data centres form the foundation for thousands of local businesses, from e-commerce hosting to enterprise resource-planning software.

Compliance costs may flow down the value chain. Has the Ministry assessed how the Bill could affect the pricing of cloud and co-location services in Singapore? If digital-infrastructure costs rise, SMEs already facing tight margins and higher operating costs may bear the brunt. Are support mechanisms or grants planned to help local enterprises absorb possible price increases and keep digitalisation affordable for heartland businesses?

Third, synergising green digital infrastructure initiatives. The Bill rightly addresses environmental sustainability, especially important given data centres' high energy and water use in resource-scarce Singapore.

I am concerned about constraints such as green-power availability and grid readiness, even as AI and digital workloads surge beyond our critical sectors. How will regulation under this Bill and physical-infrastructure planning be aligned with Singapore's digital economy and Net Zero goals, including IMDA's Green Data Centre Roadmap and the EDB's and JTC's sustainable-energy initiatives on Jurong Island?

Could the Ministry of Energy, Trade and Industry update the House on the implementation of Jurong Island's 700 megawatts low-carbon data centre park and the lessons learnt so far?

All data centres with a critical IT load of at least three megawatts must be licensed and meet facility-level energy-efficiency requirements, including PUE standards. New facilities can incorporate advanced water-cooling and energy efficient designs, but legacy centres face substantial physical and financial retrofit challenges. The consultation response says clean-energy and economic commitments will apply only to new applicants, while PUE, IT-equipment and water efficiency requirements will be set at practical levels after consultation.

The question I have is how will the Government address the gap between the efficiency requirements for new and legacy data centres? How many data centres operate today and how many were established after the three-year moratorium on state-land development ended in 2022? And what proportion will fall under the new licensing regime? Do we have their current energy and water efficiency metrics, and how far are they from the "ideal" levels envisaged under the framework? Will the Government also provide support or co-funding for operators to upgrade legacy infrastructure and adopt alternatives such as microgrids and low-carbon hydrogen or ammonia?

Fourth, on sovereign compute and assured access. I turn to sovereign compute now, Singapore's ability to secure sufficient computing resources, with enough control to keep essential digital services running during external disruptions.

This should combine domestic capability with trusted international partnerships. Location alone is insufficient; we must know who controls operations, what external dependencies exist and whether critical services can continue if access to a major technology provider is disrupted.

I welcome the expansion of national research computing through ASPIRE 2B. How do we assess the minimum assured capacity needed for essential public services and critical sectors, covering hardware, software, operational expertise and the AI applications on which these services increasingly rely?

The other question I have is: could MDDI, sector regulators and infrastructure providers regularly stress-test a prolonged loss of access to a major cloud or AI provider, including from changes in overseas rules? For critical systems, these exercises should test how quickly an alternative can take over and whether it shares the same dependencies. A back-up helps only if it works when needed.

There is also an economic dimension. The Bill allows commitments made to secure new data centre capacity to become licence conditions. Could future allocations, where appropriate, support commercially agreed arrangements giving Singapore researchers, start-ups and SMEs more predictable access to compute? These should build on existing schemes and recognise the distinct roles of data centre operators and compute providers. Given our land and energy constraints, such arrangements must focus on essential needs and measurable benefits. Scarce capacity should strengthen critical services, useful innovation and local capability.

Finally, Mr Speaker, I turn to our workforce. The Bill's success rests on Singapore's human infrastructure: the engineers, architects and operators who execute even the best technical blueprints.

Singapore faces a global data centre talent crunch just as the Bill will increase demand for compliance auditors, PUE-literate sustainability engineers and operational risk managers able to bridge physical and digital security. The question I have is: do we have a sufficient local pipeline?

These lean operations cannot rely on plug-and-play hiring after short courses. Engineers need expertise in high-voltage power, cooling architecture, cybersecurity, uptime protocols, incident response and high-density AI racks – judgement largely gained in live, mission-critical environments.

Shortages already span site-reliability engineers, GPU-cluster and liquid cooling specialists and cybersecurity experts. The question I have is, how are MDDI, the Ministry of Manpower and our institutes of higher learning adapting education and workforce training so Singaporeans can take up these high value roles?

Meanwhile, entry-level pathways are narrowing. Entry-level tech-engineer recruitment reportedly fell by 25% to 60% in 2024 to 2025, as hyperscalers and highly automated sites adopted leaner staffing. AI-driven predictive maintenance and advanced management tools as well caused this. Junior engineers therefore have fewer opportunities to build the experience held by their seniors.

Has the Government studied the requirements and gaps in this specialised workforce, and are immediate interventions planned? What safeguards or assessments will ensure prospective operators have enough high-quality engineering and operational talent to meet Part 4's standards, without over-relying on transient foreign labour or stretching local teams too thin?

Aerospace and maritime offer useful precedents. When engineering shortages threatened Singapore's hub status, the Government responded through Industry and Jobs Transformation Maps and tripartite frameworks. So, will MDDI work with the Asia Pacific Data Centre Association, for example, to create a local training framework or a shared technical emergency pool that operators can draw on during compliance shocks?

As next-generation, AI-ready and sustainable facilities offer roles paying well above national average, can we systematically move Singaporeans into a higher-value tier of tech professionals? The Bill's resource-efficiency standards can build expertise in liquid cooling, real-time energy tracking and high-density AI-rack architecture. How will higher regulatory standards be translated into structured local capabilities? This is important.

Building on the Green Skills Committee's work, will the Government consider a dedicated Data Centre Green Skills Academy, with fast-tracked conversion pathways for mid-career mechanical and electrical engineers to become green data centre specialists?

Other mid-career professionals will likewise need structured competencies for next-generation facilities. As Singapore seeks to anchor ASEAN's interdependent digital infrastructure ecosystem, can we develop and base here the senior managers, cloud architects and sustainability consultants who support the region? How will Singaporeans remain the primary beneficiaries of these careers?

Mr Speaker, Sir, this Bill is a necessary shield for the foundations of our digital economy and our digital sovereignty. It also allows Singapore to set strong security and sustainability standards, develop world leading infrastructure operators and become the talent capital of the digital-infrastructure boom in the region and hopefully, globally as well.

Sir, I support the Bill and I look forward to the Senior Minister of State's clarifications.

Mr Speaker: Mr Shawn Loh.

7.18 pm

Mr Shawn Loh (Jalan Besar): Mr Speaker, we have been in Parliament for nine hours and we are fast running out of capacity. So, I will keep my speech quite short. I support the Digital Infrastructure Bill.

Singapore helped to kickstart the data centre industry in this region. We built an early lead through reliable infrastructure, strong connectivity and trusted institutions. I saw the strength first-hand of that position during my two years at EDB.

Demand for data-centre capacity was insatiable. Companies were prepared to invest copious amounts of money, hundreds of millions of dollars in a single project. This was an easy way to hit our investment key performance indictor (KPI). But unfortunately, even the most attractive KPI cannot generate more land, power or water. So, we did not close many deals. Some felt that Singapore was leaving money on the table. Perhaps we were. But in Singapore, even the table itself needs to be reviewed given our resource constraints.

And the resource footprint of a data centre is easy to see. The "cloud" nowadays is different. This cloud takes up land. You cannot get water from this cloud. Instead, it needs a lot of water. And instead of producing lightning, this cloud consumes a great deal of electricity.

In 2020, data centres accounted for about 7% of Singapore's electricity consumption, when we had around one gigawatt of capacity. Today, we have around 1.6 gigawatts. I hope the Government can clarify whether growing demand from data centres has affected electricity prices for retail consumers or the stability of our power grid.

Overall, the Government has set out the right strategic ambition. If I may suggest a simple way to think about this: we must look for value over volume; capability on top of capacity. I will make three points about how we can do so.

First, data centres should not only train AI models. They should also train Singaporeans in new frontier capabilities. Data centres are highly capital-intensive and create relatively few jobs directly. That is simply their nature.

But we do not have to accept this. Data centres can help build stronger capabilities across our digital economy.

Beyond that entry level exposure, the next step is for data centre operators to work with cloud providers, educational institutions and local firms to give Singaporeans greater exposure to the higher value work surrounding these facilities. This could include design, research and regional projects. And as the industry moves up the value chain, Singaporeans should be able to move up with it.

Second, we should move from hosting digital infrastructure to developing solutions that we can export. Apart from capability development, we should also look at how Singapore can mix and match our areas of strength, so that we can develop and export technologies that are uniquely ours.

Singapore's constraints are real. But constraints can also drive innovation. If we can solve the difficult problems of cooling, energy efficiency and grid integration in a dense tropical city, those solutions should have value well beyond Singapore.

We are already beginning to test such ideas. Some examples are at the intersection of digital infrastructure and energy infrastructure. This can get slightly technical. But let us power through it.

Most of our electricity is generated using natural gas. Liquefied natural gas is stored at extremely low temperatures. When it is converted back into gas, it releases "cold energy" that would normally be discharged. Singapore organisations are already studying whether that cold energy could instead be used to cool data centres.

We can take a similar approach to grid resilience. Instead of treating data centres and their supporting energy infrastructure as separate systems, we can design them together. The planned low-carbon Data Centre Park on Jurong Island offers an opportunity to test microgrids that are not connected to our main power grid. We can also test batteries and low-carbon energy systems in an integrated way.

If such projects are successful, the expertise developed here could help Singapore serve other regions facing similar constraints. The tighter our constraints, the more valuable that expertise becomes.

Third, look not only at the development of new data centres, but consider the redevelopment of existing capacity. Data centres may operate for decades, but technologies and computing needs will not stand still. We cannot afford infrastructure that consumes a great deal of electrical current but is no longer current itself. It is quite like housing: we do not just think of new greenfield developments, but we think about redeveloping that existing housing stock.

Operators should have strong incentives, as well as clear and timely pathways to upgrade their facilities ahead of time. Where redevelopment, consolidation or even voluntary retirement can release scarce land and power for higher value uses, the Government should consider how operators can share in the value that they help to create. This must be balanced with investment certainty. Operators need clear expectations, reasonable transition periods and confidence that genuine improvements will be recognised.

Mr Speaker, taking a step back, the Government already considers strategic value, innovation, talent development and ecosystem partnerships when allocating new capacity. That is the right approach.

I suggest that the Government also report periodically, in aggregate, on what successful projects eventually deliver. We should measure not only how much capacity Singapore has added, but what that capacity has added to Singapore and Singaporeans.

In conclusion, digital infrastructure may be a new utility, but the next step in our strategy is a familiar one. Singapore helped establish this industry in the region. The task ahead is to move up the value chain. That means capturing more value from the infrastructure we already host, continually renewing the capacity we already have and developing solutions to help the region grow together. With this framework in place, future EDB officers, like I was, will have an easier job to close good deals.

Singapore does not need to be the region's largest digital infrastructure market. We may be short of capacity, but we should never be short of capability. I am confident that we can remain the region's most trusted, capable and strategically valuable digital-infrastructure hub.

On that basis and before anyone's capacity is exhausted, I support the Bill.

Mr Speaker: Dr David Hoe.

7.27 pm

Mr David Hoe (Jurong East-Bukit Batok): Mr Speaker, I support the Bill.

To some, digital infrastructure may sound intangible. But in reality, it rests on the foundation that are physical in nature – the servers, the data centres, the electricity, the cooling system, the water, the network and other infrastructure.

As our reliance on digital services grows, we therefore need to consider both how resilient the infrastructure is when something goes wrong, and how efficiently it uses finite resources needed to keep it running. So, I will focus broadly on two areas.

First, on resilience. We need to look beyond individual operators to common dependency across the system. Clause 15 requires major foundational digital infrastructure service provider to minimise unexpected interruption and maintain business continuity and disaster recovery plans.

A cloud or data centre operator can have very strong internal system and still depend on external providers for hardware, software, telecommunication networks, electricity infrastructure and other third party services. More importantly, several cloud and data centre operators may ultimately rely on the same upstream infrastructure and external provider.

What may appear to look like diversification across companies may therefore still be concentration at the system level. So, could the Senior Minister of State clarify whether the eventual resilience requirement will require licensee to identify material third party and common dependency risk? Beyond what the individual licensee can see, how will IMDA identify concentration risks, where several major providers depend on the same power, same network and same infrastructure?

This is also increasingly interesting because of the cross-border dimension of this Bill. The Bill itself recognises that major foundational digital infrastructure may be provided from outside of Singapore for users in Singapore. This can be increasingly relevant with the Johor-Singapore Special Economic Zone as it develops, including through the data centres and other digital infrastructure operating models spanning across Singapore and Johor.

This is also a related question on jurisdiction dependency, where major cloud service rely upon in Singapore is owned, controlled or operationally managed from another jurisdiction, will IMDA resilience assessment consider whether foreign laws, regulatory direction or external actions could affect Singapore's continued access to that service? For especially critical workload, does the Government see a role for a sovereign cloud capability where that infrastructure and operational control legal accountability are sufficiently anchored in Singapore?

Second, incident reporting should help us identify disruption before it cascades. The Bill provides for prescribed service disruptions to be reported to the authority, with the detailed thresholds and timelines to be set subsequently. Could the Senior Minister of State explain the principles that will determine when an incident is reportable and the timelines under our framework? Will this consider how long a disruption lasts but also the scale, the criticality of the services affected and its potential cascading impact?

There is also a practical balance we have to strike. The Government needs early situational awareness, especially when separate incidents may share a common cause. But operators may still be diagnosing the problem while working urgently to resolve this issue. How will IMDA balance the needs? More broadly, beyond regulatory compliance, how does IMDA intend to use these incident reports? How does IMDA hope to that these data points would be used to strengthen the resilience of the wider ecosystem?

I now turn to resource discipline, starting with how energy and water efficiency standards will be set and balanced.

Clause 35 requires minimum facility-level energy efficiency, equipment-level energy efficiency and minimum facility-level water efficiency. The Bill understandably leaves the actual thresholds to subsequent regulation. But could the Senior Minister of State elaborate how these principles will guide these minimum standards and how they will be updated as technology improves? This matters because demanding standards today might be commonplace several years from now.

I also ask how these three requirements will work together. Energy and water efficiency should not be treated entirely in isolation. Depending on the cooling system and facility design, improving one may have implications on the other. Will IMDA therefore assess the three separate requirements or as a holistic sustainability framework? When trade-offs arise, in my view, the aim should be to improve overall resource efficiency of the facility rather than simply shifting consumption from one resource to another.

At the same time, responsibility should be matched with a degree of control that an operator can reasonably exercise. Clause 35(b) applies equipment-level efficiency requirements to even IT equipment installed by customers of the data centre operator. The operator may control the building, cooling and power infrastructure, while customers own and operate the servers housed within it.

I understand that the mandatory equipment-level requirements are not intended to be imposed at the outset. But if they are to be introduced subsequently, how would these responsibilities be divided between operators and customers? Because this also affects compliance.

Clause 36 requires regular reporting and IMDA can require an audit. But where an operator houses equipment belonging to many different customers, how will compliance with equipment-level requirements be measured and verified, and when would independent audit be required? Clear accountability will make eventual standards easier both to comply with and to enforce.

Third, still on resource discipline. What might the transition pathway for existing facilities look like? New facilities can be designed around current standards from the outset. Older facilities may require substantial changes to cooling systems, power architecture or other infrastructure.

I understand from the Senior Minister of State earlier that existing operators will be given transition time. But could he explain how would this work in practice? Because this framework should recognise genuine technical constraints and reasonable retrofit timelines while still ensuring meaningful improvements over time.

Finally, we should be clear about how efficiency, cleaner electricity and carbon measures fit together. This Bill allows us the authority to consider three things: first, the renewability and carbon intensity of electricity used by data centres; second, imported electricity; and third, the impact of their energy consumption on Singapore's emissions commitments.

Could the Senior Minister of State clarify whether there is an intended hierarchy among these measures? For example, should the first step be to reduce electricity demand through efficiency, followed by using low-carbon electricity where practical, and finally, carbon credits addressing remaining emissions?

Because these approaches do different things. Efficiency reduces pressure on the electricity system itself. Cleaner electricity reduces the emissions associated with demand. Carbon credits address residual emissions through another mechanism.

Where international carbon credits are used, I would also welcome clarification on the standards that will ensure their environmental integrity. More broadly, as the sector grows, individual data centres may become more efficient while total electricity and water usage would still rise in absolute terms.

Since clause 36 will give IMDA regular information from operators, would the Government consider publishing aggregated sector-level indicators over time, including distribution or trajectory of the PUE, alongside water efficiency and carbon profile of electricity used, where commercial confidentiality can be protected?

Why is this important? Because this would help us assess not only whether individual facilities are improving, but whether the sector as a whole is using resources more efficiently as computing demand expands.

Mr Speaker, digital infrastructure is increasingly an essential infrastructure. My two broad concerns are therefore straightforward: first, resilience must extend beyond individual operators to the dependencies and disruptions that can affect the system as a whole; second, growth in computing capacity must be accompanied by clear, progressive, stronger discipline over electricity, water and carbon. With these clarifications, I support the Bill.

7.37 pm

Mr Speaker: Senior Minister of State Tan.

Resumption of Debate on Question [6 October 2026],

"That the Bill be now read a Second Time." – [Minister for Digital Development and Information].

Question again proposed.

Mr Speaker: Mr Lee Hong Chuang.

12.00 pm

Mr Lee Hong Chuang (Jurong East-Bukit Batok): Mr Speaker, I rise to support the Digital Infrastructure Bill. Before I begin, I would like to declare for the 28 years before I was elected into the House, I worked in the information technology (IT) industry, including with major multinational corporations (MNCs), such as Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Kyndryl.

For most of my professional life, I was on the other side of legislation like this. During those years, I managed and worked closely with teams responsible and that provide professional services for disaster recovery, crisis management, business continuity, data centre operation, resilience services, and other critical technology and infrastructure functions. I was involved in preparing organisations for disruptions, managing incidents when they occurred and ensuring that critical systems and services could continue operating under challenging circumstances. I have seen first-hand what it means when critical infrastructure is disrupted, the urgency of the situation, the operational decisions that have to be made and the real impact on businesses, organisations and the people who depend on these services and infrastructure.

I am no longer with any of these MNCs but those years in the technology industry gave me valuable experience of the operational realities behind the systems and infrastructure we are discussing here today.

Mr Speaker, many Members have spoken on energy, water and land. I would like to add a different perspective. I want to speak not about the operators whom the Ministry has consulted extensively, but about the people at the far end of the wire, whose experiences and concerns may not always be represented in the room.

In recent years, we have seen three major disruptions. In February 2023, a power surge tripped cooling systems and took down a cloud service for hours. In October 2023, a cooling failure at one data centre disrupted online banking at our major banks for more than 12 hours, 810,000 failed logins, 2.5 million failed payment and automated teller machine (ATM) transactions. In September 2024, a fire at a data centre took cloud services down with it.

Not one of these was a cyberattack. They were physical operational failures. And the Bill knows it.

Clause 15B now requires licensees to minimise the likelihood of unexpected interruptions. Clause 15C requires plans to recover from them. Resilience before the event and after it. I welcome both.

But the Bill's notification duties point in only one direction. Clause 15D requires a licensee to report cybersecurity incidents and service delivery disruptions to the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA). Clause 17(3) lets IMDA direct a licensee to notify its users, but only of a prescribed cybersecurity threat or incident.

Mr Speaker, put those clauses beside the earlier three examples I mentioned. If the October 2023 cooling failure happened again tomorrow, under this Act, the operator must tell IMDA. IMDA would have no power to make the operator inform anyone else. The Bill's power to inform the public stops exactly where the Bill's own evident rights.

And the people never contract with the licensee. The chain runs from data centre, to bank or platform, to the people. The Bill regulates the first link and leaves the rest of the commercial terms. So, the operator has no duty to tell the bank, the bank cannot tell its customers anything useful and the people stand at the counter with a screen that says "Try again later". Mr Speaker, allow me to share a bit in Mandarin here.

(In Mandarin): When there is a problem with the power or water supply, people usually know whom to contact for help. But when digital systems or online services are disrupted, many people do not know who to turn to or how long they will have to wait.

For small businesses that rely on these systems for their day-to-day operations, the impact is often immediate. Customers may leave one by one, business may come to a standstill, and the business owner may not even be able to give customers a simple answer: how much longer will they have to wait before the service is restored?

That is why when we discuss these infrastructure systems, we must also remember the real people whose lives, work and businesses depend on them. They are often the very last to know what has happened.

This Bill requires operators to notify the authorities, and that is the right approach. But notifying the authorities is not the same as informing the public. If digital infrastructure is truly as essential as electricity and water, then when an interruption occurs, people should be told what has happened and when service is expected to be restored – just as they would be during an interruption to their power or water supply. I hope the Senior Minister of State can provide greater clarity on this point.

(In English): Let me continue my speech in English. I have three requests here.

First, a drafting alignment. Extend clause 17(3) so that the power to direct user notification also covers a "service delivery disruption", the phrase the Bill already uses in clause 15D. Thus, no new concept enters the Act, the Bill's powers simply catch up with the Bill's evidence.

Second, a commitment on the Codes of Practice. Clause 16(1)(a)(iv) lets IMDA set how quickly a licensee must report to IMDA. Will the same code set minimum standards for what a licensee tells its own customers, such as scope, estimated time to restore and a named point of contact so that the bank in the middle of the chain has something concrete to pass on?

Third, transparency after the fact. Will IMDA publish anonymised summaries of major disruptions? It lets the smaller operators who were not in the consultation room learn from the ones who were, and it tells the public that when their phone went dark, someone in the Government saw it and acted on it.

I anticipate the reply that customer communication belongs to contracts and service agreements. With respect, Sir, this Bill has already crossed that line. Clause 17(3) asks Parliament to accept that IMDA may compel a licensee to speak to its users. The principle is settled today. The only question is why it stops at cyber when every incident the Ministry cited to us was not.

If cloud and data centres are now the utilities of the digital economy, the person at the end of the wire deserves to know when they fail and when they will be back. This Bill has built the machinery. I ask the Senior Minister of State to let it reach all the way to the people who depend on this infrastructure and these services. With these requests, I support the Bill.

Mr Speaker: Mr Edward Chia.

12.09 pm

Mr Edward Chia Bing Hui (Holland-Bukit Timah): Mr Speaker, I rise in support of the Digital Infrastructure Bill.

Digital infrastructure has become fundamental infrastructure for a modern economy. Cloud services and data centres support services that Singaporeans and businesses use every day, including digital payments, ride hailing, business management applications and generative artificial intelligence (AI) services.

Singapore's digital economy accounted for 19.3% of our gross domestic product (GDP), or $144.1 billion, in 2025 – double its size since 2018. Singapore also has more than 1.6 gigawatts of data centre capacity. As our dependence on digital infrastructure grows, so do the consequences of disruption. At the same time, data centres draw on scarce resources, including electricity, water, land and our national carbon budget.

This Bill therefore addresses two important objectives: one, strengthening the security and resilience of foundational digital infrastructure and two, progressively raising the energy and water efficiency of our data centres.

I would like to raise four broad considerations.

First, we should turn higher standards into a competitive advantage for Singapore. Singapore need not compete on price alone. Our competitive proposition should be to offer trusted, resilient, connected and resource efficient compute, supported by a predictable regulatory environment. Scarcity and resilience can themselves be economic advantages. Companies handling important workloads will value confidence that their digital infrastructure is subject to credible cybersecurity, operational resilience and business continuity requirements.

Regulatory quality should be another part of our competitive proposition. For companies making substantial, long-term infrastructure commitments, regulatory consistency has real economic value. Clear rules, coordination between agencies, predictable implementation and visibility over the future direction of regulation all reduce investment uncertainty. Higher standards therefore do not necessarily make Singapore less competitive. If businesses understand the standards, how they will evolve and how they will be applied, our regulatory environment can itself become part of Singapore's competitive moat.

There are, however, several areas where implementation guidance will be important.

The first concerns the requirement for an applicant for a data centre licence to have at least one officer with the required connection to Singapore. The Bill defines an officer as a director or another person responsible for the management of the applicant. Global operators may rotate leadership and management responsibilities across jurisdictions. Companies therefore need practical guidance on which roles qualify, how ordinary residence will be assessed and how temporary vacancies or leadership transitions should be handled. Can the Senior Minister of State clarify what roles will satisfy the local officer requirement and whether IMDA will provide a reasonable process for handling leadership transitions?

The second issue concerns who is regarded as operating a data centre. Under clause 23, this turns on who controls the introduction and implementation of operating, maintenance or environmental policies. Where more than one person exercises such control, the person with the greatest authority is treated as the operator. That principle is understandable, but its application may be less straightforward in complex corporate structures. A global parent may determine group-wide environmental or operating policies while a Singapore subsidiary employs the site team and implements those policies locally. This distinction determines which entity must hold the licence.

Clause 54 may also extend liability to officers or persons involved in management in specified circumstances, including where they knowingly participate in an offence or fail to take reasonable steps despite knowing that an offence would be committed. The regulatory guidance should therefore include working examples covering common parent company, subsidiary, owner, tenant and outsourced management arrangements. Can the Senior Minister of State clarify how IMDA will identify the operator where policy authority and day-to-day operational control are divided between different entities?

A third issue is the time taken to decide on licence applications. The Bill gives existing operators six months after commencement to apply and allows them to continue operating while IMDA considers the application. This transitional protection is helpful, but companies must also plan capital expenditure, hiring, financing and contractual commitments.

I recommend that IMDA publish indicative service standards for licence decisions, distinguishing straightforward applications from more complex cases. The guidance should explain when the assessment clock starts, when it may be paused for further information and how applicants will be kept informed of the progress.

Regulatory streamlining will also be important. The Government has indicated where cybersecurity incident reporting requirements overlap, licensees will report to IMDA, which will then share the relevant information with the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore (CSA).

The same principle should be applied to sustainability reporting. Operators should, as far as possible, be able to use one underlying dataset for reporting under the Digital Infrastructure Act – existing carbon reporting frameworks, the Building and Construction Authority (BCA)-IMDA Green Mark scheme and other applicable sustainability requirements. Agencies may require different analyses, but companies should not have to recreate substantially the same information in several formats.

Codes of Practice should also be accompanied by reasonable implementation lead time. Clause 37 requires notice of a new or amended code to be published, but it does not prescribe a minimum notice period. Except where urgent action is needed, operators should have the time to change systems, retrain staff and obtain any necessary equipment. Will the Ministry consider adopting a "report once, use many times" approach across agencies, together with a default advance notice period for new or materially amended Codes of Practice?

Second, we need a fair and predictable transition for existing data centres. I support progressively raising sustainability standards, but implementation should recognise the practical differences between designing a new facility to meet standards and upgrading an existing facility.

The Government has stated that existing data centres will receive sufficient transition time and that the industry will continue to be engaged on the transition arrangements. This should be translated into a published glide path, with milestones that give operators adequate visibility to plan their upgrades.

Where practicable, the glide path should allow upgrades to be coordinated with planned equipment replacements and refurbishments. It should also take into account factors, such as the age and configuration of the facility, present efficiency, technological feasibility and the scale of investments required. Can the Senior Minister of State provide greater clarity on the principles that will determine the transition period and intermediate milestones for existing data centres?

There is also a regional dimension. Singapore should work with regional partners toward greater comparability in data centre sustainability, resilience and reporting. A practical starting point would be common definitions, metrics, comparable disclosures, followed progressively by stronger standards where appropriate. This would support Singapore's position as a trusted digital infrastructure hub while encouraging higher standards across the wider regional ecosystem. Will the Government explore greater regional alignment of data centre metrics, definitions, reporting standards through the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) or other regional platforms?

Third, we should address our resource constraints at a systems level. The question is not simply about how much additional data centre capacity Singapore can accommodate. We should consider what economic and societal value Singapore receives from every electron and every drop of water allocated to compute.

The Bill allows licence conditions to reflect the strategic, economic and sustainability commitments made by operators. The Bill identifies potential contributions, such as fixed-asset investments, total business expenditure, employment, research and development (R&D), innovation, advanced computing for AI and broader ecosystem development. These considerations should form part of a transparent and consistent assessment of new data centre proposals.

Importantly, as electricity demand grows, the associated generation, grid and infrastructure costs should also be allocated fairly. Large additional loads should not result in households and smaller consumers disproportionately bearing the cost of infrastructure built to serve these loads. Can the Senior Minister of State explain how the Government intends to allocate the additional electricity system costs associated with major data centre demand? How will this impact households?

The same system-level approach should apply to cooling. Future data centre should be assessed for precinct level solutions, such as district cooling, thermal energy storage, shared water infrastructure and advanced liquid cooling. Such infrastructure may create efficiencies that are difficult to achieve if every operator is required to optimise its facilities independently.

We should go further and explore industrial co-location, where waste heat from one facility becomes a resource for another activity. International guidance identifies potential applications in food processing and drying, and certain industrial cleaning or heating processes. The suitability of each use will depend on the temperature and the consistency of the heat, the distance between facilities and whether heat upgrading is required. This should therefore not become a blanket obligation. Instead, land use and infrastructure planning for future data centre precincts should identify nearby activities that could productively use recovered heat.

The Government can help by mapping potential heat sources and uses, reserve spaces for shared infrastructure and enabling pilot projects. Will the Government study precinct-level cooling and industrial co-location for future data centre clusters, including opportunities to use recovered heat in compatible industries?

Energy and water efficiency should also be considered together. An improvement in one metric should not be treated as an unqualified success if it causes disproportionate deterioration in another. The regulations and Codes of Practice should therefore establish clear measurement methodologies, adequate transition periods and a combined assessment of energy and water outcomes.

Enforcement should remain proportionate and distinguish persistent or deliberate non-compliance from genuine technical constraints. Can the Senior Minister of State confirm that future energy and water efficiency requirements will be assessed together, and that operators will receive clear methodologies and sufficient transition time before new requirements become enforceable?

Fourth, our constraints should become opportunities to build Singapore's capabilities. As operators invest in more efficient and resilient infrastructure, Singapore should use this demand to develop capabilities in advanced cooling, power management, cybersecurity, water recycling, carbon accounting, energy optimisation and low-carbon projects.

We should look beyond an operator's direct capital investment and employment numbers to the broader ecosystem that projects create. Where appropriate, access to scarce data centre capacity should be accompanied by meaningful opportunities for Singapore enterprises, startups and research institutes to participate in trials, procurement and capability development. Will the Government incorporate local ecosystem development and opportunities for test-bedding into assessment of the broader value created by new data centre proposals?

Finally, the framework should recognise enabling technologies where their benefits can be demonstrated. Energy storage is not automatically equivalent to low-carbon electricity. Its value depends on how and when it is charged and how it supports the electricity system. However, where an operator can demonstrate that battery or thermal storage increases the utilisation of quality low-carbon energy, reduces peak demand or strengthens operational resilience, those outcomes should receive appropriate recognition. Will the Government consider recognising energy storage and thermal storage where operators can demonstrate that they support qualifying lower carbon energy, reduce peak system demand or improve resilience?

Mr Speaker, Singapore's objective should not simply be hosting more data centres. Our ambition should be to strengthen Singapore's position as a trusted, resilient, connected, resource-efficient and predictable digital infrastructure hub.

Strong regulation is not merely a cost of doing business. If the rules are clear, coordinated and implemented predictably, regulation can be part of the reason companies choose to locate important digital infrastructure here. In a resource-constrained Singapore, we should ensure that every electron, every drop of water committed to compute, generates the greatest possible economic and societal value for Singapore. Sir, I support the Bill.

Mr Speaker: Dr Choo Pei Ling.

12.24 pm

Dr Choo Pei Ling (Chua Chu Kang): Mr Speaker, Sir, we do not think about digital infrastructure until it stops, like water and electricity, and we are a small country. There is no next state where the system is still running.

So, this Bill is the right step. IMDA already has resilience guidelines and a Green Data Centre Roadmap. The Bill makes good practice the baseline. I will ask about three goals: resilience, sustainability and value.

Firstly, on resilience. The Bill requires each major operator to have security and continuity plans. That is right. But my worry is what sits underneath. Think of five shops, each with its own fire plan, sharing one staircase. Each passes inspection. But if the staircase is blocked, nobody gets out. Banks, clinics and Government services can each comply and still depend on the same cloud provider, substation, cooling system or cable route. Engineers call this common mode failure, that is, a shared point of failure.

The Bill defines a major service by whether its failure would disrupt many businesses and organisations. The schedule then applies thresholds: 10 megawatts for data centres, and $100 million in Singapore revenue for cloud providers. Thresholds give industry certainty, and I understand why that matters. But a smaller facility can carry something critical, for example, a hospital group's imaging archive. And a large provider can pose systemic risk because many essential users can depend on it, even if no single customer looks critical.

Hence, how will IMDA assess criticality, looking at substitutability, concentration of users and cross-border dependence? In the European Union (EU), for example, quantitative screens are combined with qualitative assessments of systemic impact and substitutability.

Regulators are expected to supervise their own sectors well. Would the Government consider a risk-based cross-sector exercise programme involving IMDA, CSA and sector regulators where the dependency involves critical infrastructure sectors? The test is not only whether the provider recovers, but whether critical sectors keep running while it does. In addition, will the Government publish a short anonymised annual review of incidents, root causes and recovery times? People trust what they can see being checked.

The next part I am going to talk about is sustainability. The power usage effectiveness (PUE) shows how much energy goes to overhead for each unit that reaches the computers. It measures the efficiency of the building and cooling systems. A low score is good, but it does not show the efficiency or carbon intensity of the computing being done inside.

Clause 35 establishes the statutory basis for sustainability duties. The Government proposes PUE requirements first, while IT equipment energy efficiency and water efficiency requirements will be developed subsequently.

The Ministry will consult industry first, and I understand why. Operators do not control their customers' servers. My question is, when? Can the Senior Minister of State share the timetable and say how existing data centres will move towards the standard already asked of new capacity? I would also welcome a public scorecard, introduced progressively, covering what operators' control: PUE, water usage effectiveness and perhaps the share of low-carbon electricity.

Carbon credits are a sensible safeguard, but they are a bridge, not a routine alternative, to low-carbon energy. Can the criteria be published before any licence condition relies on them? Can IMDA report each year how much has been met by clean energy delivered, and how much by carbon credits?

Finally, on value. Every megawatt given to one operator is a megawatt another user cannot have. Land and power are limited. When we award capacity, Singaporeans are, in effect, the shareholders.

In August, the Economic Development Board (EDB) and IMDA provisionally awarded 200 megawatts to four operators. They committed to green energy for over half the capacity, advanced compute for AI and research partnerships in Singapore. The Bill gives IMDA broad powers over the grant and conditions of data centre licences, while the Government has stated it may consider a data centre's economic and strategic importance.

Where commitments on jobs, local investment, AI compute, research or green energy were material to the award of scarce capacity, would the Ministry be able to clarify which commitments will be incorporated into enforceable instruments, how they will be measured, and what consequences follow from material non-delivery?

I would also like to request for greater transparency. Before licences are finalised, publish a standard framework on the types of commitment, how each is measured, when it is reported and what follows a material shortfall. No commercial terms need be disclosed. If an operator promises jobs, are they net new Singapore-based roles or training places? If it promises AI compute, how much, by when and for whom?

An aggregate report should be published after each round, covering capacity awarded, commitments delivered, local investment, jobs, research partnerships and enforcement actions. That is how Singapore shows it is not merely hosting infrastructure, but converting scarce resources into opportunities for Singaporeans.

Mr Speaker, Sir, in a digital economy, resilience and sustainability are part of national security and competitiveness. I support the Bill, which will keep Singapore a digital hub that is trusted, resilient and resource-responsible.

Mr Speaker: Mr Victor Lye.

12.31 pm

Mr Victor Lye (Ang Mo Kio): Mr Speaker, I wish to declare my interest as an adviser to companies involved in data centre operations.

Sir, in supporting the Digital Infrastructure Bill, I wish to highlight three considerations: one, concentration risk; two, value; and three, capabilities.

First, concentration risk. In addressing concentration risk, we have to identify critical services and map structural concentration and common dependencies. For example, where banks, healthcare providers and Government systems depend on the same underlying infrastructure. The Bill provides for a critical IT load threshold of 10 megawatts. However, is it possible that data centres below the 10-megawatt critical IT load threshold may be systemically important? We must therefore ensure that our system monitoring can capture such concentration risks from the perspective of critical function and interconnectedness, rather than simply the scale of the IT load.

The second consideration is value. Singapore has finite land, power, water and carbon budgets. New capacity should therefore generate broader economic and strategic value for Singapore. Hence, we should measure value outcomes, such as Singapore IT-created R&D, AI capabilities created here, anchored in Singapore and ultimately, productivity. The objective should not merely be value promise per megawatt, but the value actually realised per megawatt. Ultimately, the value must mean good jobs for Singaporeans.

The third consideration would be capabilities. Singapore cannot and need not own every layer of the technology stack. Therefore, we should distinguish what digital capabilities Singapore must host, what we must have access to and what we can safely procure through diversified global networks. In particular, we need to help our small and medium enterprises (SMEs), who provide the most jobs for Singaporeans, to use the compute connectivity and intelligence available through Singapore to create products, participate in global networks and reach markets far beyond Singapore.

Mr Speaker, in concluding, I seek three clarifications. First, how will we understand and how can we manage correlated dependencies across our digital infrastructure? Second, can we measure the economic and strategic value actually realised from every megawatt? And third, what are the economic and strategic capabilities Singapore aims to reap from the compute infrastructure that we are willing to support?

Mr Speaker, notwithstanding these clarifications, I support the Bill.

Mr Speaker: Mr Ng Shi Xuan.

12.35 pm

Mr Ng Shi Xuan (Sembawang): Mr Speaker, the digital world may seem weightless, yet the systems that support it use land, power and water. They also produce carbon emissions. I will raise three points on this Bill: first, data centre firms must keep investing after they set up in Singapore; second, data centres should help support our power grid where they can; third, their growth must lead to good jobs and new chances for our firms and our workers.

My first point is about the need to keep pace with change. The Chinese phrase, "严进宽出", means being strict at the point of entry, but less strict after that. For data centres, our approach should be, "严进，更要严管" – we should be strict at entry, but just as firm in the years that follow.

Data centres are built to last for many years, but the tech within them can change much faster. A data centre that is green and efficient today may fall behind in five or 10 years. The needs of our firms will also change as AI becomes more common. Approval should therefore not become a right to operate forever, based only on pledges made at the start.

Operators should keep investing to use less power and water. They should also keep their sites safe, secure and up-to-date. Could the Senior Minister of State explain how an operator's past record will affect the renewal of its licence and its right to grow? If a firm falls behind in the new rules, what steps can IMDA take before its licence comes up for renewal?

The Resource Efficiency Grant for Emissions (REGE) administered by EDB may help firms make this shift. This Bill sets the basic rules, REGE can help firms invest in new tools that cut emissions. The Grant supports projects that cut at least 250 tonnes of carbon emissions each year. It can fund up to half of the cost that can be claimed. Data centres may use it for better cooling, more efficient uninterruptible power supply systems, smart controls, liquid cooling and lower emission cooling gases.

Could the Senior Minister of State state whether REGE will fund work needed to meet these new rules, or will only fund works that go beyond them? For projects that deliver large and clear carbon cuts, will the Ministry of Digital Development and Information (MDDI) work with the Ministry of Energy, Trade and Industry (METI) and EDB to consider a higher rate of support so that firms adopt better equipment sooner?

Such support should favour projects that lead to direct and verified carbon cuts in Singapore. These projects create demand for equipment, design, installation, testing and long-term support. They can produce local investments, jobs and skills that may not arise when firms rely mainly on carbon credits or other forms of carbon accounting.

Data centres are often called industry enablers. They give firms the computing power, cloud services and digital links they need, but they should also be industry developers. They should help grow new skills, firms and forms of works around them.

My second point is about energy. Under the second data centre call for application, four projects were awarded – about 200 megawatts of new capacity. Each has pledged to obtain more than half of its power through eligible green energy routes. These routes may include solar power built into the site, biomethane, low-carbon hydrogen or ammonia, fuel cells and carbon capture.

Many of these options are still new. Some may also cost much more than power from natural gas. This creates a chance for the four data centres to serve as anchor buyers. Their large and steady demand can give clean energy firms more reason to invest. It can also help form new supply chains, set clearer contract terms and bring down costs over time.

But we need to know what the green energy pledge will achieve in practice. Could the Senior Minister of State explain how IMDA will test whether the energy is real, new and able to reach Singapore when it is needed, rather than relying mainly on carbon credits or accounting measures that do not add new clean energy supply?

There is also the issue of cost. Some of these fuels may cost far more than natural gas, at least in the early years. The green premium may be borne by data centre firms passed on to their client or spread across the wider power system. Could MDDI track how these rules affect the cost of cloud hosting and AI services for our SMEs?

If cost rise sharply, smaller firms may need help so that our green shift does not widen our digital gap. We should not only look at where power comes from, we should also look at when and how it is used. The Energy Market Authority's (EMA's) demand-side flexibility road map points to batteries, flexible loads and virtual power plants as ways to balance demand and supply. Data centres are well placed to help because they use large and steady amounts of power, while their batteries and backup systems may sit idle, except during tests or outages.

Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) is not classified as renewable energy itself. A battery stores power. It does not decide how that power was made, but BESS can help us make better use of clean energy. It can store solar power for later, reduce the use of diesel backup sets and support the grid when demand is high.

Data centre batteries could, therefore, serve two roles without putting the safety of the site at risk. Their first role must remain providing backup power. But when there is enough spare capacity, they could also take part in demand response, provide reserves and help the grid during times of stress.

The cost of large-scale batteries is also falling fast. The Financial Times reports recently shared that battery pack costs for grid storage fell by 45% in 2025, while global storage capacity is now 11 times what it was five years ago. Could BESS qualify for REGE when it leads to clear and verified carbon cuts?

In assessing such projects, EDB could also take into account the source of the power used to charge the battery, the power loss during use and the diesel used that it replaces. More broadly, will IMDA, EMA and EDB set up one clear framework for data centre BESS? Operator should be able to understand how the same battery will be treated under their licence, REGE, their green energy pledge and EMA's demand response plans.

A data centre will still use more power than what a BESS can supply. But where it makes sense, they can also help the grid. Each new megawatt of computing power should support both digital growth and energy resilience.

My final point is about jobs for Singaporeans. A recent article in The Economist found that America's AI build-up is creating work far beyond software jobs. Data centres need electricians, cooling experts, grid engineers and site staff who keep the system safe and running. The article found that job openings in America's data centre sector had more than doubled in two years, even as job ads as a whole fell. It also found that jobs to install and maintain data centre systems offered pay above 40% to similar work in other fields.

Singapore is a much smaller market, and we should not assume that the same gains will arise here on their own. But the article gives us a useful view of where the jobs may come from. We should start preparing our workers before the new data centres open. There are three groups of jobs to consider. First, the jobs needed to build the data centres. These may grow fast, but some may end when the sites are completed. Second, long-term jobs needed to run, secure and maintain the sites. And third, the jobs created when firms use this computing power to build and apply AI.

Our aim should be to secure more of the second and third groups. These jobs can give Singaporeans long careers, useful skills and a path to better pay. We should also help workers in the first group move into longer-term roles when the building work ends. I, therefore, ask MDDI to work with METI and our workforce agencies on the jobs and business roadmap for this sector. It should show which jobs will grow, which may fade, what skills firms may need and how Singaporeans can move into these roles.

The roadmap should set out clear paths for workers with related skills. An electrician could move into data centre power systems or BESS work. An aircon technician could learn to work with liquid cooling. A site manager can move into smart energy control. Our cyber and software staff could gain the skills needed to run and protect AI systems.

The shift to electric vehicles offers a useful lesson. As electric vehicle use grew, the Government, schools and firms had to train workers in battery safety, charging systems and high voltage equipment. Existing workers could not be expected to make the shift on their own.

We should take the same approach for data centres. Training should begin before the new sites open. It should be tied to real jobs, known skill needs, on-the-job training and a clear path to better pay. Workers should also have their past skills recognised, so that they do not have to start again from zero.

Large data centre firms can offer trainee roles, work-study places and mid-career entry paths. They can also help their SME vendors train staff, meet the new rules and move into work of higher value. Such plans should be considered when new data centre capacity is awarded.

Projects backed by REGE can also serve as test sites for Singapore firms working on cooling, batteries, sensors and energy controls. Successful trials would give these SMEs a track record to win work overseas. Grant recipients and firms awarded scarce data centre capacity should therefore report on local trials, local purchases and the growth of their Singapore suppliers.

Sir, our success should not be judged only by how many megawatts of data centre space we build. We should ask how well those megawatts are used, how much they help our power grid, how many Singaporeans move into better jobs and how many local firms gain new skills. If Singapore provides scarce land, power and firm rules, operators should keep improving, help our energy shift and create lasting value for our firms and workers. That is how data centres can be both an industry enabler and industry developer. It is also how each new megawatt can work harder for Singapore. Sir, I support the Bill.

Mr Speaker: Ms Nadia Samdin.

12.47 pm

Ms Nadia Ahmad Samdin (Ang Mo Kio): Mr Speaker, Sir, thank you for the opportunity to speak on this Bill. One of the things which Singaporeans value is efficiency and immediacy – whether it is a transaction going through, a download to our phones or an answer from ChatGPT. The backend digital infrastructure which keeps all of these things running can feel almost invisible.

However, the physical infrastructure required is very real. Data centres occupy land, draw electricity and require cooling. Within them is stored the data and functions on which our digital lives increasingly depend, forming the backbone of modern-day businesses.

For Singapore, one of these constraints, in particular, feels familiar to us – land. In a time when access to compute is becoming increasingly important to economic competitiveness and national capability, how we grow matters as much as how much and how fast we grow.

We have confronted this tension before. In 2019, Singapore paused new data centre development while considering how the sector could grow more sustainably. We subsequently resumed growth in a measured manner.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) projects that global data centre electricity consumption will rise from 485 terawatt-hours in 2025 to about 950 terawatt-hours in 2030, almost doubling in five years. This makes the choices we take today about infrastructure, resources and resilience, especially consequential.

This Bill is an important next chapter in that journey to enable sustainable growth, supporting our AI ambitions, connectivity and the wider digital economy. My speech will ask how do we provide a computing capacity that the digital economy requires without placing unsustainable demands on land, energy and water? As our dependence on digital infrastructure grows, how do we ensure that it remains secure and resilient during a crisis?

Sir, I welcome the decision to make environmental sustainability a stronger part of the statutory framework for data centres. Our green data centre roadmap already looks beyond facility efficiency towards more efficient IT equipment, cooling, server utilisation and green energy. The question is how that broader conception of sustainability will eventually be translated into the environmental requirements under clause 35, reporting under clause 36 and Codes of Practice under clause 37, as well as the corresponding reporting requirements, penalties in the event of contravention and enforcement measures.

PUE measures the energy used by the facility relative to its IT equipment. It does not tell us how much useful computing work that equipment performs, nor does it tell us the facilities' total demand for electricity, water or the emissions associated with that demand. While energy per AI task has been falling, while hardware and software become more efficient, globally, data centre electricity consumption still grew by 17% in 2025, while electricity consumption from AI focused data centres grew by 50%. For example, Ireland saw data centres account for 23% of its metered electricity in 2025.

While our circumstances differ, the planning question is still relevant. How do we align the pace of data centre growth with the additional generation and grid infrastructure needed? I would also like to ask how the additional potential demand has been incorporated into Singapore's emissions trajectory and power sector decarbonisation plans towards our 2050 climate targets? Will facility level PUE targets be complemented by measures of total energy use, and Scopes 1 and 2 emissions?

This is also reflected in the World Green Building Council's recent policy principles, which caution that relative indicators, such as PUE and water efficiency, do not, on their own, tell us the total impact on local electricity and water systems. I was glad to hear in the Senior Minister of State's speech that the Government will consider progressively developing a basket of indicators to complement PUE and water efficiency. I would like to ask whether total water consumption and water stress impacts will also be considered.

There is also a practical opportunity under clause 36. Such licensees will already submit regular information to IMDA. Will the Government consider publishing an annual aggregated picture of the sector's environmental footprint, including overall capacity, electricity, water consumption and relevant indicators? Commercially sensitive operator level information can be protected, and there is a sample precedent in the EU.

While green energy commitments can be enforced as licence conditions, how will the carbon accounting be handled? For example, how will additionality, lifecycle emissions, deliverability of supply be assessed and monitored? I also note that the Bill sets out that IMDA may require the transfer of eligible international carbon credits to the Government to offset resulting additional emissions, where a licensee uses more brown energy than committed because a green energy project has failed to deliver.

Sir, quality international carbon credits may not be so easy to come by. They may address residual emissions but are ultimately not a substitute for delivery of the promised energy pathway. Will these remedies be a backstop after exhausting all efforts to secure replacement, low carbon supply? How will carbon credit quality limits and public disclosure be handled?

My second point is that as data centres become larger and more concentrated, beyond efficiency, we must study how it fits into the wider precinct and systems around it. For example, in terms of security, the impact of energy consumption, heat and noise. As a small and densely built island city state, integrated planning has been one of our strengths. Unlike colder countries, Singapore cannot rely on district heating to make use of waste heat. As we confront the urban heat island effect, we are enhancing the digital urban climate twin to understand how urban form and heat affects temperatures.

Data centres also reject substantial amounts of heat. As we contemplate larger concentrations, could their cumulative heat rejection be assessed through our urban climate modelling alongside local wind conditions, humidity and surrounding land uses? How will such findings inform siting and cooling choices?

The electricity grid raises a similar question. The IEA has highlighted a mismatch between fast moving data centre investment and the longer lead times required for generation and grid infrastructure. Actual data centre load may initially reserve more grid capacity than is effectively used. As we allocate these new data centre capacity, how will the Government ensure that the corresponding demand for power and the infrastructure needed to support it does not affect costs or impose risks on other users? Beyond adding demand, is there potential for our next generation of data centres to contribute to power system resilience? For example, through storage, demand response or flexible load when operationally feasible.

Beyond regulating what individual of operators can reasonably control, I would also like to ask how the Government plans to coordinate the overall needs and demands as considerations across different agencies. A new data centre is simultaneously a digital infrastructure decision, concerns land use, a major electricity load, significant water user and part of our longer-term emissions pathway.

Third is about the value which Singapore receives from the capacity. We know there is no shortage of demand. In 2023, after Singapore announced the resumption of data centre capacity allocation after the earlier pause, our first pilot call attracted more than 20 proposals. Ultimately, four proposals were selected. Competition around us has also intensified, for example in Malaysia and Thailand.

Our objective is not simply to host more data centres, but for greater economic and strategic value from what we choose to host here. Could the Government consider periodically publishing, at least in aggregate, how much capacity has been allocated against how much was actually built and utilised, and whether the material commitments and value associated with that capacity has been delivered?

Resilience also extends beyond Singapore. I would like to ask where a major service used in Singapore depends materially on overseas services, how will the Government assess these dependencies at the point of application, ensure timely information is obtained during a disruption and set standards for recovery? We cannot mistake multiple providers for genuine redundancy.

A business or public service may have a primary and backup provider, but both could ultimately depend on the same cloud control pain, network route or cooling infrastructure. For the people and businesses relying on these services, infrastructure resilience has a very practical consequence. Will the resilience codes therefore look at common points of failure and test scenarios in which several facilities or services are disrupted simultaneously beyond ensuring that individual providers have backup plans? Can the Codes of Practice encourage low carbon backup power and cooling options, while also ensuring that they remain reliable during grid stress or extreme weather considerations? How will companies be supported to implement these?

My fourth and final point. Much of the substantive regime will appropriately sit in regulations, license conditions and Codes of Practice. I hope that the Codes of Practice will specify audit frequency, whether there is a need for independent verification, corrective action paths and consequences for repeated incidents of non-compliance. Singapore has also progressively been developing standards, such as SS 726:2026 for liquid cooling in tropical data centres. How does the Government envision existing SS interacting with the Codes of Practice and mandatory requirements?

Clarity is important, just as is flexibility, to help operators plan more efficiently and support compliance. I therefore welcome the Government's commitment following the consultation to provide sufficient transition time and to continue consulting industry. I am behind being ambitious to raise our standards but believe we should be predictable about how we do so.

I also seek clarification on the 5% ownership reporting threshold. As stakeholders noted during consultation, a passive institutional investor crossing 5% may not materially alter control. Conversely, contractual or voting arrangements can sometimes confer significant influence without a dramatic movement in headline shareholding.

I note that the Bill already recognises indirect control. As reporting is streamlined for transactions that do not affect material control, could the Government provide practical examples of how passive investment holdings, voting arrangements and indirect influence will be treated. I would also like to ask the Government how it plans to address the structural relationship between the state and the firms operating this infrastructure.

The Bill gives IMDA powers to impose conditions and take action when they are breached, but as a provider becomes more indispensable to services, suspending its licence or reducing its capacity could ultimately cause inconvenience or have a negative impact on users. IMDA will have a range of enforcement tool. I would like to ask how it would use this progressively, require independently verified remediation and ensure continuity for users if serious or persistent breaches eventually require a licence to be suspended?

In conclusion, Mr Speaker, Sir, the infrastructure underpinning the next chapter of our economy will increasingly include data centres, cloud and compute. Singapore was prepared to pause and ask what sustainable data centre growth should look like, and that discipline has served us well.

As we enter another phase of growth, I hope the Bill's underlying Codes of Practices will embed that same discipline into our regulatory framework. Not just better PUE, but a better overall resource outcome, not simply greener individual buildings, but infrastructure planned with the energy, water and other systems around it. Capacity that is actually utilised and delivers lasting value for Singaporeans.

For a small country where every megawatt, every drop of water and every hectare of land matters, we must be strategic about the partnerships that we forge and clear about the position we wish to occupy. If there is any nation which can do it, sensitively weighing Singaporeans needs, economic considerations and precious resources, I would like to think that it can be our little red dot.

Notwithstanding these clarifications, I support the Bill.

Mr Speaker: Mr Yip Hon Weng.

1.01 pm

Mr Yip Hon Weng (Yio Chu Kang): Mr Speaker, Sir, I declare that I work for a global investment firm with investments in data centres. I am also the chairman of a non-profit organisation looking at digital defence.

In October 2023, a cooling system malfunction at one data centre disrupted the banking and payment services of both DBS and Citibank. Recovery plans were activated, but problems at their back-up sites delayed recovery further. By the time services were fully restored, about 2.5 million payment and ATM transactions could not be completed.

I raised this matter in Parliament then because the lesson was clear: two organisations can each have a recovery plan and still fail together when they depended on the same critical infrastructure.

In Yio Chu Kang, this is not an abstract concern. Our coffee shops, minimarts, clinics, tuition centres and neighbourhood retailers receive payments, take orders, manage stock and arrange deliveries through digital systems. A customer is ready to pay. The goods are ready to go. But the payment cannot be processed. For the customer, it is an inconvenience. For the shopkeeper, it may mean a lost sale, a delayed delivery or a queue that does not move. The shopkeeper may never know what system failed or which provider was responsible. But the rent still has to be paid. Wages are still due. And the customer may not return.

This Bill will not prevent every payment failure nor is it intended to. But where a major digital infrastructure service fails and disrupts a large number of businesses, the consequences spread far beyond any one shop.

I support the Digital Infrastructure Bill. The Bill establishes licensing regimes for major foundational digital infrastructure services and data centre operators. It gives us the opportunity to establish a clear principle: where dependence is concentrated, accountability must be demonstrable.

My central proposal is simple. Where providers depend on the same critical systems, they must prove that they can recover together. I have three proposals for the Bill.

First, Mr Speaker, Sir, test shared recovery before businesses are disrupted. Clause 15 requires major foundational digital infrastructure licensees to minimise unexpected interruptions and maintain business continuity and disaster recovery plans. That is necessary. However, a plan on paper is not the same as recovery in practice.

A provider may have a sound plan for its own systems, yet still depend on a shared facility, power supply, connectivity pathway or overseas operational team. If that dependency fails, several individually sound plans may fail simultaneously. So, the question is not only: can each provider recover? It is: can the services that our businesses rely on recover when a shared dependency fails?

I ask IMDA to use the Bill's Codes of Practice and licensing powers to require regular, risk-based joint recovery exercises for major foundational digital infrastructure licensees with significant shared dependencies. These exercises should test whether essential services can resume within recovery timeframes appropriately to the likely harm caused by disruption.

They should involve the relevant sector regulators and where necessary, critical upstream operators. These exercises must not simply conclude with just a written report. Every significant weakness found should have a responsible party, a deadline for correction and independent verification that the remedial action has worked. Restoring a service should close the outage and work towards preventing the next one.

I ask the Senior Minister of State whether IMDA will issue the relevant Code within 12 months of the Bill's commencement, conduct the first sector-wide exercise thereafter and require independently verified remediation for serious weaknesses found. For the business owner, resilience is not a compliance report. It is being able to serve and deliver to the next customer.

Second, Mr Speaker, Sir, account publicly for promises made in return for scarce resources. Data centres are essential to Singapore's digital future. But they also draw on scarce national resources, including electricity capacity and water. When Singapore allocates these resources, we must be clear about the public value we expect in return.

Clause 27 allows commitments made by data centre applicants, where they are economically or strategically important, to become licence conditions. Clause 36 requires compliance reporting, which IMDA may require to be audited. A compelling application must become a fulfilled promise.

I propose an annual Digital Infrastructure Accountability Report. Within proper confidentiality limits, IMDA should report in aggregate on the material commitments attached to data centre licences: what was due, what was delivered, what remains overdue and what corrective or enforcement action has been taken.

The report should distinguish a minor administrative delay from a significant unfulfilled commitment. It should also distinguish new economic benefits created specifically because Singapore allocated capacity, from routine business activities that the company would have carried out regardless.

This is not about disclosing commercially sensitive information or creating a fresh reporting burden. It is about using the Bill's existing reporting and audit framework to give Singaporeans confidence that scarce resources are being right sited with discipline.

Clause 35 also establishes minimum energy and water efficiency requirements. How will IMDA secure timely correction when a provider falls short, without causing a second disruption to businesses and consumers? Firm enforcement and service continuity must go together.

Third, Mr Speaker, Sir, ensure accountability survives borders. Singapore is deeply connected to the world. That is a strength. Our businesses benefit from global cloud services, global expertise and globally distributed infrastructure. We should not respond to every risk by insisting that every system be duplicated here. But where recovery depends on a decision made overseas, accountability cannot stop at the border.

The Bill covers major foundational digital infrastructure services provided from outside Singapore to users here. Clause 10 requires an overseas major foundational digital infrastructure licensee to appoint a person in Singapore to accept notices, directions and orders. But a local mailbox is not the same as local accountability. When a critical service is disrupted, can the local representative secure the access, authorisation and cooperation needed to restore it? Can it obtain necessary information? Can it manage a conflict between a direction here and an obligation elsewhere?

I ask IMDA to require major foundational digital infrastructure licensees, through continuity arrangements and licence conditions where appropriate, to demonstrate three things. First, who has the authority to make recovery decisions during a major disruption? Second, how access to the necessary people, systems and information will be secured? Third, how overseas legal or operational constraints will be anticipated and managed?

These arrangements should be updated whenever material cross-border dependencies change. This is not a blanket call for data localisation. It is a call for clarity before a crisis, not improvisation during one. Singapore cannot control every system we depend on. But we can insist on knowing who is answerable, what they can do, and how their obligations will be enforced.

In conclusion, Mr Speaker, Sir, let us return to that shop in Yio Chu Kang. A customer is at the counter. The goods are ready. The business owner has done everything advised and encouraged by our national digitalisation drives: he has digitalised, invested in the equipment and learnt new ways of serving his customers. Then the payment fails. He cannot see the data centre. He cannot inspect the cloud service. He cannot call the overseas team responsible for restoring it. But he bears the consequence nonetheless.

That is why shared recovery must be tested before livelihoods are interrupted. That is why promises made in return for scarce national resources must be checked against delivery. And that is why responsibility must remain effective even when decisions are made overseas.

No law can promise uninterrupted service. But this Bill can require providers to prove that recovery arrangements work, require the regulator to verify the evidence and require those who fall short to answer for it.

When the next customer comes to that counter, the business owner should be able to do the straightforward thing he has worked so hard to do – serve the customer, receive payment and keep business moving. His reliance on these digital systems is a daily reality. The accountability behind those systems must be just as real. Mr Speaker, Sir, I support the Bill.

Mr Speaker: Leader.

Debate resumed.

Mr Speaker: Senior Minister of State Tan.

1.12 pm

The Senior Minister of State for Digital Development and Information (Mr Tan Kiat How) (for the Minister for Digital Development and Information): Mr Speaker, I thank Members for their support for the Bill and for a thoughtful debate. Members raised practical questions about competitiveness, sustainability, scarce resources, jobs and skills, and whether our digital infrastructure will remain secure and resilient as our dependence on it grows.

The debate has reinforced three broad principles behind the Bill. First, we should plan ahead. We should not wait for a serious disruption or acute resource pressures before putting the right framework in place. Second, we should grow in a disciplined way. Singapore needs more compute as our economy digitalises and AI becomes more widely used. But land, power, water and our carbon budget are finite. Our objective cannot simply be more capacity. It must be greater value from the capacity that we host. Third, clear and proportionate regulation is not the opposite of competitiveness. Predictable and credible regulation is part of competitiveness.

I will respond to Members' remarks under seven broad themes: first, competitiveness; second, the value and growth of data centres; third, the transition for existing facilities; fourth, the impact on Singaporeans; fifth, sustainability; sixth, security and resilience; and finally, the international context.

Before I turn to the main themes, let me acknowledge several broader points raised by Members, including questions on low-carbon energy supply, frontier AI models for cybersecurity, urban heat, e-waste, battery storage and the regional impacts of data centres and energy developments.

These are important issues, but not all fall within the scope of this Bill. I will address those that are relevant to the Bill in my response today. For the others, I would encourage Members to pursue them with the relevant agencies and Ministries through the appropriate Parliamentary channels.

Let me start with Singapore's competitiveness as a digital infrastructure hub.

Ms Lee Hui Ying, Mr Saktiandi Supaat and Mr Sharael Taha asked whether higher standards and compliance costs could push investment elsewhere in the region.

Cost matters. But Singapore does not compete by having the cheapest land or the cheapest electricity. Other markets have more of both. Furthermore, the future of compute infrastructure will increasingly be regional. Data centre operators and cloud service providers take a regional view when making investments. Some workloads will naturally locate where land and energy are more abundant.

Singapore's role is different. It is a trusted, connected and high-value hub for workloads where reliability, security, resilience, connectivity and proximity to enterprise activities matter most. That means we do not need to host every megawatt. We need to host the right capacity and make the capacity we host work harder for Singapore. The recent Data Centre – Call for Application exercise for which we received more than 20 applications, shows that operators continue to see Singapore as a key part of their regional strategy.

As Mr Edward Chia observed, regulatory quality can itself be part of Singapore's competitive moat. Good regulation is not about having the most rules. It is about having the right rules, applied predictably.

Ms Eileen Chong noted that much of the technical detail and operational requirements will be set out in regulations and Codes of Practice, and asked how trade-offs between different requirements will be weighed. Ms Lee Hui Ying asked how we can avoid creeping regulation. Ms Nadia Samdin asked how existing Singapore standards will fit with the Codes of Practice and Dr Neo Kok Beng asked how industry's views will shape them.

The approach is straightforward. We are setting a clear floor, and making sure those covered by the regime meet it and will raise that floor over time when it is practical and necessary.

The Bill sets out the architecture and policy objectives. IMDA will develop the detailed requirements with industry, drawing on international standards and existing Singapore standards. New requirements will come with consultation and appropriate transition time. Codes of Practices are a regulatory tool used in many sectors, such as the telecommunications sector. IMDA and the industry players are familiar with this approach. Under this Bill, licensees will be required to comply with the Codes and IMDA can take enforcement action if they do not.

Members also asked when the regime will take effect.

After the Bill is passed, we will bring it into force in stages as the subsidiary legislation, Codes of Practice and licensing processes are finalised. These details will be developed with industry over the coming year, before the requirements are finalised. We expect the approved Act to come into force in 2027. Existing operators will then have six months from commencement to apply for a licence. They can continue operating while IMDA considers their application.

Ms Chong also asked how the licensing process can be kept simple for operators who already deal with several regulators and made suggestions on minimising regulatory burden. Similar concerns were raised by respondents in the public consultation on the Bill.

It is our intent to minimise administrative burden for service providers and operators. We will streamline operational processes for all data centre operators and foundational digital infrastructure services covered under the Bill and seek views from the industry to ensure that these are practical for licensees. Where possible, we will use existing industry-recognised audits and certifications for demonstration of compliance to minimise duplicative effort for licensees.

Several Members asked a basic but important question: data centres use substantial land, power and water. What do Singapore and Singaporeans get in return?

Let me be clear. We do not view data centres as a standalone industry sector to be grown for its own sake. They underpin many important sectors – financial services, digital payments, healthcare systems, logistics platforms and Government services. They are also important connectivity nodes linking domestic, regional and international networks. The digital economy that runs on this infrastructure contributed about 20% of our GDP in 2025. The value is not in the data centre itself. It is in what the data centre enables.

Members have made similar points in their remarks. Mr Shawn Loh put it this way: he said Singapore should not pursue the greatest possible volume of digital infrastructure, but the greatest value from it. Mr Sharael put it another way – every megawatt must count. Mr Victor Lye further noted that the measure should not only be value promised per megawatt, but value realised per megawatt. I agree with them. However, we should be clear that infrastructure is an input, not the outcome.

Members spoke about the need for digital infrastructure to support Singapore's AI ambition. Our ambition should not simply be to host the infrastructure of the AI economy, but to help Singapore enterprises create value on top of it. That informs our allocation of scarce data centre capacity.

Mr Henry Kwek and Mr Sharael Taha asked what kind of workloads Singapore should be positioning for.

We want to anchor high-value workloads where trust, security and continuity matter most. They fall broadly into two groups: one, workloads that need to sit close to the enterprise systems and users they serve, where speed matters, such as for banking and AI; and two, others that handle sensitive data that must be kept under the rules users trust. These include digital identity and healthcare applications.

For these workloads, Singapore's position at the centre of regional, financial and enterprise infrastructure and the trust in our institutions are a real advantage. That is why it is not sensible to place an arbitrary cap on data centre capacity, as suggested by Mr Louis Chua, Ms Nadia, Ms Poh Li San and Mr Sharael. Doing so would mean constraining the growth of our broader economy and the use of digital technologies in society that benefit all Singaporeans. The whole-of-nation trade-offs need to be made, but not by narrowly viewing this matter through the lens of any one sector, albeit one as an important as the data centre sector.

Let me also clarify the 1.6 gigawatts figure that a number of Members cited.

The 1.6 gigawatts cited is the maximum IT load capacity of data centres in Singapore. It includes the 200 megawatts allocated under the second Data Centre – Call for Application. The Data Centre Park's 700 megawatts refer to total electricity consumption. This includes energy used for both IT equipment and other facility-level functions, such as cooling and lighting. The park will house the data centres allocated under the second Data Centre – Call for Application and future allocations. These data centres are therefore counted in both figures, which is why the two cannot simply be added together.

In terms of actual electricity use, in 2024, data centres used about 6.5 terawatt-hours of electricity, slightly more than 10% of Singapore's total consumption.

We take a whole-of-economy view of land, power, water and our carbon budget, alongside economic, security and environmental considerations. EMA's power system planning already takes growth in energy-intensive sectors, including data centres and semiconductors, into account. Data centres' electricity use today translates to less than 5% of Singapore's total carbon emissions.

Our climate commitments are clear. Singapore has committed to reduce emissions to 45 to 50 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2035 and to reach net zero by 2050. Data centre growth must therefore be managed within these constraints, just like any other energy-intensive sector.

The Bill's efficiency standards, together with green energy conditions for newly awarded capacity, are part of how we do this. That is the difference between maximising capacity and the stewardship capacity. We are not seeking maximum volume. We are seeking maximum value.

Ms He Ting Ru asked whether Singapore is shifting the environmental and social costs of data centre growth to our neighbours. We are not seeking to push data centre capacity out of Singapore. We continue to allocate new capacity here, including through the Data Centre – Call for Application process and the Jurong Island Data Centre Park. What we are doing is being selective about the capacity we host, ensuring that it is efficient, sustainable and delivers broader value.

Global compute demand will continue to grow across the region. Lowering our standards would not reduce that demand. It would simply mean less efficient data centres here. Our approach is therefore to hold the data centres we host to high standards for energy and resource efficiency. The objective should not be to shift the problem elsewhere, but to raise standards as the regional ecosystem grows. I have spoken to government officials from around the region and they have expressed interest in our approach here in Singapore. We will be happy to share our experience with them as they develop their own frameworks and to learn from their best practices.

Dr Choo Pei Ling, Mr Victor Lye, Mr Ng Shi Xuan and Mr Yip Hon Weng asked how operators will be held to the commitments made when they secure scarce capacity.

New capacity is allocated selectively. We consider strategic value, broader economic contributions and sustainability. Where material commitments form part of the basis for awarding capacity, the Bill allows them to become licence conditions.

The principle is simple. If scarce national capacity was awarded on the basis of a commitment, that commitment should be delivered. EDB will continue to negotiate and monitor these strategic and economic commitments.

Economic contributions can include investment, business spending, jobs, talent development, innovation and ecosystem partnerships, and many others. For example, an operator may commit to R&D, product innovation or talent development that grows our digital economy, or partnerships with local ecosystem players. These go beyond running the data centre. They reflect a broader commitment to invest in Singapore.

Where circumstances genuinely change, EDB and IMDA can work with operators on alternative actions that deliver equivalent value. Enforcement is not the first response to every lapse, but persistent non-delivery or bad faith cannot be cost-free. This is how we move from value promised to value realised.

Ms Nadia and Mr Yip asked how firm enforcement can be squared with continuity of service for users. IMDA does consider the consequential impact of its regulatory actions. As I noted in my opening speech, the purpose of regulation is to fix the problem, not create a second problem for users.

Mr Chia, Dr Choo, Mr David Hoe, Mr Kwek, Mr Shawn Loh, Dr Neo, Mr Saktiandi, Mr Sharael Taha and Mr Dennis Tan asked about existing data centres and the transition to higher standards. Mr Saktiandi and Mr Sharael asked how many data centres the Bill will cover.

There are about 70 data centres in Singapore today, which will be required to meet the sustainability requirements. About two-thirds will also meet the 10-megawatt threshold that will require them to meet the security and resilience requirements. The baseline energy efficiency requirements will apply to all licensed data centres. Newer facilities can be designed to higher standards from the outset. We recognise that older facilities were built under different technical and commercial conditions and we will provide them reasonable time to improve. Our approach is progressive uplift – a common direction of travel, with transition calibrated to investment and technology realities.

Mr Shawn Loh made a broader point. Stewardship is not only about deciding what new capacity to add; it is also about continually reviewing the capacity we already have. I agree with him. That is the approach that we are taking.

Technology and workloads will not stand still. Existing facilities should therefore have pathways to upgrade, redevelop or, where commercially appropriate, retire over time, balanced with investment certainty, reasonable transition periods and continuity for customers.

Operators can tap existing schemes to improve energy efficiency, such as the EDB's Resource Efficiency Grant for Emissions, which offsets the cost of upgrading to more energy-efficient equipment; and IMDA's Energy Efficiency Grant, which supports data centre users to refresh their IT equipment to more efficient technology. Operators that find major redevelopment more practical can explore opportunities, such as the low-carbon Data Centre Park on Jurong Island. The destination is higher performance across the sector, and we want the transition path to be practical and orderly.

Let me now turn to the impact of data centre growth on Singaporeans, which several Members spoke about. Mr Chia, Mr Chua, Ms He, Mr Loh and Ms Nadia were concerned that households may end up subsidising data centres' electricity costs, including the cost of grid upgrades to support growing data centre demand.

That is unfortunately a challenge that many jurisdictions around the world are grappling with. The situation in Singapore is different.

Data centres do not buy electricity at the regulated household tariff. Like other large industrial consumers, they buy electricity from retailers at commercial rates, or directly from the wholesale electricity market. They also pay for their own dedicated grid connections. The household tariff is driven mainly by fuel and electricity generation costs, and the growth of data centres is not expected to raise these costs.

As overall electricity demand grows, the grid may need to be expanded or reinforced. These system-level upgrades benefit the reliability and resilience of the entire grid, and their costs are shared across users through the existing grid-charging framework.

At the same time, it does not mean that large users of water and electricity resources are given a free pass. They must be held to high standards. For example, because data centres are major users of resources, we subject their growth to greater scrutiny and progressively higher efficiency expectations. Their projected electricity and water demand is factored into our national infrastructure planning, new capacity is allocated selectively, and their growth must remain within our climate and resource constraints

This is not a new approach. We have done so for some time. In 2019, we paused new data centre capacity. Since 2022, new capacity has been allocated through the Data Centre – Call for Application exercises, to data centres that contribute to our strategic and economic priorities and adopt best-in-class sustainability practices. We also worked with industry on energy efficiency standards. This Bill takes this further by raising baseline energy efficiency standards across all data centres in Singapore, including existing ones.

Several Members asked how we will prepare Singaporeans to take up the jobs that the data centre sector will create. Mr Shawn Loh noted that data centres are capital-intensive and create relatively few jobs directly. That is true. But few people working inside a facility does not mean that few people depend on it. Therefore, we should distinguish between the jobs inside a data centre and the jobs enabled by a data centre. Many sectors, such as the financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, logistics, software and AI, all depend on this infrastructure. At the same time, those direct jobs are increasingly specialised – data centre operations, mechanical and electrical engineering, cybersecurity, energy management and sustainability. These are good jobs with good prospects.

We are building this pipeline together with industry and our institutions. For example, data centre operators have partnered the Institute of Technical Education and the Singapore Institute of Technology on Work-Study Programmes, which offer diplomas and specialised degrees in green data centres.

Dr Neo also highlighted professional capability. Resilient infrastructure ultimately depends on capable people. As Mr Loh put it, our aim should not merely be to develop enough people to maintain the facilities located here, but to anchor the expertise needed to design, transform and manage the next generation of digital infrastructure. We agree with him. As the industry moves up the value chain, Singaporeans should be able to move up with it.

The same applies to innovation. Singapore’s constraints in cooling, energy efficiency and grid integration are real. But constraints can also drive solutions with value beyond Singapore. Our constraints should push us to innovate, not hold us back.

It is in this spirit that we worked with industry to develop Singapore Standards that push the boundaries of data centre efficiency. They cover operating data centres in a tropical climate, the use of energy-efficient IT equipment and liquid cooling. As Dr Neo suggested, these industry-led standards, alongside the industry’s practical experience, can be brought together, for example, by industry associations, like SGTech, to provide a useful reference for other data centres in the region.

Talent development is also one of the contributions we assess when allocating new data centre capacity. Where such commitments formed part of the award, the Bill allows them to be captured as licence conditions.

Mr Dennis Tan asked why Government data centres are exempt from sustainability requirements. Let me first clarify that today, more than 80% of the Government’s digital workloads are hosted in commercial data centres, which are subject to the sustainability requirements.

The remaining workloads hosted on Government-owned data centres are typically for highly critical and essential needs like security. Such data centres are also held to sustainability standards under GreenGov.SG, which are on par with the requirements that will be imposed under the Bill. Data centres run by the autonomous universities, such as the National Supercomputing Centre, also report under GreenGov.SG.

Other exempted data centres, such as those supporting utilities, for example, power plants, are highly specialised and comprise very different electronic equipment compared to commercial data centres. Therefore, commercial cooling and IT efficiency solutions do not fully apply to them. These facilities only account for a small proportion of our overall data centre capacity.

The scope of the Digital Infrastructure Act is appropriate and will cover the vast majority of data centres that are consequential. We will review the scope in future if needed.

Mr Ng Shi Xuan and Mr Saktiandi asked whether compliance costs will be passed on to SMEs that rely on cloud and hosting services. We are mindful of compliance costs of any regulations and have calibrated the requirements accordingly. The specific security and resilience requirements will largely be aligned with international and industry standards that operators are familiar with, and many already implement them. On sustainability, better energy efficiency will also benefit operators and their customers through operational cost savings in the long run.

The broader point is that regulation has costs, but poor resilience has costs too: downtime, lost transactions and disruption to businesses. The question is whether the standards create greater value and resilience than the costs that they impose. This matters especially for SMEs. Most do not negotiate directly with data centres or cloud operators. They depend on digital services built on top of this infrastructure and have less bargaining power when something goes wrong. Baseline resilience therefore benefits them too.

Ms He was concerned that some data centres are located near residential neighbourhoods. Sir, land use for data centres in Singapore is centrally planned, and we work closely with the Urban Redevelopment Authority and JTC on this. All data centres are sited in industrial estates. For instance, the latest development is a purpose-built Data Centre Park on Jurong Island. There are also requirements to have sufficient separation between industrial estates and residential communities. Data centres set up in Singapore are also required to adhere to prevailing requirements for industrial premises, such as noise, water and air pollution.

Again, our situation is very different from that of many other jurisdictions around the world. Singapore’s future-oriented, systematic approach in urban planning provides us with levers to ensure that our industries, including data centres, address environmental concerns upfront.

Members also raised a wide range of sustainability issues: PUE, IT efficiency, water, cleaner energy, storage, cooling technologies and absolute resource use. All these matter. As I said in my opening speech, PUE is a useful starting point, but it is not the endpoint. A facility can improve its efficiency even as its total demand rises. Efficiency matters, but so does total resource used.

Our objective should be a better overall resource outcome, not simply a better number on one indicator. Detailed measurement and technical standards, including how PUE is measured, should therefore continue to evolve with industry experience and technology. IMDA will engage industry on these details.

Mr Hoe asked whether there is an order of priority to use less electricity first, then cleaner electricity, then carbon credits. Mr Ng asked that green energy for data centres be "new, real, and able to reach Singapore".

The Bill is structured to provide for both. New data centres awarded capacity under the latest Data Centre – Call for Applications exercise must source at least 50% of their energy from eligible green pathways. These pathways deliberately include emerging options, such as low-carbon hydrogen, ammonia and biomethane.

Mr Chua and Ms He asked about the progress and certainty of the green pathways materialising. The new data centres were required to submit credible proposals to meet their low-carbon energy commitments. We expect data centres to deliver on these proposals, and the Bill will allow us to hold the data centres accountable if they do not do so.

But there is a broader opportunity here. The Jurong Island Data Centre Park is not simply about adding more data centre capacity. It is about using the scale of data centre demand to help develop new low-carbon energy pathways for Singapore. The 50% requirement helps create demand for these emerging options, while Jurong Island also allows us to explore shared infrastructure, such as cooling and other utilities. In other words, we are not just greening data centres. We are using data centres as pathfinders and early demand drivers to green the energy system. Carbon credits come in only as a remedy, when a green energy project fails to deliver. They are not an alternative an operator can choose instead of the green energy it committed to.

Members also suggested batteries, district cooling, using the waste heat generated, flexible demand and new cooling approaches. These ideas are useful. Operators are incentivised to explore such innovative approaches. The Government is happy to engage them on these ideas.

At the same time, we should not wait until every technology is perfect before we begin, but neither should we lock ourselves too early into solutions that are not yet ready.

Ms He, Mr Hoe, Ms Nadia, Ms Poh and Mr Dennis Tan noted that data centres are also large consumers of water, and asked whether water efficiency requirements will be introduced. Today, most of the water used by the data centre sector is NEWater, which is mainly supplied for industrial and cooling purposes.

Our starting point is the existing standards and guidelines. For instance, PUB has introduced a Water Usage Effectiveness target of two cubic metres per megawatt-hour or lower for new and existing data centres, as part of the target set in the Green Data Centre Roadmap.

Singapore is among the few jurisdictions in the world to set a water efficiency target for the data centre sector, and we will continue to monitor international and technological developments.

Having said that, the Bill puts in place the legislative basis to impose water efficiency requirements on new and existing data centres in future. PUB's Industrial Water Solutions Innovation Ecosystem Alliance for Data Centres, which brings industry, academia and trade associations together to develop and validate practical water efficient cooling solutions for Singapore's tropical conditions, will inform any future water efficiency requirements.

Several Members asked for more transparency on the sector's electricity and water use. Some data is already published. For example, EMA's Singapore Energy Statistics reports electricity consumption by sector, including the information and communication sector, which includes data centres. PUB publishes the water efficiency benchmark for data centres.

The relevant agencies will consider what further sector level information can usefully be made available without disclosing commercially sensitive information. The relevant agencies will have to consider the reporting approach for various industry sectors, not just data centres.

Under the Bill, licensees will report regularly to IMDA. This gives IMDA the information it needs to regulate the sector and supports the Government's planning for national energy and water needs. As we implement the Digital Infrastructure Act, IMDA will consider how to put out updates on the progress of the licensees in meeting the necessary requirements.

Sir, let me now turn to the Bill's security and resilience aspects. Dr Choo, Mr Hoe, Mr Kwek, Ms Nadia, Mr Saktiandi and Mr Yip raised questions about shared dependencies, incident reporting, overseas providers and whether resilience plans will work in practice.

Cyber threats matter, but major disruptions can also come from power or cooling failures, equipment faults, human error or misconfiguration. We therefore need to look at operational resilience more broadly. Several Members highlighted common points of failure – a bank, hospital and Government service may each have sound recovery plans, yet all depend on the same cloud provider, network or data centre.

As Mr Victor Lye observed, individual resilience does not necessarily produce national resilience. The Bill, therefore, gives the Government visibility across major providers. A single operator sees its own incident. The regulator needs to see the whole system. This helps us identify common dependencies and patterns that no individual operator may be able to see. IMDA, as the sector regulator, works closely with the relevant national agencies, like the National Security Coordination Secretariat on these inter-dependencies matters.

Mr Yip made the practical point that a plan on paper is not the same as recovery in practice. The Bill gives IMDA powers to set business continuity, disaster recovery and incident reporting requirements. The practices and measures for testing, assurance and remediation are better developed through the Codes of Practice with industry and sector regulators. In consultation with licensees, IMDA will establish the necessary regime to assess compliance with the proposed Act, regulations, licence conditions and Codes of Practice.

Mr Lee Hong Chuang asked about communications with users during disruptions. The key is that accurate information should move quickly through the service chain to the people and businesses affected. We agree with him. There is, however, an important difference between cybersecurity incidents and service disruptions.

In a cybersecurity incident, users may not know they have been affected and may need to take action to protect themselves. In a service disruption, users know when the service is down. What they need is timely information on restoration delivered through the platforms that serve them. Nonetheless, we could explore including such user notification requirements in subsequent regulations or Codes of Practice, if necessary, and in consultation with industry.

Several Members also asked the Government to publish more information on incidents and whether operators deliver on their commitments. Much of what licensees report is commercially sensitive and the Bill protects it, but the information will be put to good use. We will review incidents, share key learnings with operators and incorporate them into Codes of Practice, where appropriate.

Mr Chia and Mr Saktiandi were concerned about overlapping requirements between the Bill and the Cybersecurity Act, and Ms Chong called for a streamlined process for application, audit reporting and renewal.

It is our intent to minimise administrative burden for service providers and operators. As I mentioned in my opening speech, we aim to streamline processes, such as using a single application form and licence documentation for all data centres and foundational digital infrastructure services covered under the Bill, and we will work with industry to ensure that these are practical for all licensees.

Ms Nadia and Mr Chia asked about control and corporate structure, and which party will be issued the license.

IMDA will provide greater clarity on how we assess which entity has control over the data centre and should be licensed. This is something that IMDA is familiar with, the concept of effective control and assessing different corporate structures. These are issues that IMDA deal with in other sectors that it regulates, such as the telecommunications sector, and assessment often depends on the specific corporate structure and details of the licensee.

MDDI, CSA and IMDA will also streamline requirements and processes under both the Digital Infrastructure Act and Cybersecurity Act regimes. Where reporting requirements for cybersecurity incidents are similar, licensees will only need to report to IMDA, which will share the relevant information with CSA. In effect, IMDA will be the single port of call that Mr Saktiandi asked for.

Mr Hoe, Mr Victor Lye and Mr Saktiandi also raised broader questions about sovereign compute and assured access to critical capabilities. This issue goes beyond the scope of the Bill and is still evolving rapidly. As this matter falls broadly under a remit of MDDI, let me just say a few words about it.

As pointed out by Mr Victor Lye, Singapore cannot and does not need to own every layer of the technology stack. For some capabilities, domestic capacity may matter. For others, assured access through diversified international providers may be sufficient. For strategically important capabilities, we may need both. We also seek to maintain strong partnerships with leading companies across the tech stack and at the same time, build the capabilities to use different models and technology.

Dr Choo and Mr Lye asked about services that fall below the thresholds, and whether several smaller providers could together become systemically important. The thresholds target providers whose disruption would be most widely felt and were developed through extensive surveying of the industry. We will review the scope of the Act and update it if needed.

Mr Hoe, Ms Nadia and Mr Yip asked how we will ensure that services provided from overseas remain resilient, including whether overseas providers can act quickly in a disruption. Our focus is on the services nexus to Singapore, and not whether the service provider is a foreign or local entity. The Bill regulates major foundational digital infrastructure service providers that provide services to users in Singapore or from Singapore, where a disruption could cause widespread impact on users.

Licensed overseas providers that provide their services to users in Singapore are therefore held to the same security and resilience requirements as local ones. They must put in place business continuity and disaster recovery plans that work in practice and notify IMDA of incidents within reporting timelines. Overseas providers must also appoint a person in Singapore to accept service of notices, directions and other documents under the Bill. Ms Lee Hui Ying asked whether IMDA should have step-in rights to put critical data centres under statutory trust or receivership, where an operator is unable or unwilling to act in the public interest.

Under clause 18 of the Bill, where a threat to the continuous provision of a major foundational digital infrastructure service creates a serious and imminent threat to Singapore, the Minister may direct any person to take the measures needed to prevent, detect or counter the threat. That is an important instrument to deal with the risk that I spoke about in my opening speech. I had also explained the safeguards that have been put in place.

Importantly, legal authority is not the same as operational capability. A modern data centre is highly specialised. The objective is to have the tools to protect and restore services effectively, not simply to maximise formal Government control.

Finally, Mr Chua, Ms He, Mr Saktiandi, Mr Sharael Taha and Mr Dennis Tan referred to how other jurisdictions regulate data centres and asked how the Bill compares. I refer the Members to the handout I distributed as part of my opening speech.

Around the world, governments are grappling with the same question: how do we keep data centres and cloud services – which are systemically important and resource-intensive – for them to be resilient, sustainable and accountable to the societies that host them? The tools differ, but the direction is broadly the same. Major jurisdictions are tightening resilience requirements for critical digital infrastructure, while others are raising energy and resource efficiency standards for data centres.

Sir, the questions Singapore is addressing through this Bill are the same ones other governments now face about resilience, sustainability, resource allocation and economic development. The difference is that we started early, years before these pressures became urgent. That gave us room to work through the issues collaboratively with industry, and to build the framework that we have in front of us today.

Sir, let me conclude and speak in Mandarin, please.

(In Mandarin): Mr Speaker, Members have raised many important issues today – how to ensure that our digital infrastructure is secure and resilient, and how to manage its demand for resources.

Many Members and Singaporeans are concerned that the high electricity consumption of data centres may cause household electricity bills to rise. In fact, data centres purchase electricity differently from households. They buy electricity at commercial rates from electricity retailers or the wholesale market and bear the cost of their own grid connections. Therefore, the growth of data centres will not directly drive up household electricity bills.

Of course, this does not mean that data centres can use electricity without restraint. We impose stringent requirements on them: one, all data centres, whether new or existing, must meet prescribed energy-efficiency standards; and two, newly approved data centres must source at least half of their energy from green energy sources.

Our approach is neither to pursue growth at all costs nor to constrain growth indiscriminately. Instead, we plan ahead, grow responsibly and sustainably, and continually raise standards as technology advances and circumstances evolve.

The Digital Infrastructure Bill provides the framework for us to achieve these objectives to ensure that critical digital infrastructure is secure and resilient, to provide businesses with clear and predictable rules, and to ensure that the benefits of growth accrue to Singapore and Singaporeans.

(In English): Mr Speaker, today's debate has shown broad agreement on the destination, even if Members might have different suggestions or clarifications on certain details. Some Members want us to move faster in particular areas. Others are concerned about cost, implementation and competitiveness. These are legitimate concerns. Our responsibility is to balance them, to raise standards for security and sustainability, while supporting growth and keeping Singapore competitive.

That is the approach behind the Bill. We will plan ahead, rather than wait for problems to become crises. We will grow digital infrastructure selectively, make scarce resources work harder for Singapore and Singaporeans, and set clear rules while retaining room for standards and technology to improve. We will focus on outcomes. Not simply megawatts allocated, but value realised. Not simply buildings and servers but capabilities, businesses and services enabled. Not simply resilience on paper, but resilience in practice.

Most Singaporeans may never enter a data centre, but increasingly, much of everyday life depends on one. The real question is not how much capacity we need, but how good the infrastructure should be and what value Singapore gets in return.

Our ambition is not maximum compute and megawatts; it is maximum value from these capabilities that we host. That is what this Bill is designed to secure: digital infrastructure that is reliable when we need it, sustainable over time and worthy of Singapore's trust. Mr Speaker, I seek to move.

Mr Speaker: Clarifications for Senior Minister of State Tan? Mr Sharael Taha.

2.00 pm

Mr Sharael Taha (Pasir Ris-Changi): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Mr Speaker, I thank Senior Minister of State Tan for his comprehensive response to the points raised during the debate. I just have two further clarifications.

First, on the cost of resilience. Senior Minister of State Tan made the point that while these requirements would impose additional costs, the value of greater resilience outweighs these costs. I agree with that principle, but ultimately resilience does have an economic price. Has the Ministry assessed, even if it is at an indicative level, the incremental cost of compliance arising from these requirements? Perhaps as a percentage of operating cost per megawatt, for example. Importantly, after incorporating this additional cost, how does Singapore's overall cost competitiveness compare with the other data centres' location in the region?

My second clarification is a bit broader. The Bill before us is understandably relatively narrow and quite technical in scope, but what has become clear in today's debate is that the strategic considerations surrounding data centres are much broader. They touch on economic value creation, AI capability, access to right data, sustainability, energy security, even to jobs, trainings and how it affects our neighbourhoods.

My question is therefore about stewardship. Who within the Government takes the whole of Government view of this resource and ensure that we are not merely allocating megawatts, but maximising the economic and strategic value that Singapore derives from it? And as this consideration cuts across energy, economic development, AI, manpower, sustainability, security, digital policy, data sovereignty, where does the overall strategic ownership lie?

Will MDDI lead this stewardship and ensure that the decisions on data centres are constantly approached through this broader strategic lens?

Mr Tan Kiat How: Sir, I will answer the second question first. The Member just named the whole Cabinet. I think there are many issues that we debate in Parliament that cuts across different agencies and Ministries, and that is why the instinct of agencies and Ministries is to adopt a whole-of-Government, whole-of-nation approach. And this Bill reflects that.

Although MDDI is moving this Bill in Parliament and IMDA is the primary regulator for the licences that will be issued under the Bill, MDDI works very closely with IMDA and with many other Ministries.

We talked about strategic and economic commitments, and the Ministry of Energy, Trade and Industry will have an important role. That is why the EDB's specific role is captured in this Bill. I want to reassure he Member that this is something that we work on closely together as a whole-of-Government, whole-of-nation, including working through the trade-offs and constraints when energy-intensive sectors like data centres need to be hosted in Singapore. So, this is a whole-of-Government, whole-of-nation effort.

On resilience and cost of compliance, this is not something that can be so easily measured. I mentioned the benefits of resilience may very well outweigh the cost. This is not just in broad terms, but also addresses some of the questions by Members on SMEs that rely on digital services hosted by cloud services and data centres.

For SMEs, in particular, as I mentioned earlier in my reply, they often are price-takers when it comes to digital services. They do not negotiate directly with the data centres or cloud service providers. But when disruptions happen for whatever reasons, cyber or non-cyber, they are the ones impacted. And that is why having a baseline standard for both security and resilience is important for SMEs in particular.

On specific cost estimation, we have to work closely with the different data centre providers. There are many ways.

Let me set the context. All the security and resilience requirements that we will impose through Codes of Practices that are empowered by this Bill, are not requirements that the operators are unfamiliar with. These are international and industry standards. Some of the standards may be more customised and contextualised for Singapore's operating environment, because we are a dense urban city, in the tropics.

But these are not standards or practices that our industry players are unfamiliar with. And we have taken those considerations and factored those considerations into the Bill's development following extensive consultation with industry.

And the second point I will make is that meeting the requirements is not one-size-fits-all. It requires IMDA to work very closely with the specific operators as there may be different ways to meet a particular required resilience requirement. They may have to change certain configurations in the data centre, or they may make additional investments to put in some safeguards when disruptions happen.

There is no one-size-fits-all way of meeting all the requirements. It requires us to have an in-depth collaborative approach, but we want to hold them to high standards. I want to thank the Member for raising the point that resilience is important, and not just to look at the cost.

Mr Speaker: Mr Louis Chua.

Mr Chua Kheng Wee Louis (Sengkang): Thank you, Speaker. Just two clarifications for the Senior Minister of State.

First, in terms of the data centre capacity, the Senior Minister of State mentioned that there will not be a hard cap per se. But in that sense, given that IMDA's Green Data Centre Route Map talks about adding about 300 megawatts of capacity in the near term and much more through wind energy deployment, is there any circumstances or timeline or how will the Ministry decide when will the additional capacity be released?

The second clarification, I understand from the Senior Minister of State's speech, that is about 6.5 terawatt-hours of electricity was consumed by data centres in 2024. How much of that is currently being powered by green energy? For Data Centre – Call for Application 2 with the additional 200 megawatts coming on, how much additional electricity consumption is there expected to be?

Because the question is, while we do expect the data centres to fulfil their green energy commitments on a system level, how much of that green energy will be available through the multiple pathways, since solar is the only one which is transparent right now?

Mr Tan Kiat How: Sir, we will continue to review closely with other agencies on whether new capacity should be released for new data centres. We just had a Data Centre – Call for Application exercise, for 200 megawatts capacity, and we awarded that to four winning operators. We review this regularly.

As I mentioned earlier, data centres and digital infrastructure supports the broader economy. As the economy digitalises and uses more AI services, the demand will be there. And we will have to review along the way.

There is no fixed plan. But we have to be quite dynamic and look at some of the circumstances as things change. But we are very mindful of the overall constraint on electricity, water and carbon, and any growth needs to be constrained by overall cap.

Mr Chua mentioned about the 50% – that is, in the recent Data Centre – Call for Application, where the awarded data centre operators have to bring in at least 50% of their electricity use through green energy pathways. I mentioned in my reply that these are emerging areas, not solar. I mentioned ammonia, biomethane. It is precisely because we want them to be pathfinders and early demand drivers for creating new pathways. Will all this work? Well, we have to hold them to their commitments, but this is something we are working on together with them.

Mr Speaker: Ms Nadia Samdin.

Ms Nadia Ahmad Samdin: Thank you, Speaker, and I also thank the Senior Minister of State for his comprehensive reply. Two supplementary questions: the first relating to carbon credits and the second relating to our longer-term climate targets.

On carbon credits, I think the Senior Minister of State clarified that indeed this will be a backstop after exhausting all other efforts. I wanted to clarify how will the carbon credit quality limits and public disclosure of these carbon credits be handled?

And the second question is really whether or not this additional potential demand has been incorporated into Singapore's emissions trajectory and power sector decarbonisation plans towards our 2050 Net Zero climate targets. I do recall the Senior Minister of State had said that some points will be out of scope from his reply. I could not catch whether decarbonisation is one of them – although if it is, then I think that goes some way towards explaining the intention behind some of the questions as to strategic ownership and totality of use.

Mr Tan Kiat How: Sir, Ms Nadia's question on carbon credits needs to be seen in the context of this Bill. It is not the first solution that when operators cannot meet their green energy commitments, and they default to carbon credits. That is not the point. They have made commitments through the Data Centre – Call for Application exercise on green energy pathways, and we want to hold them to those commitments. That is why I mentioned to Mr Chua, these are important commitments. These are not easy commitments to make because we are asking them to make commitments on emerging green energy pathways. There is not a strong market today, and we are asking them to be the first demand driver and pathfinder.

While the first instinct is to hold them to those commitments. And carbon credits come in only as a remedy, which we hope to not get to. But we cannot allow them a free pass. If you make commitments and do not comply with them, there must be a cost. So, that is the context when we talk about carbon credits.

On climate targets, I already mentioned in my speech a number of times that we are resource-constrained. The data centre sector is one sector in the whole economy. We have to align with the commitments that nationally we have made around being Net Zero by 2050, and the different commitments we have made publicly and internationally. Any growth in the data centre sector will therefore have to come with trade-offs. These trade-offs will have to be made, and those trade-offs will have to be discussed internally within Government and with industry.

So, the short answer is yes to the second question that Ms Nadia has.

Mr Speaker: Mr Dennis Tan.

Mr Dennis Tan Lip Fong: I thank the Senior Minister of State for the clarifications so far. Just a quick follow-up to your last reply to Member Nadia Samdin on the carbon credit. I understand where he is coming from. So, if the companies are unable to fulfil the standards imposed on them, are they still allowed to fall back on carbon credits, and if so, what is this limit? Is it 5%?

Mr Tan Kiat How: Sir, I have already explained that in both my opening and closing remarks.

Mr Speaker: Dr Neo Kok Beng.

Dr Neo Kok Beng (Nominated Member): Thank you, Speaker. I am quite heartened by Senior Minister of State reply on the participation of the industries in coming out with the Codes of Practice, but since the data centre is a critical infrastructure, especially the foundational digital infrastructure, I would like to clarify whether the body of knowledge that is encompassed in these systems, will the operator be required in the Code of Practice to have accredited professionals – that they not just have the knowledge but have the competencies and the practices to operate the digital infrastructure. An example will be like BCA requiring a resident engineer or resident technical officer to be onsite for building activities.

Mr Tan Kiat How: Sir, I thank Dr Neo for his question. There are two parts to the question. The first part of question is what Dr Neo spoke about in his remarks – that a number of Members made mention of that as well – that new data centres are sophisticated set-ups, high value, technologically advanced. The profile of people working at these centres is very different. These are high value roles with good prospects. The numbers may not be large, but they are very good, specialised roles.

We are working together with industry and our schools – I mentioned the Institute of Technical Education as well as Singapore Institute of Technology in my remarks earlier – to train Singaporeans to take on those opportunities. Not just for Singapore, but as data centres in the region become more sophisticated, much more advanced, those are good opportunities for our people. We are working closely with industry and our schools to make sure that Singaporeans, not just fresh graduates but also the mid-career workers to get those opportunities. So, that is one part of what Dr Neo talked about – highly technical, highly specialised professionals.

The second part is whether as part of the Codes of Practice, we should have regulatory tools, where you require certain roles to be done by people with specific skills sets, competencies, knowledge and to demonstrate those competencies, skills sets and knowledge through certain certification or certain demonstration of their ability.

That is something we will continue to work on with industry to see whether those roles require that demonstration. For example, when we talk about the built environment, Qualified Persons QPs) who submit their plans for approval, need to be of certain accreditation.

We have to look into this, but we will not front-run industry. That is a separate matter compared to the first one I mentioned.

Mr Speaker: Ms He Ting Ru.

Ms He Ting Ru (Sengkang): Thank you, Speaker, and I thank the Senior Minister of State for his clarification. I have one clarification in relation to where we build our data centres. I believe the Senior Minister of State mentioned that this is done from a central planning perspective and it is planned centrally.

I mentioned in my speech that the Jurong West Data Centre Park owned by Google is one of the data centres that is located near a residential area. I believe it is just across the road from a residential neighbourhood. In my speech, I also mentioned that sometimes the excess heat generated from data centres can actually affect up to 500 metres away. If it is just across the street, I think it is logical to assume that there might be some disamenities.

So, can I ask for more clarification on how the Government intends to address some of these concerns on the disamenities that are associated with the building of data centres, whether new or existing?

Mr Tan Kiat How: Sir, first and foremost, let me reiterate what I said in my closing remarks.

Data centres are zoned and built in industrial estates. That is the first point. A large concentration of those data centres is in industrial estates. I mentioned the purpose-sited Jurong Island Data Centre Park earlier. We are not building it within residential areas.

Even in industrial estates, there are requirements for a buffer between these facilities and the residential areas. I have asked my colleagues to check. Even the one in Jurong – because Ms He mentioned it in her speech yesterday – it is within the buffer requirements, within the approved limits.

Secondly, if there are specific issues that Ms He has on that particular data centre, I welcome her to share it separately with me, and my colleagues and I will take a look. But in the considerations of where we site data centres and the buffer zones, we have already considered the different disamenities that might occur, with different facilities, including data centres. That is why they are located in industrial estates.

Mr Speaker: I believe all the clarifications have been addressed by Senior Minister of State Tan.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time and committed to a Committee of the whole House.

The House immediately resolved itself into a Committee on the Bill. – [Mr Tan Kiat How].

Bill considered in Committee; reported without amendment; read a Third time and passed.