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SINGAPORE - Google has increased its investment in infrastructure in Singapore to US$5 billion ($6.7 billion) with the completion of its fourth data centre here. This is up from US$850 million (S$1.1 billion) in 2022 when its third data centre in the Republic was launched. This was announced on June 3 during an event at Google’s office in Mapletree Business City II in Pasir Panjang. More than 500 people now work in Google data centres in Singapore, the tech giant said, noting that such centres power its popular digital services such as its search engine and Google Maps. The specifications of the new facility were not provided. Singapore is one of 11 countries where Google currently operates data centres, with the company’s first data centre here launched in 2014 and its second coming online in 2015. Its data centres here are all located in Jurong West. On May 30, Google said it would invest US$2 billion in Malaysia Senior Minister of State for Communications and Information Janil Puthucheary noted an increasing number of data centres are required to support the computing power capacity essential for technological needs, such as the growing use of artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomous systems. “But with our energy and carbon constraints, this growth of capacity can only be realised if we can make the data centres more sustainable,” said Dr Janil, who attended the event on June 3. “We are committed to growing the (data centre) sector to be more sustainable,” he said, pointing to the Launched by Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat at the Asia Tech x Singapore event, the new road map includes plans to add 300MW of data centre capacity here in the coming years, with another 200MW allocated only for operators using green energy options. Green standards outlined in the road map include ways to improve energy efficiency by upgrading equipment, in addition to reducing the energy required for air-conditioning by safely raising the operating temperature to 26 deg C. Singapore has more than 70 data centres, with 1.4 gigawatts of capacity. These currently account for 82 per cent of Singapore’s information and communications sector emissions, and 7 per cent of its total electricity consumption. In a statement, Google said its data centres are equipped with sustainability features to ensure efficient resource management. These are especially necessary in Singapore, where cooling measures have to be carefully regulated to avoid energy waste and erosion of data centre efficiency, it noted. Mr Ken Siah, the Asia-Pacific head of public affairs for Google data centres, said innovations in areas such as facility design and hardware have allowed for the creation of supercomputers, which can operate at higher temperatures, thus requiring less energy for cooling. “The average temperature in our data centres is about 27 deg C. It can in fact go higher, but we keep it at that level for the comfort of the humans working in there,” he said during the event. Mr Siah noted that recycled water is also used to cool Google’s data centres here because of Singapore’s hot weather – a move that reduces carbon emissions by 10 per cent compared with air cooling. The recycled water is also reused for cooling multiple times, thus minimising the centres’ water intake. The data centres also use light rather than electricity for networking, Mr Siah said. Using this method, optical circuit switches employ tiny rotatable mirrors to beam data from input ports to output ports. This method of data transmission allows Google to cut its energy consumption by up to 40 per cent compared with traditional electrical networking, he added. “Our experience is that by working together with the ecosystem, using human ingenuity and technological innovation, data centres can grow sustainably to meet the needs of AI, even here at the equator,” said Mr Siah.