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Singapore’s growing data centre industry is also one of its biggest energy users.
Can energy-hungry data centres ever become fully sustainable?
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ingapore’s data centre industry has been rapidly expanding in recent years, as hyperscale cloud firms take advantage of the stable and secure environment afforded by the city state. But with data centres accounting for as much as 1.5% of global energy use, many are now questioning the sustainability credentials of the local industry. A recent report by infrastructure
consultancy Vertiv has only added (nonrenewable) fuel to the fire. It surveyed data centre managers across Singapore, and found that by 2025, only 21% of the energy used to power data centres would come from renewable energy sources including solar and wind. This might sound like a positive step—given the current mix is predominantly fossil fuels—but it represents a sharp drop in
expectations from the same research that was undertaken in 2014. Back then, data centre managers had predicted 34% of data centre power would be renewable by 2025. Vertiv’s Singapore country manager Hitesh Prajapati views this a shift to more realistic expectations. “The reality check on the limited adoption of solar in the industry and lack of viable wind energy options may have been the main driver that tempered the optimism,” he said. But while little change is expected by 2025, the introduction of 5G connectivity in Singapore at around that time could provide a new surge in renewable energy use soon after. One of the widely anticipated uses of 5G is its application in a “smart grid”, which can monitor the flow of power at different points and modulate power generation and distribution to match various loads in real time. “With this connectivity, manufacturing, transportation, healthcare, government services and other functions can be equipped with smart capabilities,” Prajapati said. “Combined with various distributed edge data centres, the 5G network has the potential to enable providers to deliver services up to the last mile without any drop in quality or latency.”
Singapore’s startup funding stands strong amidst pandemic
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echnology startups in Singapore have registered strong growth in funding in 2017 and 2018 to become the country’s fastest growing segment, reports PwC. Singapore’s start-up funding jumped to a record $10.1b (US$7.3b) in 2018, and amore muted $6.5b (US$4.75b) in 2019. The current year also proves to be resilient, for despite the pandemic, the first half of 2020 saw tech start-ups raise $3.3b (US$2.4b). With the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the fundraising ecosystem, there are significant opportunities in Singapore, with solid and innovative startups for investors to consider such as in sectors like health & biotech, fintech, agri-food tech and artificial intelligence, according to PwC. The coronavirus pandemic will likely accelerate or increase interest in the health and biotech sectors, which have seen exceptional performance in H1 with $342m (US$250m), already surpassing 2019 figures at $230m (US$168m). This is expected to continue with growing interest in solutions such as telemedicine, home-care, and biodegradable plastics.
The pandemic to accelerate interest in health and biotech sectors
With Singapore’s status as an ASEAN financial hub, fintech continues to be the center of the startup ecosystem, with investments in the sector almost doubling between $377m (US$275m) in 2017 and $686m (US$501m) in 2019. The growth is largely driven by fintech firms in payments, insurtech and credit. In 2017, the bulk of tech startup funding was invested during the seed stage, and has seen growth in funding across later stages. In H1, the
Series A funding has already reached $586m (US$428m), close to 70% of 2019. Funding stages beyond the series also saw tremendous growth, with over 45% to 55% per year in Series B and C between 2017 and 2019, signifying a strong foundation on the developing ecosystem. However, Series B and C funding for H1 stood at $634m (US$463m) indicating reduced focus across these stages of funding amidst COVID-19. SINGAPORE BUSINESS REVIEW | DECEMBER 2020
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