At a glance
Singapore's data centres draw more than 1.6GW. New capacity comes only by government tender: about 80MW in 2023, then 200MW in August 2026.
AirTrunk, the Sydney-based operator, took a share of the 2023 round with ByteDance and has committed to three Singapore sites totalling 180MW; no other Australian operator has disclosed Singapore capacity.
The four operators awarded capacity in August, Digital Realty, Equinix, Keppel and ST Telemedia, may draw no more than a quarter above what their servers use, and must take half their power from low-carbon sources.
Sydney data centre space rents at US$188 per kilowatt a month against US$403 in Singapore. A megawatt costs about US$10 million to build in Australia against US$14 million there.
Parliament received a licensing bill on 8 September 2026 covering every data centre above 3MW. The government will review the need for a third tender in 18 to 24 months.
Singapore is about to license its whole data centre industry. The Digital Infrastructure Bill, introduced to Parliament on 8 September 2026, would cover every site above 3MW, which is almost all of them. Until now the rules have bound only the operators awarded capacity at a government tender, and Singapore has run two of those since it halted approvals in 2019, the second awarding 200MW on 21 August.
This article examines that market in full: what Singapore holds and who holds it, what a megawatt costs to rent and to build there, the conditions the government attaches to a new site, and where the demand Singapore turns down ends up.
Australian and Singaporean money crosses in both directions. AirTrunk, which is Sydney-based, took capacity in the first tender. Keppel, awarded 50MW in the second, owns a data centre in Sydney and is developing one in Victoria.
Singapore has released about 280MW of data centre capacity in three years, every megawatt by tender, and the demand it turns away has gone to Johor, the Malaysian state across the causeway. Sydney sells the same megawatt at less than half Singapore's rent and builds it for about two thirds of the cost.
Seven operators hold every megawatt Singapore has tendered
Since Singapore halted data centre approvals in 2019, the only route to new capacity has been a government call for applications, in effect a tender, and seven operators hold everything awarded, Equinix twice. A pilot call opened in 2022. On 14 July 2023 it awarded about 80MW to four of more than 20 proposals. The second call opened on 1 December 2025 and closed on 31 March 2026. It awarded 200MW on 21 August 2026, again from more than 20 proposals. Each of the four takes 50MW on Jurong Island, southwest of the city, where the state industrial landlord JTC is building a low-carbon data centre park.
Operator | Capacity | Call and site |
|---|---|---|
AirTrunk with ByteDance | Not separately disclosed | 2023 pilot, awarded July 2023 |
Equinix | Not separately disclosed | 2023 pilot, awarded July 2023 |
GDS | Not separately disclosed | 2023 pilot, awarded July 2023 |
Microsoft | Not separately disclosed | 2023 pilot, awarded July 2023 |
Digital Realty | 50MW | 2026 call, Jurong Island, awarded 21 August 2026 |
Equinix | 50MW | 2026 call, Jurong Island, awarded 21 August 2026 |
Keppel Data Centres | 50MW | 2026 call, Jurong Island, awarded 21 August 2026 |
ST Telemedia | 50MW | 2026 call, Jurong Island, awarded 21 August 2026 |
Source: Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) release of 14 July 2023; Economic Development Board (EDB) and IMDA award of 21 August 2026 as reported by DCD and TNGlobal; King & Wood Mallesons note of 9 December 2025 on the call's terms. The 2023 pilot released about 80MW in total with no per-operator split published. Both awards were announced as provisional. September 2026.
AirTrunk is the only Australian-headquartered company that has disclosed Singapore capacity, and it took part in the 2023 pilot with ByteDance. The Sydney-based company, owned by Blackstone and Canada's CPP Investments, opened its first Singapore campus at Loyang in December 2020. It is building a second beside it on a S$2.25 billion green loan. By March 2026 it counted three Singapore facilities totalling 180MW. NEXTDC, Macquarie Data Centres, DCI Data Centers, CDC, DigiCo and Goodman have made no public disclosure of Singapore capacity or of a bid in the 2026 call, and the government named none of the more than sixteen unsuccessful proposals.
Singapore and Australia hold about the same capacity
Singapore hosts more than 1.6GW of data centre capacity, on the Ministry of Digital Development and Information's figure of 8 September 2026. IMDA counted about 1.4GW across more than 70 facilities when it published its Green Data Centre Roadmap in May 2024. The government puts data centres at about 7 per cent of the country's electricity. Australia runs 1.5GW on the DC Byte and Data Centres Australia count of April 2026.
Singapore's fleet is almost fully let, at 2 per cent vacancy on CBRE's Q1 2026 data against 4.5 per cent in Sydney.
The August awards carry an efficiency and low-carbon condition
Each of the four must reach a power usage effectiveness of 1.25 at full load, meaning the site may draw no more than 1.25 units of electricity for every unit reaching its servers. Each must certify to the Platinum grade of Singapore's Green Mark for Data Centres, meet a national standard for the energy efficiency of IT equipment, and take at least half its power from a listed set of low-carbon sources: biomethane, low-carbon ammonia or hydrogen, fuel cells with carbon capture, or on-site solar. All four also committed to liquid cooling, the method AI data centres run on.
Those terms are conditions of an award, and they bind those four sites alone. The carbon price reaches every large emitter: S$45 a tonne from 1 January 2026, up from S$25. Generators pass some of it through in tariffs, so it reaches a data centre's bill whether or not the operator ever bid.
The Digital Infrastructure Bill would license every site above 3MW
Singapore's Digital Infrastructure Bill was introduced to Parliament on 8 September 2026 and carries two licensing regimes with different thresholds. The first covers security and resilience: co-location and cloud data centres, the buildings that rent space to many customers, with a critical IT load (the power drawn by the servers) of at least 10MW, and cloud providers earning at least S$100 million a year from Singapore users, averaged over three years. The second covers environmental performance and reaches lower: every operator with a critical IT load of at least 3MW will be licensed and held to a facility-level efficiency requirement, with IT equipment and water rules to follow. The ministry says the debate on the Bill comes at the next available sitting, and that existing sites will get transition time.
A 3MW licensing floor for efficiency would reach almost every commercial data centre in the country, well beyond the four sites the August award covers. The efficiency number itself is left to the rules made after passage.
A Singapore megawatt rents at double Sydney's
On CBRE's Q1 2026 figures Singapore carries the region's highest data centre rents, at US$403 per kilowatt a month against Sydney's US$188. JPMorgan's Malaysia research team put Singapore's build cost at about US$12 million a megawatt in July 2026, against US$7 million in Malaysia. Cushman & Wakefield's 2026 construction cost guide runs higher, at a mid figure of US$14.4 million for Singapore against US$10.0 million for Australia. The two ranges meet at about US$12 million, the top of Australia's and the bottom of Singapore's.
Market | Rent, US$ per kW a month | Build cost, US$ million per MW |
|---|---|---|
Singapore | 403 average, 330 to 475 range | 12.0 to 17.9, Cushman mid 14.4 |
Sydney | 188 | Australia 7.9 to 12.1, Cushman mid 10.0 |
Johor | Not published by CBRE | Malaysia 6.9 to 12.0, Cushman mid 9.6 |
Source: CBRE Global Data Center Trends 2026, Q1 2026 data, the range as cited by JPMorgan; JPMorgan as reported by Mingtiandi, 12 July 2026; Cushman & Wakefield Asia Pacific Data Centre Construction Cost Guide 2026, 1 April 2026. Build cost is Cushman's all-in construction figure at national level.
Johor had 1,110MW operating at the end of June 2026, up 24 per cent in a year. Cushman & Wakefield's count puts it ahead of every other market in the region on operating and future capacity combined. It ranks Johor the region's leading market by operating and future capacity combined. Equinix announced its first Johor site in 2022, fifteen kilometres from Singapore "to address excess demand from organizations in the city-state", and Nxera, Singtel's data centre arm, describes its Johor build as a way to "capture spill-over demand from our customers". AirTrunk has committed to more than 700MW across four Johor campuses. It loosened the efficiency target at its second one from 1.25 to 1.37 to save water, a trade Singapore's terms would not allow. A Johor data centre gets a grid connection in about a year, and AirTrunk and NEXTDC have close to A$11 billion committed in Malaysia.
Singapore's money runs the other way. Keppel's listed data centre trust holds the Gore Hill site in Sydney and lent A$90 million to Macquarie Data Centres through a note when it sold the Intellicentre campus to Macquarie for A$174 million in 2024. Keppel itself has signed a lease for a 123-hectare site near Morwell in Victoria with up to 720MW of power. GIC, Singapore's sovereign wealth fund, led a US$1.6 billion investment in September 2025 into Vantage's Asia Pacific data centre business, which includes Australia, and in August 2026 joined Macquarie in the company that will own data centres for Anthropic.
Perth is Singapore's Australian landing point
Two cables connect Perth to Singapore directly, and both were out at once in September 2026. Vocus's Australia Singapore Cable broke on 4 September in Indonesian waters, and INDIGO West, the Google, Telstra and Singtel system that carries Perth to Singapore traffic at about 47 milliseconds round trip, had been down since 8 August. Traffic on the Australia to Singapore cable route ran east through San Jose and Tokyo at 258 to 350 milliseconds.
Perth's direct path into Asia ends in Singapore, 47 milliseconds away when both cables are up.
Singapore and Australia, side by side
Singapore | Australia | |
|---|---|---|
Operating capacity | More than 1.6GW (MDDI, September 2026) | 1.5GW (DC Byte and Data Centres Australia, April 2026) |
How new capacity arrives | Government tender, twice since the 2019 halt | Developer-led: 3.2GW by 2030 on DC Byte's forecast, 5.4GW progressing through AEMO's connection process |
Rent and vacancy | US$403 per kW a month, 2 per cent vacant | US$188 in Sydney, 4.5 per cent vacant |
Efficiency rule | 1.25 for the four 2026 awards; a 3MW licence in the Bill | None in national law; NSW's guidelines of 17 August 2026 are opt-in |
Grid connection | Capacity allocated with the award | About two years from application to switch-on (AEMO, June 2026) |
Source: MDDI, DC Byte and Data Centres Australia, CBRE, AEMO, and the instruments named. September 2026.
Singapore rations megawatts; Australia queues them for grid connection. The same comparison for New Zealand, India and Japan is in the market pages on New Zealand's data centres, India's data centres and Japan's data centres, and the Australian fleet is ranked in the guide to data centres in Australia.
What to watch
The third call. EDB and IMDA will review the need for one 18 to 24 months from the August 2026 award, so between February and August 2028. The 2026 call offered "at least 200MW" and awarded 200MW.
The Bill's debate. The ministry says it comes at the next available sitting of Parliament. The efficiency figure, the transition period and the penalties sit in the rules that follow.
The losing proposals. More than 20 proposals competed for four awards, and EDB and IMDA named none of the sixteen or more that missed.
The cable pair. INDIGO West's repair window has moved twice. Perth's 47-millisecond route to Singapore returns when both systems do.
Singapore in the 2026 market reports
JPMorgan's July note put Singapore's rents at double Sydney's. AirTrunk is floating a data centre property trust in Singapore, reported in July 2026 as the largest listing there since 2017. CBRE's 2026 Asia Pacific outlook puts Australia in the leading tier, and Cushman & Wakefield's 2026 ranking puts Sydney second in the region.