Singapore is allocating at least 200 MW under DC-CFA2. Johor’s estimated 3.8 GW maximum data-centre demand has put connection planning in focus. Thailand has large data-centre approvals and published green-tariff rates, while further power-procurement rules remain unfinished. Each is a genuine indicator of economic development and an effort to attract investment.
Their practical meaning may be misread when treated as delivered computing capability rather than an allocation, demand estimate, approval or place in a development pipeline. Much of the recent APAC debate has focused on whether the region can absorb the water and power that expansion will require. That question is real — and it is why this analysis starts with the machine, not the headline number. This Relay Analysis explains the physical delivery system behind those announcements. Usable capacity requires a working power connection, cooling and water management, fibre, permits and enough local confidence to keep the project moving.
Singapore, Johor and Thailand make this plain. All are attracting data-centre capital for related reasons, including regional connectivity and demand for cloud and AI computing. Yet the constraint differs in each market. Singapore is making scarce capacity conditional on efficiency and green-energy commitments. Johor has investment momentum and a proximity advantage, while transmission, distribution and water-system planning are becoming more consequential. Thailand has large investment approvals and an official power-readiness agenda; projects still need connections, clean-power arrangements and local delivery.
The building behind the headline
A data centre is a specialised building that keeps computer equipment running. Inside are racks of servers, storage devices and network hardware. Electricity reaches that equipment through substations, switchgear, backup systems and power-distribution units. Cooling equipment removes the heat. Fibre links the facility to users, cloud networks and other data centres.
The point of this anatomy is practical. A server rack cannot use a planning approval as electricity. A site with a grid connection cannot deliver much if the cooling design is unsuitable for its equipment density. A building full of servers without resilient network connectivity is not much use to a cloud customer. The physical parts are one operating system, even though different agencies, utilities, developers and communities may govern each part.
Two units are frequently blurred in public discussion. A megawatt, or MW, measures power: the rate at which a facility could draw or supply electricity at a moment in time. A megawatt-hour, or MWh, measures energy used over time. Disclosed MW figures can refer to different measures, including nominal information-technology load, total facility load or a connection request. They may also exclude cooling, power conversion and other building overheads.
The Electric Power Research Institute’s “Powering Intelligence” project draws a further distinction. Nameplate load can include the non-IT equipment needed to run the facility, while annual energy use depends on how much capacity is actually active and how it is used. New sites typically ramp up as data halls, hardware or customers are added. A public number can therefore describe planned capacity, potential IT load, a total connection request or an operating facility. Those are related facts, but they are not interchangeable. Treating a pipeline or connection request as live capacity can overstate what customers can use today and what the grid must supply now. [EPRI, “Understanding Key Data Center Power Metrics”, 2026]
AI intensifies this problem without making every data centre an “AI data centre”. Traditional cloud services, enterprise software, email, storage and web hosting remain substantial loads. But AI workloads often use specialised accelerators at higher power densities. McKinsey’s 2025 explainer says those densities are pushing changes in electrical distribution and in cooling, including liquid systems that remove heat closer to the rack. The ASEAN sustainable-data-centre guide likewise projects per-rack energy use rising from about 8 kW in 2021 to as high as 50 kW by 2027. [McKinsey, “What is a data center?”, 29 July 2025; ASEAN Guide for Sustainable Data Centre Development, December 2025]
Higher-density equipment alone cannot establish a local water shortage or grid failure. It makes the choice of cooling system, power connection and local resource plan more material. Assessing environmental impact requires place-specific facts about the facility’s design, local water source, energy mix, heat-management method, utilisation and reporting standards. A single water-per-prompt conversion cannot establish those local conditions.
Where grid connections and suitable land are scarce, some operators are turning to modular designs that can be assembled in months rather than years and placed closer to existing substations or industrial sites with power already available. That can shorten the build path; it does not remove the need for cooling, water, fibre, permits or credible local explanation. [Edge Singapore commentary on modular deployment, July 2026]
Across the three markets, Singapore governs scarcity; Johor must turn regional demand into local connections and water planning; Thailand must turn approvals into an operating power route.
Singapore: capacity as a negotiated allocation
Singapore begins from scarcity. In December 2025, the Economic Development Board and Infocomm Media Development Authority launched the second Data Centre–Call for Application, or DC-CFA2, with at least 200 MW of capacity to be made available. The programme is the primary allocation mechanism for data-centre capacity. Applicants are assessed on strategic and economic contribution, as well as sustainability. [IMDA and EDB, “Launch of second data centre – Call for application”, 1 December 2025]
The conditions give the allocation its meaning. Selected applicants must obtain BCA-IMDA Green Mark for Data Centres 2024 Platinum certification, Singapore’s building-efficiency certification. They must also achieve a power usage effectiveness, or PUE, of 1.25 or better at full IT load. PUE measures total facility energy relative to energy reaching IT equipment, so a lower score means less overhead. Applicants must maximise eligible green-energy pathways, with at least 50% of the proposed new capacity powered through those pathways. The policy also asks applicants to show how a project would strengthen international connectivity, resilience, innovation, talent development and local economic competitiveness.
DC-CFA2 sets conditions for a future allocation; awarded sites or operating capacity had not been announced at the time of writing. Even so, it shows how Singapore is using access to constrained infrastructure to seek efficiency, lower-carbon power and wider economic return as capital enters.
The trade-off is visible in a separate proposed project. Keppel’s 2025 environmental impact assessment for a floating facility at Loyang describes up to 19.2 MW of IT load, seawater-cooled chillers and a closed-loop seawater cooling system. Its assessment models construction sediment effects and operational thermal and chlorine discharge. It assesses that proposed design; wider conclusions about cooling approaches or operating status would require further evidence. [Keppel Data Centre Fund II/Aurecon, “Environmental Impact Assessment for the Floating Data Centre at Loyang, Singapore”, 1 June 2025]
Singapore’s approach cannot remove physical limits. It can make them explicit early enough for developers to price and design around them.
Johor: a regional corridor meets local networks
Johor has a different proposition. Its proximity to Singapore, lower operating costs and policy support have made it a focal point for regional data-centre investment. The attraction is real, but the delivery test is local.
Wood Mackenzie, a consultancy, estimates Johor’s data-centre maximum demand at about 3.8 GW as of December 2025. Separately, it estimates that Johor accounts for 51% of total data-centre maximum demand across Peninsular Malaysia. Both are estimates of maximum demand, rather than a measure of live operating load. Its analysis centres on transmission and distribution bottlenecks created by concentrated demand, including main intake substations and suitable injection points around clusters such as Sedenak Tech Park and Nusajaya Tech Park. [Wood Mackenzie, “Johor’s data centres could consume 40% electricity demand by 2035”, 18 June 2026]
This corrects a common shorthand. A state can have generation capacity on paper and still struggle to connect a large new customer where the customer wants to build. Wood Mackenzie reports Johor with roughly 6.8 GW of installed generation capacity and current demand of about 2.6 GW, yet says the system-wide figures mask localised constraints. It projects data centres could account for about 40% of Johor’s end-user electricity consumption by 2035. These consultancy estimates require regulator validation, but they identify the mechanism that investment totals miss.
AirTrunk offers an illustration of the stages hidden inside a headline. Trade publication ETDatacenters reported in July that the International Finance Corporation had approved financing of up to USD 175 million for the operator’s Johor facilities. Its report describes JHB1 as a 150 MW facility whose customer capacity is fully contracted, and JHB2 as a 270 MW greenfield site with financing support. A fully contracted facility has customers committed to capacity; a financed greenfield is a plan moving towards construction. [ETDatacenters, “IFC approves USD 175 million for AirTrunk’s Johor data centers”, 18 July 2026]
Water requirements add another layer to Johor’s planning. Free Malaysia Today reported a parliamentary reply stating that data centres across Selangor, Johor and Negeri Sembilan were expected to require 445.04 million litres per day between 2025 and 2030, while their use as of January 2026 was 28.68 million litres per day. The minister said applications would be screened against local water-system capacity and existing users’ needs. [Free Malaysia Today, 7 July 2026]
Johor’s April 2024 Data Centre Development Planning Guidelines require water review by Ranhill SAJ, SPAN, BAKAJ and relevant agencies, with daily supply and storage set according to project scale. In Johor, The Edge reported that Ranhill SAJ, the state’s sole water operator, had SPAN approval to explore water-asset ownership, subject to facility licences. It also cited a research-house projection of about 300 million litres per day of additional treated-water demand by 2029. Together, those developments point to active water-system planning and a framework still under review. [Johor Data Centre Development Planning Guidelines, April 2024; The Edge Malaysia, 29 July 2026]
Thailand: approvals are a starting line
Thailand is building a third version of the system: investment promotion tied to a public effort to improve power readiness and cleaner electricity access. In May, the Board of Investment approved six projects worth THB 958 billion, including three data-centre and data-hosting projects worth THB 913 billion. It also described fast-track coordination across permitting agencies and plans for Direct Power Purchase Agreements (Direct PPA). [Thailand Board of Investment, PR No. 67/2569, 6 May 2026]
In July, the BOI reported USD 43.6 billion in investment applications in the first half of 2026, including USD 33 billion in the digital sector. Applications show investor appetite. They do not establish delivered capital, live capacity or a project’s final power route. [Thailand Board of Investment, PR No. 117/2569, 23 July 2026]
Utility Green Tariff 2 (UGT2), Thailand’s green-tariff option, has published rates. Direct PPA rules and the proposed Power Commitment Guarantee are still being finalised. A Direct PPA would let eligible large users contract for renewable electricity through the grid and pay the associated grid-use charges. The guarantee would provide financial assurance for reserved power capacity. The Energy Regulatory Commission listed UGT2 on 1 April 2026 and EGAT issued rate notices on 29 April; Direct PPA material remains in consultation-draft form, while Bangkok Post reporting on 17 April describes the guarantee as pending government completion. [Energy Regulatory Commission, Resolution 13/2569 (No. 1003), 1 April 2026; EGAT UGT2 rate notices, 29 April 2026; Bangkok Post, 17 April 2026]
For the policy and procurement pieces to translate into operating capacity, physical infrastructure must keep pace. EGAT’s June statement said it was upgrading transmission in three eastern pilot areas to add 550 MW, while pointing to green tariffs and an eastern water network with more than 500 kilometres of pipeline. These are agency statements of readiness and planned upgrades. Their value is in revealing the components Thai institutions see as necessary: reliable power, cooling water, internet systems and a more flexible grid. [EGAT, “Thailand’s electricity system readiness”, 13 June 2026]
Public disclosure, explanation and credible resource commitments also shape whether a technically financeable campus can retain local confidence and keep moving.
Meanwhile, the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre reported allegations from communities in Chonburi and Rayong about water scarcity, pollution, transparency and consultation, and recorded which companies had responded to its outreach and which had not. The report attributes those concerns to residents and does not establish that a named project caused a shortage or contamination. [Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, March 2026]
The capability leaders should actually watch
The ASEAN Guide for Sustainable Data Centre Development frames digital infrastructure as a balance between digital expansion, environmental sustainability, and resilience and resource security. It recommends cross-sector coordination across energy, water, ICT and land-use institutions, along with reporting of energy, water and carbon metrics. As a regional policy framework, it describes the coordination problem at the centre of this buildout; implementation still depends on national and local institutions. [ASEAN Guide for Sustainable Data Centre Development, December 2025]
For leaders assessing a data-centre announcement, four checks are more useful than the headline number:
• Connection, not only capacity: Is the MW figure a planned IT load, a total interconnection request, contracted power or electricity already available at the site?
• Energy, not only power: What will determine MWh over a year: utilisation, hardware, cooling design, power usage effectiveness and the energy source?
• Local infrastructure, not only land: Which substation, water source, fibre route, permit and construction dependency must be completed, and who is accountable for each?
• Consent, not only compliance: What has been disclosed to affected communities about resource use, impact assessment, mitigation and complaint channels?
The unresolved tension is straightforward. Markets seek AI investment, but each must make a locally credible agreement between computing demand and finite physical systems. Whether that agreement can hold — in grid connections, water planning, power procurement and public explanation — will determine which announced capacity becomes a service people and organisations can rely on.
