Singapore Technologies Telemedia (ST Telemedia), a strategic investor focused on communications, media and technology businesses globally, has acquired land for developing a flagship data centre in Singapore.

This represents another strategic move after the investor acquired approximate 40 percent stake in GDS, a major carrier-neutral data centre service provider in China, last year.

Located at Defu Lane and in close proximity to mature data centre clusters, the 150,000 square feet facility will be built to Tier III standards, and obtain LEED and BCA-IDA Green Mark certificates, states ST Telemedia.

Asian expansion

As a carrier-neutral facility, the flagship data centre will offer customers a full range of data centre services including physical and virtual colocation, connectivity and infrastructure management.

The new project is rolled out at the time when the demand for data centre space is growing rapidly in Singapore – primarily due to increasing digitization and growth in the number of online users. According to BroadGroup’s 2014 research report, utilization of data centre space in Singapore is forecasted to remain strong at close to 90 percent by 2018.

“We are entering the data centre market at an opportune time when the Singapore government is pushing forward its vision to be the world’s first Smart Nation and data centers are important infrastructure to support this. The Singapore flagship will complement the network connectivity and service offerings of our existing data centre assets and drive greater operational and technical synergies, which will translate into a better value proposition for customers,” said Mr Sio Tat Hiang, ST Telemedia’s Executive Director.

The Singapore facility is part of ST Telemedia’s long-term global data centre plan. Apart from taking major stake in GDS which operates 17 high-availability data centers in China, the Group invested in major data center players including Equinix and Savvis (now known as CenturyLink Technology Solutions).

Currently, ST Telemedia’s portfolio company, Level 3 Communications, owns and operates over 350 carrier-neutral data center facilities throughout North America, Latin America and Europe.