European cloud and data center firm OVHcloud has announced 2MW of new data center capacity in Singapore.
As Singapore has strict limits on data center building, this is not a new facility. In response to a question from DCD, OVHcloud clarified: "We are renting a building from partners," adding that "all operational conditions are compliant with our protection and security standards as defined with our hyper resilience program."
OVHcloud says it will be running its own “advanced” proprietary water cooling technology in the site, making this its “most sustainable” data center in the Asia-Pacific region to date.
“OVHcloud’s newest data center will feature an integrated water cooling system that is built into a vertical rack designed to facilitate cooling at the server level, eliminating the need for air conditioning in server rooms,” the company said.
OVH didn’t share the location or the size of the deployment, or the landlord of the building, telling DCD: "The SGP2 data center adds 2MW capacity and is launched with Bare Metal Advance dedicated servers available on site.."
"As the Asia-Pacific region's foremost digital capital, Singapore remains a critical market for OVHcloud. There is a clear need for data centers, particularly sustainable ones, that can both lower the overall carbon footprint of digitalization and support the compute needs of emerging technologies, like Generative AI, for Singapore to retain its position as a leading digital innovation hub. As a pioneer in water cooling technology for more than 20 years, we are confident in our ability to reliably meet customers’ needs for sustainable cloud solutions as their digital needs evolve," said Michel Paulin, OVHcloud CEO.
The launch is part of OVH’s plan to establish 15 new sites by 2024. The company launched a site in Mumbai, India, earlier this year and is planning a Sydney location next year.
The company has previously said it has more than 30 data centers in operation and under construction in France, Canada, the US, Australia, Germany, Poland, and the UK.
“Our latest data centers will provide customers in Singapore and the region with high-performance, sustainable cloud solutions that have optimized and predictable performance-price ratios to support their digital ambitions,” said Terry Maiolo, VP and general manager, APAC, OVHcloud.
Singapore has had a moratorium on new data center developments since 2019 (although construction of previously-authorized facilities has been allowed). The ban was relaxed slightly in July 2022 when the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) and the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) announced a pilot scheme allowing companies to bid for permission to develop new facilities.
Equinix, GDS, Microsoft, and a consortium of AirTrunk and TikTok-owner ByteDance this year were granted permission for a combined 80MW of capacity. Specific details haven’t been shared.
Singtel recently broke ground on a 58MW data center in Singapore. It's unclear whether the telco had secured permission to build the new data center before the moratorium was brought in, and Singtel didn’t reply to DCD’s requests for comment.
In 2021, OVHcloud announced it would occupy another floor at its existing facility in Singapore. While the facility was not named, it is believed to be the Telstra data center at 110 Paya Lebar Road, which was acquired by Hong Kong firm Big Data Exchange (BDx) last year, to become BDx SIN1. OVHcloud previously launched its cloud offering from this facility in early-2019.
