Seagate Technology has unveiled its “Decarbonising Data” report, revealing significant sustainability challenges for Singapore’s data centres as they strive to meet the increasing demands driven by artificial intelligence (AI). The report, released on 16 April 2025, highlights that Singapore requires an estimated $5.5 billion investment to make its data storage operations sustainable, exceeding the global average of $4.9 billion.
The report underscores the growing pressure on businesses to scale data centres rapidly whilst managing energy consumption and costs sustainably. Key findings indicate that 70% of Singaporean respondents cite limited access to alternative electricity sources as a major obstacle, with 33.3% also pointing to workforce training costs as a significant challenge.
AI is a major driver of increased demand, with all Singaporean respondents agreeing that AI will significantly impact the need for data centre operations. More than half reported rising demand for data storage within their companies, placing Singapore among the top three markets globally.
Despite 90% of respondents expressing environmental concerns, sustainability remains a low priority in purchasing decisions for data storage infrastructure. Jason Feist, Seagate’s senior vice president of cloud marketing, stated, “Data centres are under intense scrutiny—not only because they support modern AI workloads, but because they are becoming one of the most energy-intensive sectors of the digital economy.”
The report suggests that organisations can achieve both cost efficiency and sustainability by improving existing infrastructure, expanding data centre footprints, or migrating workloads to the cloud. It also outlines three strategic pillars for sustainable data growth: technological innovation, life cycle extension, and shared accountability across the ecosystem.
As global electricity demand from data centres is predicted to double by 2030, addressing these sustainability challenges is crucial for Singapore to maintain its competitive edge as a data centre hub.
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