In recent years, the rapid development of the Internet industry in Southeast Asia has driven a continuous increase in the demand for data centers, attracting global data center service providers to set up their operations in the region. Major cloud and Internet companies like Alibaba, Tencent Cloud, ByteDance, and DiDi have successfully launched several projects in Southeast Asia.
From July 14 to July 18, Mr. Zhong Jinghua, CDCC team leader, data center national standard maker, and State Council Allowance Expert, led a five-day data center study tour, visiting Vietnam, Malaysia, and Singapore, along with industry enterprises and experts to explore development opportunities and challenges in the Southeast Asia IDC market.
Zhu Jiali, Product Director at Jiangmen CIMC Digital Power Equipment Co., Ltd. (DPE) Design Research Institute, was invited to participate as a member of the CDCC data center expert technical team.
CDCC expert team
Meeting with GAW Capital
As global AI business accelerates, the Internet economy in Southeast Asian countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, and Vietnam, with Singapore as the core, continues to expand. Global data center service providers are targeting this growth opportunity and have begun early resource allocation to these areas, focusing on places like Kuala Lumpur, Johor, Ho Chi Minh City, and Batam Island.
The 2024 Southeast Asia Data Center Expert Study Tour kicked off in Vietnam, where the CDCC expert team conducted a technical exchange and inspected two data center projects, yielding fruitful results.
CDCC expert team visits GAW Capital
The CDCC expert team gained a detailed understanding of the development of Vietnam's data centers, the potential of the digital economy market, power supply, network conditions, and the status and operational situation of data centers in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. They also had in-depth discussions on key data center technologies and the development of data centers in China.
Currently, Vietnam hasn’t established standards and energy efficiency index requirements for data centers and enforces foreign standards. Buildings are constructed with a load of 2 tons per square meter, power distribution adopts a 2N system, air conditioning uses an air cooling system, while most equipment is imported, and diesel generators are deployed at each level.
Vietnam currently has six operators that connect to mainland China via land cables and to Hong Kong and Singapore via submarine cables. The built data centers currently have capacities ranging from 10MW to 20MW. In the future, Vietnam plans to construct two national-level data centers with 80MW capacity each, reserving 420MW of data center construction capacity for foreign enterprises.
GAW Capital is planning and constructing a data center located in District 9 of Ho Chi Minh City, scheduled to be put into operation by 2026. The data center will cover an area of 12,000 square meters, consist of eight floors, designed to Uptime Tier III standards, with a PUE below 1.5, and provide 2,400 racks calculated at an 8kW single power density.
On-site inspection of Vietnam's data centers
After concluding the meeting with GAW Capital, the CDCC expert team performed an on-site inspection of two data centers (DC3 and DC4) belonging to the well-known telecommunications operator FPT, located within the high-tech park of Ho Chi Minh City. This allowed to gain a deeper understanding of the latest in data center construction and cloud computing services in Vietnam.
It's reported that DC3 consists of three floors with a total floor area of 1,680 square meters, accommodating 1,800 racks and having a total capacity of 12.5 MW. It is designed to meet the Uptime Institute (UTI) Tier III standard. DC4 comprises six floors with a gross floor area of 10,000 square meters, housing 3,600 racks and having a total capacity of 20 MW.
CDCC Expert Team Visits FPT Data Center DC3
CDCC experts visited the FPT data center DC3 and the FPT data center DC4 currently under construction.
Interconect World Forum Exchange Meeting
On the second stop of their study tour, the CDCC expert team visited Johor in Malaysia and was invited to participate in a deep discussion at the Interconect World Forum on “How Chinese enterprises view the investment opportunities in data centers in Johor.” They explored investment opportunities for Chinese enterprises in Johor's data centers.
Zhong Jinghua, CDCC team leader and national data center standards developer, State Council subsidy expert, Wang Haifeng, CDCC expert technical committee member and vice president of Haoyun Group, and Zhu Jiali, CDCC expert technical committee member and product director of CIMC Digital Power Equipment Co., Ltd., expressed their views on the experiences and insights of China’s data center development, suitable technologies for building data centers in Johor, the difference between AI-driven intelligent computing centers and traditional data centers, and whether power might become a constraint for the future development of intelligent computing centers, which earned enthusiastic applause from the attendees.
Currently, the data center construction in Johor is experiencing a boom, with many projects having high demands for delivery timelines. In this regard, prefabricated product technology highly meets current needs.
Zhu Jiali, CDCC expert technical committee member and product director of Jiangmen CIMC Digital Power Equipment Co., Ltd. (DPE), stated, “The prefabricated construction method can maximize the transfer of work interfaces to domestic factories, with pre-integration exceeding 90%, simplifying the on-site construction process.”
"Jiangmen CIMC Digital Power Equipment. Co., Ltd. uses a prefabricated modular construction model. By efficiently advancing different stages of work, such as product design, factory prefabrication production, intermodal transport, on-site block stacking and assembly, internal construction, and system debugging, a 20MW overseas data center project can be delivered in as fast as seven months." Introduced Zhu Jiali. This greatly shortens the project delivery cycle, helping customers achieve rapid project launch and business go-live, and has been highly praised by customers.
Site visit to Malaysia data center
During the study tour in Johor, Malaysia, the CDCC expert team conducted an in-depth inspection of local data center construction and planning, park layout, power capacity planning, and construction cycles. On July 17, they visited the K2 Data Center JHR1, which uses prefabricated modular technology, and gained a detailed understanding of the construction and application of the data center.
Expert team visits K2 data center
K2 JHR1
on "Prefab Modular Data Center": It is a new solution to build multi-scale data centers in response to the enhancement of digital infrastructure and computational power levels. It can be applied to multiple scenarios like telecom IDC, government and enterprise headquarters data rooms, cloud data centers, artificial intelligence computing centers, new building data rooms, and data room renovations.
Participation in the 2024 Singapore Cloud Computing and Data Center Conference
After concluding the study activities in Malaysia, the CDCC expert team arrived in Singapore. They were invited to participate in the 2024 Singapore Cloud Computing and Data Center Conference and visited Singapore's Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) for in-depth exchanges and discussions on data centers and artificial intelligence-related topics.
The conference focused on the industry’s hotspots and pain points, bringing together industry experts, C-level executives, analysts, and others to delve deeply into industry concerns, interpret the latest trends in the region, and share valuable insights.
At the conference, the CDCC expert group engaged in product and technology exchanges with various companies, gaining the latest technological information and industry insights while expanding their cooperation horizons, laying a solid foundation for future overseas collaborations.
A*STAR Exchange Meeting (Agency for Science,Technology and Research)
On the afternoon of July 18, the CDCC expert team was invited to the A*STAR (Agency for Science,Technology and Research), where they held detailed discussions with the team from the Institute of High Performance Computing (IHPC) on data center and artificial intelligence-related technology research.
The expert team gained a detailed understanding of the research directions of the Singapore Science Research Agency and communicated on the ongoing data center-related topics. Topics such as predictive maintenance of data centers, application of liquid cooling technology, and data center carbon neutrality were discussed in greater depth between the two sides.
Conclusion
Amid the great trend of global digital power, overseas expansion has become an inevitable trend for enterprises. This 2024 Southeast Asia Data Center Expert Study Tour not only gave the expert team a deeper understanding of the latest developments in Southeast Asian data center design, energy efficiency, security, and intelligent management, but also provided a valuable opportunity for participants to connect, share experiences and best practices, laying a solid foundation for potential future cooperation.
Looking ahead, the Southeast Asian data center market is expected to continue its strong growth trend, with technological innovation and environmental responsibility being the key drivers for industry advancement.
The spirit of cooperation and willingness to share knowledge demonstrated during this study tour are crucial for promoting coordinated progress both within and outside the region. We look forward to seeing the experts turn the learning from this trip into real actions that drive industry development, jointly opening a new chapter in the digital economy of Southeast Asia.
