Singtel enhances AI development in Singapore

Singtel today debuted its initiative to advance AI development in Singapore and the region, tying up with global and local ecosystem partners across AI, renewable energy, sustainable technologies and talent development. The initiative comes as the company is scaling its regional data centre business, having gained a foothold in new markets beyond Singapore like Indonesia and Thailand where it is building a new generation of green, sustainable and hyper-connected AI-ready data centres.

This was unveiled at the launch of Singtel’s new data centre brand Nxera (pronounced “nex-zeh-ra”), attended by Guest-of-Honour Singapore’s Deputy Prime Minister and Coordinating Minister for Economic Policies Mr Heng Swee Keat. Central to the initiative are four sets of strategic Memoranda of Understanding (MOU) including collaborating with NVIDIA to make AI adoption more accessible in Singapore and across the region; tapping the renewable energy expertise of Gulf Energy, Medco Power, Sembcorp and TNB Renewables to accelerate Nxera’s journey towards net-zero emissions; establishing a co-innovation platform with technology partners to improve power and water efficiency and operational resiliency; and creating a Regional Sustainable Data Centre Academy with five institutes of higher learning to train more than 150 students annually for its data centre business, ecosystem partners and the industry. Dr Janil Puthucheary, Senior Minister of State, Ministry of Communications and Information witnessed the signing of all these MOUs at the event.

“The launch of the Nxera data centre brand is a key milestone for our data centre business as we look to expand our footprint in the region beyond 200MW over the next three years.” Bill Chang, CEO of Nxera and Singtel’s Digital InfraCo

Mr Bill Chang, CEO of Nxera and Singtel’s Digital InfraCo unit said, “The launch of the Nxera data centre brand is a key milestone for our data centre business as we look to expand our footprint in the region beyond 200MW over the next three years. As we build out our data centre business, we are putting in place a purpose-driven, fully aligned group of ecosystem partners with distinctive capabilities and unique platforms that will help us grow this digital infrastructure in an AI world – sustainably and responsibly. This means democratising AI access for enterprises, introducing renewable energy and sustainable technologies, and helping produce the talent for our new generation of data centres.”

He added, “Digitalisation shouldn’t come at the expense of our decarbonisation efforts. In fact, it should accelerate our efforts. Given our aim to achieve operational net-zero emissions for our data centre business by 2028, these partnerships are critical to laying the groundwork for turning digitalisation into a driver for decarbonisation. Of course, we are also doing our utmost to support the Singapore government’s recently announced National AI Strategy 2.0 and green ICT agenda.”

CT Bureau