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My Take | AI-driven data centre expansion tests Asia-Pacific’s renewable energy readiness
- Nations will need to grapple with increases in energy demand as data centres proliferate or put their net-zero emission goals at risk
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As Asia-Pacific nations gear up to embrace the artificial intelligence boom, the explosive growth in energy-intensive data centres that will come hand in hand is generating concerns about the region’s clean energy transition.
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From Singapore to India, nations are looking to keep more sensitive data within their borders as risks abound in a world fraught with geopolitical tensions including those between the world’s two largest economies, the US and China.
The push to store and process data domestically will ramp up demand for data centres, which put enormous pressure on resources such as land, water and particularly energy.
This begs the question: can the region’s renewable energy capacity expand rapidly enough to meet the increased demand and still achieve net-zero goals?
According to a Moody’s report published last month, data centres in the Asia-Pacific region are expected to double in capacity by 2028.
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The capacity in emerging data centre markets, including India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines, will record growth rates of 29 per cent to 48 per cent through 2025, given their smaller existing capacities, the report said.
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