Inside the global datacentre squeeze

When technology giants look to build the large datacentres required to power the internet and the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, their primary concern is not necessarily real estate, climate or tax incentives – it’s finding enough electricity. With Deloitte projecting $800bn worth of datacentre investments in Asia-Pacific by 2030, the availability of power has become the single most decisive factor in the region’s digital economy, according to Jean-Christophe Moureau, senior vice-president for solutions operations at Schneider Electric, a multinational company specialising in digital automation and energy management. “The criteria for selecting where to build a datacentre today is where we have energy,” he said in a recent interview with Computer Weekly. “And the expansions make it even more difficult, because Microsoft, Google and all the Big Tech companies are looking at developing datacentres but the energy is not there.” The scale of the challenge is unprecedented: global energy demand for datacentres, which was 460 terawatt-hours in 2022, is expected to reach over 1,000 terawatt-hours by 2026, according to an International Energy Agency (IEA) report. Across the region, the power squeeze has already affected datacentre buildouts. Moureau noted that in Singapore, a major technology hub, energy limitations have forced delays for projects from companies such as Meta. “The Singapore government just said, ‘Look, sorry guys, we don’t have energy for you before 2028’,” he added. Against this backdrop, more datacentre operators are taking power generation into their own hands, investing in on-site generators, microgrid architectures and battery energy storage systems. In the US, major players are exploring dedicated energy parks and small modular reactors to secure a steady power supply. Greenfield builds In markets with untapped power potential, datacentre operators and hyperscalers are eyeing greenfield builds. In India, for example, multinational conglomerate Reliance Industries is investing $109.8bn to build AI datacentres,...