The Co-innovation Facility will incubate liquid cooling, cognitive digital twin and other innovations for digital infrastructure that support sustainability in tropical locations

Equinix, a digital infrastructure company, and the Centre for Energy Research & Technology (CERT) under the National University of Singapore’s College of Design and Engineering (NUS CDE) today unveiled its plan to set up a co-innovation facility (CIF) in Singapore to accelerate the testing and development of innovative solutions focused on low-carbon energy, high-efficiency cooling, circularity, and energy efficiency optimization for data centers. Accelerating these innovations will shape the future of digital infrastructure and services in Singapore and other tropical locations, as well as address sustainability goals.

Singapore’s digital economy has grown at a compound annual growth rate of close to 13 per cent since 2017, contributing 17.3 per cent to its gross domestic product (GDP) in 2022. Furthermore, according to the recent 2024 National Budget, Singapore is strengthening its position as a global business and innovation hub by investing more than USD 740 million into artificial intelligence (AI) over the next five years. As digital demands accelerate, data centres have become the foundation of today’s digital economy. To support digital growth more sustainably, data centres need to explore new ways to reduce energy consumption and implement energy efficiency solutions to cope with increased workloads and processing requirements.

With an initial investment of USD 4 million from Equinix, the CIF will serve as an incubator to trial innovations such as enabling the integration of clean and renewable energy sources and alternative power generation, to assess their ability to operate at scale. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) will also be utilised by the facility along with other advancements, such as liquid cooling, which is becoming more vital as AI makes data processing more compute-intensive. The facility will also trial Cognitive Digital Twin (CDT) capabilities of predictive maintenance and upgrades to address challenges faced by current data centre models.

Yee May Leong, Managing Director, Singapore, Equinix, said, “The effects of climate change are being felt around the world, and it is becoming increasingly urgent to embed best practices in every aspect of our operations. By replicating our successful Co-Innovation Facility from Ashburn and expanding our collaborative efforts in the Asia-Pacific region, we are reaching a significant milestone in advancing our “Future First” sustainability agenda. It will accelerate the development of cutting-edge technologies and apply real-world solutions to help reduce the carbon footprint of the growing number of data centres worldwide.”

To be opened in Q1 2027, the CIF will trial sustainable innovations for data centres, such as:

Alternative power solutions: Alternative power generation solutions such as fuel cells and battery storage, can provide low-carbon power solutions for data centres, serving as bi-directional grid interfaces and on-site prime and/or backup solutions.

Direct current power distribution system: An electrical power distribution architecture known as medium voltage AC to low-voltage DC (MVAC-LVDC), facilitates the seamless integration of battery energy storage system (BESS), solar photovoltaics (PV) and other renewable energy sources (RES) coupled to the data centre power distribution network, with the potential to enhance grid-side power quality, efficiency, and power density for data centres.

Liquid cooling: This advanced cooling method reduces energy consumption and noise while optimizing space. It also increases the potential for waste heat reuse, supporting circular data centre models.

Digital twin capabilities: Data-driven model and machine learning will be utilized to enable predictive maintenance and upgrades.