Digital Realty Wins 50MW Singapore Data Center Allocation

Digital Realty has been selected to develop 50 megawatts (MW) of new data center capacity in Singapore, one of four operators provisionally awarded a combined 200 MW under the city-state’s second Data Centre Call for Application (DC-CFA2), the company announced on August 24, 2026.

The award gives the data-center REIT a permitted route to build in one of the most capacity-constrained markets in Asia, where new megawatts are released by the government through competitive application rounds rather than bought on the open market. Digital Realty’s new facility will sit at Jurong Town Corporation’s low-carbon data center park on Jurong Island and is designed for AI inference, high-performance computing and enterprise workloads across Asia Pacific.

The Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) and the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) provisionally allocated the capacity on August 21, 2026, splitting 200 MW evenly among Digital Realty, Equinix (EQIX ), Keppel Data Centres and ST Telemedia Global Data Centres. The agencies’ fact sheet states that more than 20 proposals from local and global operators competed in the round, which was launched on December 1, 2025.

Serene Nah, Digital Realty’s Managing Director and Head of Asia Pacific, framed the win around the company’s expansion plans in the release:

“Through DC-CFA2, we plan to expand on Jurong Island with next-generation AI-ready infrastructure. Sustainability is central to how we operate at Digital Realty, and we are committed to scaling responsibly as demand grows.”

The capacity award lands in a regional build-out that has pushed operators to secure power and sites across Southeast Asia, including Bitdeer’s $400 million AI-capacity agreement in Malaysia announced earlier in August 2026. Singapore’s approach differs from its neighbors: rather than open land sales, the city-state releases defined blocks of megawatts with binding conditions attached.

What the Award Commits Digital Realty To

The allocation is provisional and carries design obligations. Each awarded facility must power more than 50% of its capacity through green energy pathways — the fact sheet names biomethane, low-carbon ammonia, low-carbon hydrogen and building-integrated or building-applied photovoltaics as qualifying routes — and must meet the Green Mark DC Platinum certification, Singapore’s energy-efficiency benchmark for the sector.

Operators also committed to liquid cooling and 100% energy-efficient IT equipment. The agencies note that liquid cooling, which uses fluids to transfer heat from hardware, can cut energy consumption at the data-center level by more than 30% compared with traditional air cooling. All four DC-CFA2 facilities will locate on Jurong Island, where JTC is developing a low-carbon data center park intended to draw on the island’s industrial energy ecosystem.

Digital Realty’s Existing Singapore Base

Singapore has been part of Digital Realty’s Asia Pacific strategy since the company established operations there in 2010. The country hosts its regional Asia Pacific headquarters and Global Command Center, along with three operational data centers carrying approximately 84 MW of combined capacity. The Jurong Island project would be its fourth, adding 50 MW against that base once built and energized.

The company reports that its existing Singapore operations already run on 100% renewable energy coverage through direct retail energy agreements with Tuas Power. It has also worked with IMDA on Singapore’s tropical data center standard, raising operating temperatures by 2°C across two data halls in a pilot the company says reduced overall energy consumption by approximately 2–3%, a relevant credential in a round where energy efficiency scored heavily.

Once operational, the new facility will extend Digital Realty’s interconnected Singapore campus and connect globally through ServiceFabric, its orchestration platform linking company and third-party data centers. The company describes its global platform as more than 300 facilities across 55-plus metros in over 30 countries.

How Singapore Awards New Data Center Power

The DC-CFA2 process ran on a fixed calendar. IMDA’s program page shows the call launched on December 1, 2025, with registration of interest closing December 5, 2025 and full applications closing April 13, 2026. At least 200 MW was offered, with the possibility of more where proposals used innovative green energy pathways.

Selection went beyond the power request itself. Proposals were scored on anchoring advanced compute capabilities such as AI in Singapore, contributing economically beyond the direct data center investment (including research and development collaborations with Singapore-based partners) and meeting the sustainability conditions described above. More than 20 proposals chased four awards, a better than five-to-one ratio of applicants to winners.

By the Numbers

• 50 MW: Digital Realty’s provisional capacity allocation, equal to each of the other three winners
• 200 MW: total new capacity provisionally allocated in the round
• 20+: proposals received from local and global operators
• ~84 MW: Digital Realty’s existing Singapore capacity across three data centers
• 50%+: share of each awarded facility’s capacity that must run on green energy pathways
• 2°C and 2–3%: temperature increase and resulting energy savings in Digital Realty’s tropical data center pilot
• 30,000+: infrastructure points the company monitors across its Singapore facilities, including real-time power usage effectiveness

What Happens Next

The immediate trigger sits with the operator: Digital Realty must now convert a provisional allocation into a designed, permitted and eventually energized facility on Jurong Island, a process the company’s announcement dates only to the design phase. The agencies, for their part, stated they will engage industry stakeholders and review the need for another Call for Application in 18 to 24 months from the August 21, 2026 award — putting the earliest window for a third capacity round in early 2028.

For Singapore, the round adds 200 MW of committed, efficiency-bound capacity to a market that has rationed new supply for years. For Digital Realty, it adds a provisionally authorized 50 MW block on top of an ~84 MW Singapore operating base the company has built since 2010.