Parliament
Closing Speech by SMS Tan Kiat How for the Second Reading of the Digital Infrastructure Bill
7 October 2026
Introduction
Mr Speaker, I thank Members for their support for the Bill and for a thoughtful debate. Members raised practical questions about competitiveness, sustainability, scarce resources, jobs and skills, and whether our digital infrastructure will remain secure and resilient as our dependence on it grows.
The debate has reinforced three broad principles behind the Bill.
First, we should plan ahead. We should not wait for a serious disruption or acute resource pressures before putting the right framework in place.
Second, we should grow in a disciplined way. Singapore needs more compute as our economy digitalises and AI becomes more widely used. But land, power, water and our carbon budget are finite. Our objective cannot simply be more capacity. It must be greater value from the capacity that we host.
Third, clear and proportionate regulation is not the opposite of competitiveness. Predictable and credible regulation is part of competitiveness.
I will respond to Members' remarks under seven broad themes: first, competitiveness; second, the value and growth of data centres; third, the transition for existing facilities; fourth, the impact on Singaporeans; fifth, sustainability; sixth, security and resilience; and finally, the international context.
Before I turn to the main themes, let me acknowledge several broader points raised by Members, including questions on low-carbon energy supply, frontier AI models for cybersecurity, urban heat, e-waste, battery storage and the regional impact of data centres and energy developments.
These are important issues, but not all fall within the scope of this Bill. I will address those that are relevant to the Bill in my response today. For the others, I would encourage Members to pursue them with the relevant agencies and Ministries through the appropriate Parliamentary channels.
Singapore’s competitiveness as a digital infrastructure hub
Singapore’s value proposition
Let me start with Singapore's competitiveness as a digital infrastructure hub.
Ms Lee Hui Ying, Mr Saktiandi Supaat and Mr Sharael Taha asked whether higher standards and compliance costs could push investment elsewhere in the region.
Cost matters. But Singapore does not compete by having the cheapest land or the cheapest electricity. Other markets have more of both.
Furthermore, the future of compute infrastructure will increasingly be regional. Data centre operators and cloud service providers take a regional view when making investments. Some workloads will naturally locate where land and energy are more abundant.
Singapore's role is different.
It is a trusted, connected and high-value hub for workloads where reliability, security, resilience, connectivity and proximity to enterprise activities matter most.
That means we do not need to host every megawatt.
We need to host the right capacity and make the capacity we host work harder for Singapore.
The recent Data Centre - Call for Application exercise for which we received more than 20 applications, shows that operators continue to see Singapore as a key part of their regional strategy.
As Mr Edward Chia observed, regulatory quality can itself be part of Singapore's competitive moat. Good regulation is not about having the most rules. It is about having the right rules, applied predictably.
Codes of Practice and future standards
Ms Eileen Chong noted that much of the technical detail and operational requirements will be set out in regulations and Codes of Practice and asked how tradeoffs between different requirements will be weighed. Ms Lee Hui Ying asked how we can avoid creeping regulation. Ms Nadia Samdin asked how existing Singapore standards will fit with the Codes of Practice and Dr Neo Kok Beng asked how industry views will shape them.
The approach is straightforward. We are setting a clear floor and making sure those covered by the regime meet it and raising that floor over time when it is practical and necessary.
The Bill sets out the architecture and policy objectives. IMDA will develop the detailed requirements with industry, drawing on international standards and existing Singapore standards. New requirements will come with consultation and appropriate transition time.
Codes of Practice are a regulatory tool that is used across many sectors, such as the telecommunications sector. IMDA and the industry players are familiar with this approach. Under this Bill, licensees will be required to comply with the Codes and IMDA can take enforcement action if they do not.
Members also asked when the regime will take effect.
After the Bill is passed, we will bring it into force in stages as the subsidiary legislation, Codes of Practice and licensing processes are finalised. These details will be developed with industry over the coming year, before the requirements are finalised.
We expect the approved Act to come into force in 2027.
Existing operators will then have six months from commencement to apply for a licence. They can continue operating while IMDA considers their application.
Ms Chong also asked how the licensing process can be kept simple for operators who already deal with several regulators and made suggestions on minimising regulatory burden. Similar concerns were raised by respondents in the public consultation on the Bill.
It is our intent to minimise administrative burden for service providers and operators.
We will streamline operational processes for all data centre operators and Foundational Digital Infrastructure services covered under the Bill and seek views from industry to ensure that these are practical for licensees.
Where possible, we will use existing industry-recognised audits and certifications for the demonstration of compliance, to minimise duplicative effort by licensees.
DC growth
Why Singapore needs DCs
Several Members asked a basic but important question: data centres use substantial land, power and water, so what do Singapore and Singaporeans get in return?
Let me be clear. We do not view data centres as a standalone industry sector to be grown for its own sake.
They underpin many important sectors – financial services, digital payments, healthcare systems, logistics platforms and Government services.
They are also important connectivity nodes linking domestic, regional and international networks.
The digital economy that runs on this infrastructure contributed about 20% of our GDP in 2025.
The value is not in the data centre itself. It is in what the data centre enables. Members have made similar points in their remarks.
Mr Shawn Loh put it this way. He said Singapore should not pursue the greatest possible volume of digital infrastructure, but the greatest value from it.
Mr Sharael put it another way – every megawatt must count.
Mr Victor Lye further noted that the measure should not only be value promised per megawatt, but value realised per megawatt.
I agree with them. However, we should be clear that infrastructure is an input, not the outcome.
Members spoke about the need for digital infrastructure to support Singapore's AI ambition. Our ambition should not simply be to host the infrastructure of the AI economy, but to help Singapore enterprises create value on top of it. That informs our allocation of scarce data centre capacity.
Mr Henry Kwek and Mr Sharael Taha asked what kind of workloads Singapore should be positioning for.
We want to anchor high-value workloads where trust, security and continuity matter most. They fall broadly into two groups:
Workloads that need to sit close to the enterprise systems and users they serve, where speed matters, such as for banking and AI; and
Others that handle sensitive data that must be kept under the rules users trust. These include digital identity and healthcare applications.
26. For these workloads, Singapore's position at the centre of regional, financial and enterprise infrastructure and the trust in our institutions are a real advantage.
Managing growth within our constraints
That is why it is not sensible to place an arbitrary cap on data centre capacity, as suggested by Mr Louis Chua, Ms Nadia, Ms Poh Li San and Mr Sharael. Doing so would mean constraining the growth of our broader economy and the use of digital technologies in society, that benefits all Singaporeans. The whole-of-nation tradeoffs need to be made, but not by narrowly viewing this matter through the lens of any one sector, albeit an important one, such as the data centre sector.
Let me also clarify the 1.6 gigawatts figure that a number of Members cited.
The 1.6 gigawatts cited is the maximum IT load capacity of data centres in Singapore. It includes the 200 megawatts allocated under the second Data Centre - Call for Application.
The Jurong Island Data Centre Park's 700 megawatts refer to total electricity consumption. This includes energy used for both IT equipment and other facility-level functions, such as cooling and lighting. The park will house the data centres allocated under the second Data Centre - Call for Application and future allocations.
These data centres are therefore counted in both figures, which is why the two cannot simply be added together.
In terms of actual electricity use, in 2024, data centres used about 6.5 terawatt-hours of electricity, slightly more than 10% of Singapore's total consumption. We take a whole-of-economy view of land, power, water and our carbon budget, alongside economic, security and environmental considerations. EMA's power system planning already takes growth in energy-intensive sectors, including data centres and semiconductors, into account.
Data centres' electricity use today translates to less than 5% of Singapore's total carbon emissions. Our climate commitments are clear. Singapore has committed to reduce emissions to 45 to 50 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2035 and to reach net zero by 2050.
Data centre growth must therefore be managed within these constraints, just like any other energy-intensive sector. The Bill's efficiency standards, together with green energy conditions for newly awarded capacity, are part of how we do this.
That is the difference between maximising capacity and the stewardship of capacity. We are not seeking maximum volume. We are seeking maximum value.
Impact on the region
Ms He Ting Ru asked whether Singapore is shifting the environmental and social costs of data centre growth to our neighbours.
We are not seeking to push data centre capacity out of Singapore. We continue to allocate new capacity here, including through the Data Centre - Call for Application process and the Jurong Island Data Centre Park. What we are doing is being selective about the capacity we host, ensuring that it is efficient, sustainable and delivers broader value.
Global compute demand will continue to grow across the region. Lowering our standards would not reduce that demand. It would simply mean less efficient data centres here.
Our approach is therefore to hold the data centres we host to high standards for energy and resource efficiency. The objective should not be to shift the problem elsewhere, but to raise standards as the regional ecosystem grows. I have spoken to government officials from around the region and they have expressed interest in our approach here in Singapore. We will be happy to share our experience with them as they develop their own frameworks and to learn from their best practices.
Holding operators to their commitments
Dr Choo Pei Ling, Mr Victor Lye, Mr Ng Shi Xuan and Mr Yip Hon Weng asked how operators will be held to the commitments made when they secure scarce capacity.
New capacity is allocated selectively. We consider strategic value, broader economic contributions and sustainability. Where material commitments form part of the basis for awarding capacity, the Bill allows them to become licence conditions.
The principle is simple. If scarce national capacity was awarded on the basis of a commitment, that commitment should be delivered.
EDB will continue to negotiate and monitor these strategic and economic commitments.
Economic contributions can include investment, business spending, jobs, talent development, innovation and ecosystem partnerships, and many others.
For example, an operator may commit to R&D, product innovation or talent development that grows our digital economy, or partnerships with local ecosystem players. These go beyond running the data centre. They reflect a broader commitment to invest in Singapore.
Where circumstances genuinely change, EDB and IMDA can work with operators on alternative actions that deliver equivalent value. Enforcement is not the first response to every lapse, but persistent non-delivery or bad faith cannot be cost-free.
This is how we move from value promised to value realised.
Ms Nadia and Mr Yip asked how firm enforcement can be squared with continuity of service for users. IMDA does consider the consequential impact of its regulatory actions. As I noted in my opening speech, the purpose of regulation is to fix the problem, not create a second problem for users.
Transitioning legacy DCs
Mr Chia, Dr Choo, Mr David Hoe, Mr Kwek, Mr Shawn Loh, Dr Neo, Mr Saktiandi, Mr Sharael Taha and Mr Dennis Tan asked about existing data centres and the transition to higher standards.
Mr Saktiandi and Mr Sharael asked how many data centres the Bill will cover.
There are about 70 data centres in Singapore today, which will be required to meet the sustainability requirements.
About two-thirds will also meet the 10-megawatt threshold that will require them to meet the security and resilience requirements.
The baseline energy efficiency requirements will apply to all licensed data centres. Newer facilities can be designed to higher standards from the outset. We recognise that older facilities were built under different technical and commercial conditions and we will provide them reasonable time to improve.
Our approach is progressive uplift – a common direction of travel, with transition calibrated to investment and technology realities.
Mr Shawn Loh made a broader point. Stewardship is not only about deciding what new capacity to add; it is also about continually reviewing the capacity we already have. I agree with him. That is the approach that we are taking.
Technology and workloads will not stand still. Existing facilities should therefore have pathways to upgrade, redevelop or, where commercially appropriate, retire over time, balanced with investment certainty, reasonable transition periods and continuity for customers.
Operators can tap existing schemes to improve energy efficiency, such as:
The EDB's Resource Efficiency Grant for Emissions, which offsets the cost of upgrading to more energy-efficient equipment; and
IMDA's Energy Efficiency Grant, which supports data centre users to refresh their IT equipment to more efficient technology.
Operators that find major redevelopment more practical can explore opportunities, such as the low-carbon Data Centre Park on Jurong Island.
The destination is higher performance across the sector, and we want the transition path to be practical and orderly.
Impact on Singaporeans
Let me now turn to the impact of data centre growth on Singaporeans, which several Members spoke about.
Power costs
Mr Chia, Mr Chua, Ms He, Mr Loh and Ms Nadia were concerned that households may end up subsidising data centres' electricity costs, including the cost of grid upgrades to support growing data centre demand. That is unfortunately a challenge in many jurisdictions around the world, and they are grappling with these challenges. The situation in Singapore is different.
Data centres do not buy electricity at the regulated household tariff. Like other large industrial consumers, they buy electricity from retailers at commercial rates, or directly from the wholesale electricity market. They also pay for their own dedicated grid connections.
The household tariff is driven mainly by fuel and electricity generation costs, and the growth of data centres is not expected to raise these costs.
As overall electricity demand grows, the grid may need to be expanded or reinforced. These system-level upgrades benefit the reliability and resilience of the entire grid, and their costs are shared across users through the existing grid-charging framework.
At the same time, it does not mean that large users of water and electricity resources are given a free pass. They must be held to high standards. For example, because data centres are major users of resources, we subject their growth to greater scrutiny and progressively higher efficiency expectations.
Their projected electricity and water demand is factored into our national infrastructure planning, new capacity is allocated selectively, and their growth must remain within our climate and resource constraints
This is not a new approach. We have done so for some time. In 2019, we paused new data centre capacity. Since 2022, new capacity has been allocated through the Data Centre - Call for Application, to data centres that contribute to our strategic and economic priorities and adopt best-in-class sustainability practices. We also worked with industry on energy efficiency standards.
This Bill takes this further by raising baseline energy efficiency standards across all data centres in Singapore, including existing ones.
Job, skills and capability
Several Members asked how we will prepare Singaporeans to take up the jobs that the data centre sector will create.
Mr Shawn Loh noted that data centres are capital-intensive and create relatively few jobs directly. That is true. But few people working inside a facility does not mean that few people depend on it.
Therefore, we should distinguish between the jobs inside a data centre and the jobs enabled by a data centre. Many sectors, such as the financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, logistics, software and AI, all depend on this infrastructure.
At the same time, those direct jobs are increasingly specialised: data centre operations, mechanical and electrical engineering, cybersecurity, energy management and sustainability. These are good jobs with good prospects.
We are building this pipeline together with industry and our institutions. For example, data centre operators have partnered the Institute of Technical Education and the Singapore Institute of Technology on Work-Study Programmes, which offer diplomas and specialised degrees in green data centres.
Dr Neo also highlighted professional capability. Resilient infrastructure ultimately depends on capable people.
As Mr Loh put it, our aim should not merely be to develop enough people to maintain the facilities located here, but to anchor the expertise needed to design, transform and manage the next generation of digital infrastructure. We agree with him. As the industry moves up the value chain, Singaporeans should be able to move up with it.
The same applies to innovation. Singapore’s constraints in cooling, energy efficiency and grid integration are real. But constraints can also drive solutions with value beyond Singapore. Our constraints should push us to innovate, not hold us back.
It is in this spirit that we worked with industry to develop Singapore Standards that push the boundaries of data centre efficiency. They cover operating data centres in a tropical climate, the use of energy-efficient IT equipment and liquid cooling.
As Dr Neo suggested, these industry-led standards, alongside the industry’s practical experience, can be brought together, for example by industry associations like SGTech, to provide a useful reference for other data centres in the region.
Talent development is also one of the contributions we assess when allocating new data centre capacity. Where such commitments formed part of the award, the Bill allows them to be captured as licence conditions.
Exempted DCs
Mr Dennis Tan asked why Government data centres are exempt from sustainability requirements.
Let me first clarify that today, more than 80% of Government’s digital workloads are hosted on commercial data centres, which are subject to the sustainability requirements.
The remaining workloads hosted on Government-owned data centres are typically for highly critical and essential needs like security. Such data centres are also held to sustainability standards under GreenGov.SG (opens in new tab), which are on par with the requirements that will be imposed under the Bill. Data centres run by the autonomous universities, such as the National Supercomputing Centre, also report under GreenGov.SG (opens in new tab).
Other exempted data centres, such as those supporting utilities, for example, power plants, are highly specialised and comprise very different electronic equipment compared to commercial data centres. Therefore, commercial cooling and IT efficiency solutions do not fully apply to them. These facilities account only for a small proportion of our overall data centre capacity.
The scope of the Digital Infrastructure Act is appropriate and will cover the vast majority of data centres that are consequential. We will review the scope in future if needed.
Impact on SMEs
Mr Ng Shi Xuan and Mr Saktiandi asked whether compliance costs will be passed on to SMEs that rely on cloud and hosting services.
We are mindful of compliance costs of any regulations and have calibrated the requirements accordingly.
The specific security and resilience requirements will largely be aligned with international and industry standards that operators are familiar with, and many already implement them.
On sustainability, better energy efficiency will also benefit operators and their customers through operational cost savings in the long run.
The broader point is that regulation has costs, but poor resilience has costs too: downtime, lost transactions and disruption to businesses. The question is whether the standards create greater value and resilience than the costs that they impose.
This matters especially for SMEs. Most do not negotiate directly with data centres or cloud operators. They depend on digital services built on top of this infrastructure and have less bargaining power when something goes wrong. Baseline resilience therefore benefits them too.
Location of Data Centres
Ms He was concerned that some data centres are located near residential neighbourhoods.
Sir, land use for data centres in Singapore is centrally planned, and we work closely with the Urban Redevelopment Authority and JTC on this. All data centres are sited in industrial estates. For instance, the latest development is the purpose-built Data Centre Park on Jurong Island. There are also requirements to have sufficient separation between industrial estates and residential communities. Data centres set up in Singapore are also required to adhere to prevailing requirements for industrial premises, such as noise, water and air pollution.
Again, our situation is very different from that of many other jurisdictions around the world. Singapore’s future-oriented, systematic approach to urban planning provides us with levers to ensure that our industries, including data centres, address environmental concerns upfront.
DC sustainability
Green energy requirement for new DCs
Members also raised a wide range of sustainability issues: Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE), IT efficiency, water, cleaner energy, storage, cooling technologies and absolute resource use.
All these matter. As I said in my opening speech, PUE is a useful starting point, but it is not the endpoint. A facility can improve its efficiency even as its total demand rises. Efficiency matters, but so does total resource use.
Our objective should be a better overall resource outcome, not simply a better number on one indicator. Detailed measurement and technical standards, including how PUE is measured, should therefore continue to evolve with industry experience and technology. IMDA will engage industry on these details.
Mr Hoe asked whether there is an order of priority to use less electricity first, then cleaner electricity, then carbon credits. Mr Ng asked that green energy for data centres be "new, real, and able to reach Singapore".
The Bill is structured to provide for both.
New data centres awarded capacity under the latest Data Centre - Call for Application exercise must source at least 50% of their energy from eligible green pathways. These pathways deliberately include emerging options, such as low-carbon hydrogen, ammonia and biomethane.
Mr Chua and Ms He asked about the progress and certainty of the green pathways materialising. The new data centres were required to submit credible proposals to meet their low-carbon energy commitments. We expect data centres to deliver on these proposals, and the Bill will allow us to hold the data centres accountable if they do not do so.
But there is a broader opportunity here.
The Jurong Island Data Centre Park is not simply about adding more data centre capacity.
It is about using the scale of data centre demand to help develop new low-carbon energy pathways for Singapore.
The 50% requirement helps create demand for these emerging options, while Jurong Island also allows us to explore shared infrastructure, such as cooling and other utilities.
In other words, we are not just greening data centres. We are using data centres as pathfinders and early demand drivers to green the energy system.
Carbon credits come in only as a remedy, when a green energy project fails to deliver. They are not an alternative an operator can choose instead of the green energy it committed to.
Members also suggested batteries, district cooling, using the waste heat generated, flexible demand and new cooling approaches. These ideas are useful. Operators are incentivised to explore such innovative approaches. The Government is happy to engage them on these ideas.
At the same time, we should not wait until every technology is perfect before we begin, but neither should we lock ourselves too early into solutions that are not yet ready.
Regulating DCs for their water efficiency
Ms He, Mr Hoe, Ms Nadia, Ms Poh and Mr Dennis Tan noted that data centres are also large consumers of water, and asked whether water efficiency requirements will be introduced.
Today, most of the water used by the data centre sector is NEWater, which is mainly supplied for industrial and cooling purposes.
Our starting point is the existing standards and guidelines.
For instance, PUB has introduced a Water Usage Effectiveness target of two cubic metres per megawatt-hour or lower for new and existing data centres, as part of the target set in the Green Data Centre Roadmap.
Singapore is among the few jurisdictions in the world to set a water efficiency target for the data centre sector, and we will continue to monitor international and technological developments.
Having said that, the Bill puts in place the legislative basis to impose water efficiency requirements on new and existing data centres in future. PUB's Industrial Water Solutions Innovation Ecosystem Alliance for Data Centres, which brings industry, academia and trade associations together to develop and validate practical water efficient cooling solutions for Singapore's tropical conditions, will inform any future water efficiency requirements.
Publishing reports on DC operators’ sustainability metrics
Several Members asked for more transparency on the sector's electricity and water use. Some data is already published. For example:
EMA's Singapore Energy Statistics reports electricity consumption by sector, including the information and communication sector, which includes data centres.
PUB publishes the water efficiency benchmark for data centres.
The relevant agencies will consider what further sector level information can usefully be made available without disclosing commercially sensitive information. The relevant agencies will have to consider the reporting approach for various industry sectors, not just data centres.
Under the Bill, licensees will report regularly to IMDA. This gives IMDA the information it needs to regulate the sector and supports the Government's planning for national energy and water needs.
As we implement the Digital Infrastructure Act, IMDA will consider how to put out updates on the progress of the licensees in meeting the necessary requirements.
Security and resilience requirements
Sir, let me now turn to the Bill's security and resilience aspects.
Looking at the whole system
Dr Choo, Mr Hoe, Mr Kwek, Ms Nadia, Mr Saktiandi and Mr Yip raised questions about shared dependencies, incident reporting, overseas providers and whether resilience plans will work in practice.
Cyber threats matter, but major disruptions can also come from power or cooling failures, equipment faults, human error or misconfiguration. We therefore need to look at operational resilience more broadly.
Several Members highlighted common points of failure – a bank, hospital and Government service may each have sound recovery plans, yet all depend on the same cloud provider, network or data centre.
As Mr Victor Lye observed, individual resilience does not necessarily produce national resilience.
The Bill, therefore, gives the Government visibility across major providers. A single operator sees its own incident. The regulator needs to see the whole system. This helps us identify common dependencies and patterns that no individual operator may be able to see.
IMDA, as the sector regulator, works closely with the relevant national agencies, like the National Security Coordination Secretariat on these inter-dependencies matters.
Resilience in practice
Mr Yip made the practical point that a plan on paper is not the same as recovery in practice.
The Bill gives IMDA powers to set business continuity, disaster recovery and incident reporting requirements. The practices and measures for testing, assurance and remediation are better developed through the Codes of Practice with industry and sector regulators.
In consultation with licensees, IMDA will establish the necessary regime to assess compliance with the proposed Act, regulations, licence conditions and Codes of Practice.
Informing users of incidents/transparency
Mr Lee Hong Chuang asked about communications with users during disruptions. The key is that accurate information should move quickly through the service chain to the people and businesses affected. We agree with him.
There is, however, an important difference between cybersecurity incidents and service disruptions.
In a cybersecurity incident, users may not know they have been affected and may need to take action to protect themselves. In a service disruption, users know when the service is down. What they need is timely information on restoration delivered through the platforms that serve them.
Nonetheless, we could explore including such user notification requirements in subsequent regulations or Codes of Practice, if necessary, and in consultation with industry.
Several Members also asked the Government to publish more information on incidents and whether operators deliver on their commitments.
Much of what licensees report is commercially sensitive and the Bill protects it, but the information will be put to good use.
We will review incidents, share key learnings with operators and incorporate them into Codes of Practice, where appropriate.
Overlap with the Cybersecurity Act/ensuring streamlined process
Mr Chia and Mr Saktiandi were concerned about overlapping requirements between the Bill and the Cybersecurity Act, and Ms Chong called for a streamlined process for application, audit reporting and renewal.
It is our intent to minimise administrative burden for service providers and operators. As I mentioned in my opening speech, we aim to streamline processes, such as using a single application form and licence documentation for all data centres and foundational digital infrastructure services covered under the Bill, and we will work with industry to ensure that these are practical for all licensees.
Ms Nadia and Mr Chia asked about control and corporate structure, and which party will be issued the licence.
IMDA will provide greater clarity on how we assess which entity has control over the data centre and should be licensed. This is something that IMDA is familiar with, the concept of effective control and assessing different corporate structures. These are issues that IMDA deals with in other sectors that it regulates, such as the telecommunications sector, and often has to depend on the specific corporate structure and the details of the licensee.
MDDI, CSA and IMDA will also streamline requirements and processes under both the Digital Infrastructure Act and Cybersecurity Act regimes.
Where reporting requirements for cybersecurity incidents are similar, licensees will only need to report to IMDA, which will share the relevant information with CSA.
In effect, IMDA will be the single port of call that Mr Saktiandi asked for.
Assured access and strategic capability
Mr Hoe, Mr Victor Lye and Mr Saktiandi also raised broader questions about sovereign compute and assured access to critical capabilities.
This issue goes beyond the scope of the Bill and is an area that is still evolving rapidly. As this matter falls broadly under a remit of MDDI, let me just say a few words about it.
As pointed out by Mr Victor Lye, Singapore cannot and does not need to own every layer of the technology stack. For some capabilities, domestic capacity may matter. For others, assured access through diversified international providers may be sufficient. For strategically important capabilities, we may need both.
We also seek to maintain strong partnerships with leading companies across the tech stack and at the same time, build the capabilities to use different models and technology.
Thresholds for major FDI
Dr Choo and Mr Lye asked about services that fall below the thresholds, and whether several smaller providers could together become systemically important.
The thresholds target providers whose disruption would be most widely felt and were developed through extensive surveying of the industry.
We will review the scope of the Act and update it if needed.
Overseas providers
Mr Hoe, Ms Nadia and Mr Yip asked how we will ensure that services provided from overseas remain resilient, including whether overseas providers can act quickly in a disruption.
Our focus is on the services nexus to Singapore, and not whether the service provider is a foreign or local entity. The Bill regulates major foundational digital infrastructure service providers that provide services to users in Singapore or from Singapore, where a disruption could cause widespread impact on users.
Licensed overseas providers that provide their services to users in Singapore are therefore held to the same security and resilience requirements as local ones. They must put in place business continuity and disaster recovery plans that work in practice, and notify IMDA of incidents within reporting timelines.
Overseas providers must also appoint a person in Singapore to accept service of notices, directions and other documents under the Bill.
Emergency powers
Ms Lee Hui Ying asked whether IMDA should have step-in rights to put critical data centres under statutory trust or receivership, where an operator is unable or unwilling to act in the public interest.
Under clause 18 of the Bill, where a threat to the continuous provision of a major foundational digital infrastructure service creates a serious and imminent threat to Singapore, the Minister may direct any person to take the measures needed to prevent, detect or counter the threat. That is an important instrument to deal with the risk that I spoke about in my opening speech. I had also explained the safeguards that have been put in place.
Importantly, legal authority is not the same as operational capability. A modern data centre is highly specialised. The objective is to have the tools to protect and restore services effectively, not simply to maximise a form of Government control.
Benchmarks to other jurisdictions
Finally, Mr Chua, Ms He, Mr Saktiandi, Mr Sharael Taha and Mr Dennis Tan referred to how other jurisdictions regulate data centres and asked how the Bill compares. I refer the Members to the handout I distributed as part of my opening speech.
Around the world, governments are grappling with the same question: how do we keep data centres and cloud services – which are systemically important and resource-intensive – resilient, sustainable and accountable to the societies that host them?
The tools differ, but the direction is broadly the same. Major jurisdictions are tightening resilience requirements for critical digital infrastructure, while others are raising energy and resource efficiency standards for data centres.
Sir, the questions Singapore is addressing through this Bill are the same ones other governments now face about resilience, sustainability, resource allocation and economic development.
The difference is that we started early, years before these pressures became urgent. That gave us room to work through the issues collaboratively with industry, and to build this framework that we have in front of us today.
Conclusion
Sir, let me conclude and speak in Mandarin, please.
议长，今天议员们提出了许多重要的课题：如何确保数码基础设施安全、具备韧性，以及如何应对它对资源的需求。
不少议员和国人都担心，数据中心用电多，会不会让家里的电费跟着上涨。其实，数据中心买电的方式和一般家庭不同。它们以商业电价，向电力零售商或批发市场购电，接入电网的费用也由它们自己承担。因此，数据中心的发展不会直接推高家庭电费。
当然，这并不代表数据中心可以随意用电。我们对它们的要求严格：
无论新旧，数据中心都必须达到一定能效标准；
新获批的数据中心，更必须有至少一半的能源来自绿色能源。
我们的做法，不是不惜一切代价追求增长，也不是一味限制增长，而是提前规划，以负责任和可持续的方式发展，并随着科技的进步和形势的演变，不断提高标准。
数码基础设施法为我们提供了实现这些目标的框架：确保关键数码基础设施安全、具备韧性，为企业提供清晰、可预测的规则，并确保发展成果惠及国家和国人。
Mr Speaker, today's debate has shown broad agreement on the destination, even if Members might have different suggestions or clarifications on certain details.
Some Members want us to move faster in particular areas. Others are concerned about cost, implementation and competitiveness. These are legitimate concerns. Our responsibility is to balance them to raise standards for security and sustainability, while supporting growth and keeping Singapore competitive.
That is the approach behind the Bill.
We will plan ahead, rather than wait for problems to become crises. We will grow digital infrastructure selectively, make scarce resources work harder for Singapore and Singaporeans, and set clear rules while retaining room for standards and technology to improve.
We will focus on outcomes.
Not simply megawatts allocated, but value realised.
Not simply buildings and servers, but capabilities, businesses and services enabled.
Not simply resilience on paper, but resilience in practice.
Most Singaporeans may never enter a data centre, but increasingly, much of everyday life depends on one.
The real question is not how much capacity we need, but how good the infrastructure should be and what value Singapore gets in return.
Our ambition is not maximum compute and megawatts; it is maximum value from these capabilities that we host.
That is what this Bill is designed to secure: digital infrastructure that is reliable when we need it, sustainable over time and worthy of Singapore's trust.
Mr Speaker, I beg to move.