In Depth: Asia’s Data Center Developers Grapple With Green Restrictions, Energy Security

Data centers are a hot ticket in the Asia-Pacific, where investors are pouring billions of dollars into the industry. But the facilities’ voracious appetite for electricity is posing a major hurdle for developers, who are facing both soaring energy prices and governments that are trying to wean themselves off of fossil fuels.

Demand for data storage has rocketed as the pandemic has shifted working life online, increasing the use of cloud computing and creating a proliferation of data that needs to be stored and processed. A boom in data center investment has followed but so has a need for power. In 2020, global data center electricity usage was between 200 and 250 terawatt hours, around 1% of total electricity demand, according to the International Energy Agency.