Data Centers in APAC

Why Choose Datacenters in Asia-Pacific (APAC)

Executive Summary: Datacenters Market in APAC

The Asia-Pacific (APAC) digital infrastructure market is officially transitioning from an emerging frontier to the primary engine of global data center growth. By 2030, the region's capacity is projected to nearly double, driven by a massive surge in mobile internet penetration, sovereign cloud mandates, and AI adoption. However, APAC is not a monolith; it is a "dual-track" market. Buyers must navigate between mature, highly constrained hubs like Singapore and Tokyo (where vacancy is often <2% and prices are premium) and rapidly expanding "spillover" markets like Johor Bahru and Mumbai that offer gigawatt-scale capacity at a fraction of the cost. For global enterprises, APAC offers the world's most dynamic growth story, provided they can master the complex web of cross-border connectivity and diverse regulatory frameworks.

Find colocation, interconnection, and AI-ready capacity across the region, from the financial cores of the Tiger Economies to the new hyperscale campuses of South and Southeast Asia.

APAC Datacenter Market at a Glance

APAC is growing at a furious 12% CAGR, outpacing both North America and Europe. The market is defined by its maritime geography; unlike the terrestrial grids of the US, APAC's digital economy relies on a vast network of subsea cables to connect island nations and peninsulas. This creates a unique "hub-and-spoke" dynamic where connectivity is heavily concentrated in coastal gateways. The region is currently witnessing a massive decentralization, as the "Singapore Moratorium" (strict limits on new builds) has pushed demand into neighboring Malaysia and Indonesia, creating cross-border "Twin Cities" models (e.g., Singapore-Johor) similar to Northern Virginia's dominance.

Major Data Center Hubs in APAC

Southeast Asia (SEA)

• Singapore remains the premier interconnection hub for the region, hosting the APAC headquarters for nearly every major tech firm. However, due to power constraints and strict sustainability caps (PUE < 1.3), it is now primarily a destination for high-value, low-latency financial and routing workloads.
• Johor Bahru (Malaysia) has emerged as the "Northern Virginia of Southeast Asia." Located just across the border from Singapore, it offers abundant land and power at significantly lower rates, absorbing the bulk of the region's AI and hyperscale spillover.
• Jakarta (Indonesia) serves the region's largest digital population, with a rapidly modernizing data center sector fueled by data localization laws requiring user data to stay within the country.

East Asia

• Tokyo is a massive, mature market serving Japan's sophisticated domestic economy. It is characterized by extreme density, high construction costs, and a focus on seismic resilience.
• Seoul is a global leader in connectivity speed and mobile adoption, serving as a critical bridge between China, Japan, and the US via trans-Pacific cables.

South Asia and Oceania

• Mumbai is India's digital capital, home to a booming cloud market. It is favored for its access to subsea cables connecting to the Middle East and Europe, as well as massive renewable energy projects powering new campuses.
• Sydney serves as the primary gateway for Oceania, offering a highly developed, Western-style regulatory environment and direct subsea routes to the US and Asia.

APAC's Regional Strengths for Colocation Buyers

Cost Arbitrage: The pricing spread in APAC is the widest in the world. Buyers can deploy latency-sensitive "front-end" nodes in Singapore (paying "$300-$450 per kW") while placing bulk AI training or storage clusters just miles away in Johor or Batam for as little as "$130 per kW". Subsea Resilience: The region is in the midst of a subsea construction boom. New systems like Bifrost, Echo, and Apricot are adding massive diversity, allowing traffic to bypass congested routes and reducing the risk of a single cable cut isolating a market. Scale for AI: Markets like India and Malaysia are building campuses on a scale rarely seen in Europe, with 100MW+ sites becoming common. This makes them ideal for training Large Language Models (LLMs) that require massive contiguous power blocks. Sovereignty Options: With diverse political landscapes, buyers can choose locations that align with their specific geopolitical risk profiles, balancing between US-aligned hubs (Japan, Australia) and neutral grounds (Singapore, Malaysia).

How to Choose an APAC Datacenter Location

• Adopt a "Core + Edge" Strategy: Don't force all workloads into expensive hubs. Use Singapore or Tokyo for latency-critical applications, but offload compute-heavy tasks to Malaysia, India, or Indonesia to slash TCO.
• Verify Liquid Cooling Readiness: In tropical markets (Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, India), ambient temperatures are high year-round. Ensure your facility is designed for high-efficiency cooling (low WUE) and can support liquid-cooled racks, as traditional air cooling is inefficient and costly here.
• Check the Subsea Map: Connectivity is life in APAC. Ensure your facility has diverse backhaul to the major subsea cable landing stations (CLS). A data center without strong subsea access is an island in a bad way.
• Navigate Regulations: Each country has unique data laws. Singapore has strict environmental standards (IMDA); Indonesia and Vietnam have data residency requirements; Australia has critical infrastructure laws (SOCI). Legal due diligence is as important as technical due diligence.

Countries and Cities for Datacenters in APAC

Use these guides to drill into local conditions: connectivity maps, power costs, and provider options - for each key market.

• Data centers in Singapore - the strategic connectivity core, focusing on high-value interconnection and regulatory constraints.
• Data centers in Malaysia - deep dive into the booming Johor market and the advantages of the "Twin Cities" model.
• Data centers in Japan - coverage of Tokyo and Osaka, emphasizing seismic resilience and high-density computing.
• Data centers in India - guide to the massive scale of Mumbai and Chennai, driven by renewable energy and data localization.
• Data centers in Australia - focus on Sydney and Melbourne as stable, Western-standard hubs for the Pacific.

Within each country, you can explore city-level pages like Singapore, Johor Bahru, Tokyo, Mumbai, Sydney, and Jakarta, each with its own local insights and provider list.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Why is Singapore so expensive compared to Malaysia? A: Singapore is land-constrained and power-constrained, leading to a government-imposed moratorium on new data centers that only recently eased with strict caps. This scarcity drives prices up. Malaysia, specifically Johor, has abundant land and power just across the causeway, creating a massive supply-side difference.

Q: Can I run high-density AI workloads in tropical climates? A: Yes, but it requires modern infrastructure. You must select facilities purpose-built with higher slab-to-slab heights for heat rising, and preferably those equipped for liquid cooling (Direct-to-Chip or Rear Door Heat Exchangers) to manage heat rejection efficiently without astronomical electricity bills.

Q: What is the "Singapore-Johor" corridor? A: It is a cross-border data center ecosystem. Companies keep their headquarters and network routing in Singapore (for low latency and business ease) but run their heavy compute servers in Johor, Malaysia, connecting the two via high-count dark fiber cables across the border.

Q: How do data residency laws affect site selection in APAC? A: Significantly. Countries like Indonesia, Vietnam, and China have strict laws requiring citizen data to be stored physically within national borders. If you serve these markets, you likely need a local deployment, whereas markets like Singapore and Australia allow for more open cross-border data flows.