- 2 months ago
Eric Fan, CEO of Bridge Data Centres, shares how data centres can operate sustainably, manage their environmental impact, and work toward climate-positive goals while supporting industry growth and talent development.
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00:00Good morning, you're watching Niaga Awani with me, Nina Rosman, and we're going to start with data centers, which are powering everything from AI to cloud services, but their footprint is getting harder to ignore.
00:12Today, we ask a bigger question. Can data centers actually become climate positive?
00:17Joining us is Eric Fan, CEO of Bridge Data Centers. We'll unpack what sustainability truly means for the industry, how players are managing energy and water concerns,
00:27and whether the sectors can grow responsibly while building talent and supporting the wider economy.
00:33So let's dive into the future of greener, smarter data centers. Thank you very much, Sharif, for joining me.
00:38Firstly, talking about the growing and the booming of data centers all over the world.
00:44Firstly, what does sustainability as in BDC's DNA really mean in the practice context?
00:52Thanks, Mina. Thanks for having me.
00:54I think really, you know, you know, at BDC, we actually pay a lot of attention in sustainability developments of the data center, right?
01:03I think first thing is really we have to be doer rather than a talker, right, in the sustainability piece.
01:09I think you'll be surprised to actually understand, right, the, you know, in terms of you mentioned about power, right?
01:15In terms of the content percentage of the renewable powers that we are using in our data center is actually far more than the other lines of industry in Malaysia, right?
01:27So that is a, I would say, pretty surprising number.
01:29So I'll give you for one example, you know, one of the major data centers we have built in Jeho, actually we are using more than half of the energy coming from the solar energies.
01:43So that is already an incredible achievement.
01:47So I think that's sort of contrary to what people perceive, right, in the past, right, that data center is power intensive, you know, requires a lot of power and, you know, placing some challenges on the power issues, right?
02:02I think second point is really, you know, talking about the sustainability.
02:06I think the sustainability measures, roadmaps itself has to be sustainable, right?
02:13So that means that you're not doing, let's say, a lot of fancy, you know, keywords, fancy technologies, doing only small demos.
02:20But we pay a lot of attention on, I would say, the scalabilities of those sustainable technologies, right?
02:28That requires the company like BDC to stay vigilant in terms of the latest technology advancement, right?
02:35I take one example, you know, previously, let's say two or three years back, most of data centers was actually using lead acid battery as the backup power solutions.
02:47We thought that these evolutions to more advanced and more sustainable solutions like lithium battery would take years to happen.
02:55But actually with the scale effect, with the advancement of the technology development, that actually happens a lot faster, right, in the space.
03:03So across the space right now in Malaysia, in our data center constructions, we are actually using the lithium batteries, which is more, you know, long lasting and sustainable solutions as a backup power, right?
03:17And so that is just one example that you have to stay ahead of the curve of these technology advancements and making economic sense of those scalable sustainability measures.
03:29All right.
03:30Definitely for sustainability measures, we need the right and the correct framework and suitable for each.
03:36Maybe we cannot, it's not allowing us to look at the one size fit all, but from your observations, what does a good ESG framework for data centers, please, should look like?
03:51Yeah, I think, well, I would say different company would have different, you know, methodologies for these sustainability framework.
04:01But I think, you know, for BDC, right, what is very important is that obviously you need to set up your sustainability goals, right?
04:11We have defined our sustainability goal as net zero by 2040.
04:17Obviously, you have to define your roadmap to achieve that goal.
04:21But what is, I think, I believe more important is to, it's actually two factors.
04:25I think, first, you have to create a strong, you know, internal governance structures to actually ensure the company has close monitoring the progress, the implementation of those roadmaps.
04:38And secondly, I think equally important is to have constant review of your roadmap to the sustainability goals.
04:47Because, as a matter of fact, the industry is evolving so fast, you know, in terms of the technology changes, right?
04:56You know, you hear all the, let's say, news from the industry, like the NVIDIA, you know, GPU chipset advanced from the, you know, the Blackwell to Rubin, you know, is really jumping forward to new pages of the technology setup, right?
05:13So, there's actually no principle for data center players, like us, to tell what's going to happen in the next 20 years or so, right?
05:21So, what actually matters is actually for you to review those technology roadmaps on a constant basis, right?
05:29And to be able to capture the latest advancements of these technology movements, to be able to implement in a scalable way of the most economic, you know, sustainable measures in our company.
05:42And that's exactly what we are doing right now, yeah.
05:45Can we apply the same measures to one of these issues as we see that some critics say data centers are causing great stress and high utility costs,
05:54and NGOs even warn that data centers consume too much water?
05:58How do we immediately respond to this?
06:00And how can players in the industry address this sustainably?
06:03Yeah, I think you rightly mentioned the issues of power and water.
06:12It's true.
06:13I mean, data center sector is a main, I would say, consumer of the power and water.
06:20But I think there is some, let's say, unique features of the data center industries.
06:25I mean, if we talk about a power aspect first, right, and power, data center is actually creating a very stable demand curve of the power consumptions, right?
06:36It's true that we actually consume a lot of power.
06:39That power, unlike some of the other industries, which could be very volatile, you know, seasonal, but data center is actually creating a very stable, you know, power demand curve, right?
06:50So if actually those demands are properly planned by the utility companies, part of our biogeneration companies that can manage those value chain, you know, pretty well in terms of supply and demand.
07:04So it's not actually adding additional stress to the power supply, to the grid structures, right?
07:10And secondly, I think it's very important to mention the scale effect here, right?
07:15So in fact, the more power actually you are using, the larger demand is, the larger those investment in terms of power generation and a grid infrastructure is going to be created, right?
07:29That actually spread across, you know, I would say on the per unit basis, which could be effectively cheaper for, you know, all the consumers across the space.
07:40So data center, the demand on power does not necessarily create additional stress or cost elements in a power space.
07:49But I think what has to be monitored is that the actual demand, you know, what are the actual credible demand from the data center, you know, players?
07:59What are the, in some cases, that could be more like a speculative demand, you know, in terms of power and water, right?
08:07In that sense, if the grid company or the power generation company are overbuilding those assets, eventually are not using these assets, right?
08:15That could create a certain concerns and a waste of the investment in the space.
08:20So I think for us, I think that is, on that aspect, it's probably from the local authority, from grid companies, you know, they need to pay more attention to.
08:28And that is a very critical aspect that we should take a look into.
08:33And other than the concerns over the water and energy utilization and potential waste stage, how does the data center industry contribute to local economy and talent development?
08:45Well, we're doing a lot, actually.
08:47If you look at the sheer investment numbers we have, we, at British Data Center, actually invested in the past few years in total $2 billion, right?
08:56In Malaysia, that's a huge, huge number, right?
09:00So we're actually not only building the data center in the local space, we're actually, you know, optimizing, building the whole infrastructure for the surrounding neighborhood, right?
09:11I think the best is actually seeing the actual site that we are building, right, in places like Chofor.
09:17So we are turning, you know, the regional farmland into a really kind of mini city in a way.
09:23We're building the roads, we're building the water infrastructure for the local communities, which are benefiting all the surrounding areas, right?
09:31So there's a lot of investment, there's a lot of improvements in the infrastructure works.
09:35And also, we are creating a lot of jobs here.
09:38You know, I'll give you an example, in one of the major sites we are building, the peak numbers for the workforce we are utilizing on that site will be over 2,000.
09:49That's a massive number of employment creation, right?
09:52And data center by nature is also highly demanded multidisciplinary work, which requires talents coming from, you know, all the fresh graduates or experienced talents, you know, equipped with, let's say, mechanical, electrical, civil engineering experience.
10:12So creating a lot of, let's say, highly paid skilled jobs for those specialists, right?
10:17And so I would say a lot of space, we're working a lot with local universities to actually incubate, you know, these talent pools to funnel the future growth for our company as well, right?
10:29And probably my last questions, Eric, we know that everyone talks about climate positive, climate positive, but what does this actually look like, especially in the year of, we can say, by 2040?
10:43Oh, yeah, you're talking about the climate impact, right?
10:49Let's say, 2040, right?
10:51Yes, I think, you know, obviously, first of all, for us to reach net zero, you know, before we talk about the, let's say, climate positive subject, right?
11:00And I think that's already kind of very challenging, that requires the, you know, all the work, you know, efforts from the registry, from all the peers in the industry to reach that net zero target.
11:12But I think down the way, there's definitely rooms for the industry to become a really net contributor to the society, right?
11:20You know, the subject like power, water, and there's a lot of rooms for the players to do in the space.
11:28Data center itself, down the way, could be also a source of power and water for the local community.
11:35Obviously, the massive, let's say, energy storage applications in the data center can be also a tuner in the green balancing.
11:44And in some of the areas, probably not the case for tropical conditions like Malaysia, but also data center can be, for example, a source of the central heating functions for the local community.
11:58So there are many, many applications are down the way, you know, beyond the net zero ambitions.
12:04Data center itself can be also a net contributor to the society at the same time.
12:08But we're also working on that path as well.
12:10All right, again, I want to say thank you very much to Eric Fenn for helping us understand on the data centers.
12:17We know it's not, definitely it's not easy.
12:20Probably many concerns in the future about water and energy utilization and potential wastage from this usage of data centers.
12:29But also, it's very important for us to monitor and measurement and see the right, the correct framework for the ESG framework within the data center.
12:38So we can see, so we'll be able to push forward all the development of not only the data center, but also the talent and the productivity development of the data center.
12:48Again, I want to say thank you very much to Eric Fenn, the CEO of Bridge Data Center.
12:52There's definitely all of our discussion here will be featured in astrowni.com and across all social media platform.
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