Data‑centres need water‑rich sites

Southeast Asia’s next data centres are being steered toward places with more water, as operators and officials treat cooling supply as a basic siting test. (eco-business.com) Industry leaders cited Indonesia’s new capital Nusantara and the Malaysian states of Perak and Pahang as examples of locations with stronger water profiles than tighter urban hubs. Eco-Business reported the discussion on April 14, 2026. (eco-business.com) The problem is mechanical as much as geographic: servers throw off heat, and many facilities use water-based or evaporative cooling to remove it. Infrastructure Asia said a single hyperscale site can use up to 1.5 million litres of water a day, and liquid cooling is spreading as artificial intelligence workloads grow. (infrastructureasia.org) That pressure is landing in a region where some of the fastest-growing digital markets are also water-stressed. Infrastructure Asia pointed to Jakarta and Manila as cities where rising data-centre demand collides with tight water supplies. (infrastructureasia.org) Malaysia shows how pricing can change the map. Bernama reported in September 2025 that the country’s planned National Sustainable Data Centre Framework was expected to include a dedicated water tariff of RM5.50 per cubic metre, replacing the standard industrial rate. (bernama.com) That same framework was expected to push operators toward recycled water and district cooling, with Johor’s Ulu Tiram reclaimed-water network cited as part of the business case. Bernama also said new facilities could be required to source at least 30 per cent of their electricity load from renewable energy by 2030. (bernama.com) Johor has become the clearest stress test because it absorbed spillover demand after Singapore’s 2019-to-2022 moratorium on new data centres. Malaysia’s investment agency said approved data-centre investments totalled RM114.7 billion between 2021 and 2023, or 79 per cent of approved digital investments in that period. (mida.gov.my) The same report said Johor had attracted 50 data-centre investments in two years and had more than 1.6 gigawatts of supply, citing DC Byte’s 2024 index. It also said a typical 100-megawatt data centre can use about 1.1 million gallons of water a day, or 4.2 million litres. (mida.gov.my) Operators say siting does not have to mean drawing only on drinking water. Google says it assesses watershed health for each campus and, in higher-risk locations, looks for alternatives such as air cooling or recycled water. (datacenters.google) The result is a narrower checklist for where the region’s digital buildout can go: not just cheap land and power, but enough water, the right tariff, and a way to keep cooling systems running through drought and growth. (eco-business.com)