As digital infrastructure demand continues to accelerate globally and across Asia, sustainable data centres are becoming a critical pillar of the region’s energy transition, digital economy, and long-term infrastructure investment strategy. Rising AI workloads, cloud adoption, and regional digitalization are driving significant expansion in data centre capacity, while governments and investors face growing pressure to balance digital growth with energy efficiency, renewable energy integration, and decarbonisation goals.
This article summarizes key insights from ATxSG 2026, highlighting discussions around green investments, sustainable infrastructure strategies, and the evolving role of capital, policy, and technology in shaping the next phase of data centre development across Asia.
ATxSG 2026: Sustainability and Infrastructure at the Centre of Asia’s Digital Growth
Asia Tech x Singapore (ATxSG) 2026 brought together technology leaders, infrastructure investors, policymakers, digital platform operators, and sustainability specialists from across the region. The event featured discussions on AI, cloud infrastructure, digital connectivity, satellite systems, cybersecurity, smart cities, and sustainable technology ecosystems. Organized by IMDA and Informa Tech, the event drew over 22,000 attendees from 110 countries. By bridging conversations between tech executives and governments, ATxSG 2026 acted as a key marketplace for enterprise tech adoption.
One of the recurring themes across the conference was the rapid growth of digital infrastructure demand across Asia and the implications this has for energy systems, land and water use, financing models, and sustainability targets and the implications for reliable power, renewable energy integration, cooling innovation, grid resilience and regional cross-border collaboration at a policy and infrastructure level.
IGPI at ATxSG 2026: Green Capital – Investment Strategies for Sustainable Data Centre Growth
At the conference, IGPI participated in a panel discussion moderated by Shivaji Das, Managing Director at IGPI Singapore. The session was titled Green Capital: Investment Strategies for Sustainable Data Centre Growth.
The discussion, featuring Tanya Ahuja (VP Corporate Development APAC, Equinix) and Tony Tso (Senior Consultant, Uptime Institute), covered the theme of how Asia can scale digital infrastructure while managing energy transition objectives and long-term sustainability requirements.
Sustainability and Data Centres: Can the two go together?
As discussed in the panel, several key trends are shaping the future of sustainable data centre investments across Asia-Pacific:
1. Explosive growth in AI and data centre demand:
Rapid deployment of AI, Internet of Things (IoT), connected mobility, and smart manufacturing is significantly increasing investments in digital infrastructure across Asia, particularly hyperscale data centres. AI demand, in particular, is pushing hyperscale data centre requirements to unprecedented levels, with some operators now seeking 100MW-scale deployments within 12-month timelines.
2. Data centres emerging as critical energy and water infrastructure:
Data Centre needs, earlier a small fraction of utility demand, are now accounting for as much as 5-10% of local power and water demand in certain markets. Other areas of impact on natural resources include land and materials. Data centre investment decisions are increasingly influenced by power and water availability rather than land availability or communication infrastructure’s maturity alone.
3. Geopolitical risks accelerating the push for sustainable infrastructure:
The recent energy crisis has put extra pressure on the already stressed resource situation in Asia pacific. And despite several countries including the United States now reducing their emphasis on sustainability linked incentives and regulations, hyperscalers and regional governments remain committed to their mid-and long-term net zero commitments. Large customers, especially multinational corporations, now require sustainability commitments from data centre operators as part of procurement and vendor selection processes. Renewable integration, cooling efficiency, water management, and energy optimization are therefore emerging as key design and operational priorities for data centres.
4. Renewable resources are critical but challenges with deployment remain:
While renewable power such as solar or wind has become cheaper than conventional power in certain geographical pockets, the wider region faces constraints with respect to costs, availability and reliability of renewable power. Sustainability measures cannot compromise uptime, reliability, or operational resilience, which remain the core requirements for enterprise and hyperscale customers. Slow progress on regulations related to carbon pricing and non-tariff barriers arising out of geopolitical tensions further dampen the case for sustainability integration.
5. Technology as an enabler for sustainable data centres:
Technology can also play a part in achieving part of the sustainability goals for data centres. These include AI-enabled energy management systems, improved chip designs, smart grid integration, battery storage, and digital optimization tools in improving operational efficiency across large-scale data centre platforms. In the long term, this will be aided by commercialization of technologies such as Small Modular Reactors (SMR), Satellite-based Power, and Space Data Centres.
6. Importance of Green financing:
As a result of the above factors, Green financing is increasingly becoming an integral component of data centre investment, as long-term energy resilience now directly influences project viability and investor confidence. Investors are increasingly evaluating projects based on long-term energy resilience, cooling efficiency, renewable integration capability, and operational optimization rather than relying only on high-level sustainability disclosures.
Infrastructure investors, utilities, sovereign funds, and private capital providers are increasingly collaborating through platform structures, long-term power partnerships, and integrated infrastructure investment strategies.
Conclusion
In summary, discussions at ATxSG 2026 reinforced that the future of data centre investment in Asia will increasingly be shaped by the intersection of digital infrastructure, energy transition, and sustainable capital deployment.
As AI adoption and digital demand continue to expand across the region, organizations will need to approach data centre growth not only as a technology scaling challenge, but also as an energy, infrastructure, and long-term sustainability challenge requiring coordinated investment and ecosystem collaboration.
IGPI and Sustainable Investments in Data Centres
IGPI has been supporting sustainability initiatives across the data centre ecosystem through advisory, investment, and ecosystem collaboration. IGPI has worked with clients across infrastructure, technology, and investment segments on projects related to green data centre development, renewable integration, and sustainable digital infrastructure strategy.
Recent work includes supporting a global engineering services company on green data centre pipeline development across Asia-Pacific, conducting feasibility studies for sustainable data centre investments, and advising on safer and more energy-efficient UPS battery technologies. Sustainability also remains the most important investment consideration within IGPI-managed platforms such as the India–Japan Fund.
By playing such a multi-faceted role, IGPI is thus able to bring together financiers, operators, hyperscalers, and technology providers to foster commercially viable business models for sustainable infrastructure deployment globally.
