The Sustainable Tropical Data Centre Testbed (STDCT) is the first data centre testbed in the tropics, set up to enhance Singapore’s competitiveness in sustainable and efficient data centre solutions, for the region’s challenging high-temperature and humidity operations. STDCT is more than a physical facility, but a technology and operator agnostic co-innovation programme to closely engage different stakeholders in the data centre (DC) industry, who will work synergistically to future-proof the tropical DC industry in Singapore.
This open, neutral and live innovation hub envisions to empower research, development, and demonstration of sustainable and innovative cooling solutions for both the present and the future. STDCT is designed as a flexible facility, able to test a wide variety of data-centre-related technologies in the future.
It is projected that selection of the optimal cooling technologies can result in at least 25 percent reduction in energy consumption, as well as greenhouse gas emissions, as compared to conventional air-cooled DCs. Fine-tuning of operational parameters is expected to add a further 15 percent reduction. These cooling technologies will be test-bedded and de-risked at STDCT, together with the respective industry partner, to accelerate the commercial adoption of the proposed technologies.
This programme is jointly funded by the National Research Foundation Singapore (NRF), and anchor industry partner Facebook. The research is led by NUS and NTU, and supported by Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA). Five other industry partners involved are Ascenix Pte Ltd, CoolestDC Pte Ltd, Keppel Data Centres, New Media Express Pte Ltd, and Red Dot Analytics Pte Ltd.
About National University of Singapore (NUS)
The National University of Singapore (NUS) is Singapore’s flagship university, which offers a global approach to education, research and entrepreneurship, with a focus on Asian perspectives and expertise. We have 17 faculties across three campuses in Singapore, with more than 40,000 students from 100 countries enriching our vibrant and diverse campus community. We have also established our NUS Overseas Colleges programme in more than 15 cities around the world.
Our multidisciplinary and real-world approach to education, research and entrepreneurship enables us to work closely with industry, governments and academia to address crucial and complex issues relevant to Asia and the world. Researchers in our faculties, 30 universitylevel research institutes, research centres of excellence and corporate labs focus on themes that include energy; environmental and urban sustainability; treatment and prevention of diseases; active ageing; advanced materials; risk management and resilience of financial systems; Asian studies; and Smart Nation capabilities such as artificial intelligence, data science, operations research and cybersecurity.
About Nanyang Technological University (NTU)
A research-intensive public university, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) has 33,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students in the Engineering, Business, Science, Humanities, Arts, & Social Sciences, and Graduate colleges. It also has a medical school, the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, established jointly with Imperial College London.
NTU is also home to world-renowned autonomous institutes – the National Institute of Education, S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Earth Observatory of Singapore, and Singapore Centre for Environmental Life Sciences Engineering – and various leading research centres such as the Nanyang Environment & Water Research Institute (NEWRI) and Energy Research Institute @ NTU (ERI@N).
Ranked amongst the world’s top universities by QS, NTU has also been named the world’s top young university for the last seven years. The University’s main campus is frequently listed among the Top 15 most beautiful university campuses in the world and it has 57 Green Markcertified (equivalent to LEED-certified) building projects, of which 95% are certified Green Mark Platinum. Apart from its main campus, NTU also has a campus in Singapore’s healthcare district.
Under the NTU Smart Campus vision, the University harnesses the power of digital technology and tech-enabled solutions to support better learning and living experiences, the discovery of new knowledge, and the sustainability of resources.