Speech by Minister Chan Chun Sing at the Facebook Data Centre groundbreaking ceremony

​SPEECH BY MR CHAN CHUN SING, MINISTER FOR TRADE AND INDUSTRY, AT THE FACEBOOK DATA CENTRE GROUNDBREAKING CEREMONY ON THURSDAY, 6 SEPTEMBER 2018 AT 9.00AM AT JTC SUMMIT

Distinguished Guests,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Good Morning.

1          I am excited to be here for two reasons. One, let me share how this project fits into our overall national strategy. Two, from a technical viewpoint, why to me, it is a bit of a dream come true.

2          Why is this project so important to Singapore? For those of you from the Facebook team who may be new here, Singapore is not a very big place. We are a small city state. After much reclamation, we are about 700 square kilometres. It has always been difficult for small city states to survive because we have difficulties accessing markets and resources. So ever since independence, we have always asked ourselves: How do we transcend our geographical size and location? How do we compete to earn our lunch? Not by price nor by scale. Because if it is by scale or by price, we have no reason to thrive. Bigger countries, bigger cities, with much greater access to resources will easily take our lunch.

3          Which is why, in the past, we depend on the concept of connecting with the rest of the world. Using the rest of the world as our hinterland. In the past, our concept of connectivity was simply to make sure that our air, land and sea links - the three dimensions of physical connectivity - were all top notch. But today’s technology has given us a new perspective of how we can transcend our geographical size and location. We want to connect in the non-physical dimensions to the rest of the world. That includes data, finance, technology and talent – seven dimensions in total.

4          This is why Facebook’s presence is so important here. It speaks to us about enhancing our connectivity to the rest of the world, in terms of physical connectivity, in terms of the cables you are going to build. It also speaks to us about connections in terms of talent, ideas and technology. And this investment in the digital realm will help us transcend our previous constraints of geography and size. Such investments, not just from Facebook alone, but also from many other players in similar fields, will help us transcend our geography and size. 

5          We are confident, going forward, that we will need to compete less on scale and price but to compete on the basis of our creativity and connectivity. So thank you for your investment here and making a bold statement. Our partnership will defy the odds of history - a small city state can not only survive but thrive because of our connectivity and because we are leveraging the latest technology to transcend our constraints. 

6          Now why am I personally excited? When I look at data, I have always challenged my team to see that in the whole data business, we do not need to be everywhere and in every area. There is data storage, data analytics, data processing, data security, intellectual property and so on. And in Singapore, we have always asked ourselves: Which part of the value chain can we be good at? I think we have an advantage in terms of data protection, data security, and intellectual property. In data analytics, we are getting there. But the challenge has always been how we can play a meaningful role in the value chain for data storage. Because we neither have the land nor the energy that larger countries or cites can offer. And this is where, the conversation with Jay this morning really excites me. In one project, we are trying to overcome two challenges. How do we compress the data centre and make it both less land intensive as well as less energy intensive compared to all the other data centres? We have heard your idea of turning a horizontal data centre into a vertical stack and in the whole process achieve greater energy and operational efficiency. That excites me personally.

7          Because we know, that while we may not be the data centre of the world, but in order to be part of the data value chain, from processing, analytics, storage, to security and intellectual property, we need a certain amount of connectivity and a certain number of data centres to be present in Singapore. So this project is exciting, not just because it is a data storage center but it is one that breaks new ground in the area of land utilisation and energy consumption.

8          I look forward to the successful completion of this project. And I hope that this will not just be another project but a milestone. A milestone in our ability to design data centres in land scarce Singapore. A milestone as we continue to push down the level of energy consumption required for data centres. And who knows, maybe one day we will get very close to a PUE[1] ratio of 1. Or maybe one day, we will come up with a new idea to go below 1. That will really be something that we can look forward to. You never know. Once upon a time we were talking about zero emissions buildings, but today we already have buildings that are net positive – they do not just consume energy but they are net producers of energy. So we can never say never given how technology progresses. The only limitation is our imagination. 

9          On that note, thank you to Facebook for your confidence in Singapore. We look forward to your partnership and we certainly look forward to you creating new milestones and breaking new grounds together in Singapore.

[1] Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) is defined as the ratio of the total power consumed by a data centre to the power consumed by the IT equipment that populates the facility.