Inside data center monitoring hubs

Digital Realty’s Singapore operations center shows the human element in critical infrastructure. Despite AI’s role in accelerating data center growth, human intervention remains crucial for validating alerts. Head of Asia Pacific global command center Terence Tang notes that AI and automation can produce false positives, requiring human analysts to confirm genuine outages.

The demand for data centers in Asia is a political issue, despite their necessity for services like online banking and AI. Serene Nah, Digital Realty’s Asia Pacific head, states that the business is misunderstood, facing public concerns over carbon emissions, heat, and water usage. This perception challenges expansion in markets like Singapore, where land and resources are constrained.

The company’s focus on renewable energy and water recycling aims to address these public concerns. Solar panels and closed-loop cooling systems are key initiatives. The test for Digital Realty is whether these efforts can shift public opinion and ease regulatory pressure in high-growth Asian markets by 2027.