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 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).