Network services provider Pacnet announced plans to spend $90 million on a Tier III data center in Singapore, expanding the number of its Asia-Pacific data centers and boosting its ability to serve American content providers, e-commerce firms and Internet portals.
Located in the Paya Lebar area on the north-east side of the island nation, the eight-story, 157,000 square foot standalone facility will meet Tier III data center standards and is slated for completion in the fourth quarter of 2013.
The facility will be compliant with standards of the BCA Green Mark certification, Singapore’s equivalent of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC).
The facility will be carrier-neutral and will be directly connected to Pacnet’s wholly owned submarine cable networks with fully redundant power and cooling systems, advanced fire detection and suppression systems, as well as state-of-the-art security access systems, a company release stated.
The new data center is designed to support customer requirements for high-power density needs through the supply of 12 megavolt-ampere (MVA) utility connections (upgradable to 15MVA). The facility will be capable of supporting 1,500 high power density racks with an initial IT load of 6 Megawatts.
Pacnet currently operates more than 300,000 square feet of data center space across 16 cities in the region that are interconnected by Pacnet’s high speed network.
“As one of the world’s most dynamic economic and financial hubs, Singapore continues to have appetite for data center services, and supply has struggled to keep up,” Jim Fagan, president of managed services at Pacnet, said in a statement. “This new facility not only provides customers with data center and connectivity services in Singapore, but gives them access to Pacnet’s broad portfolio of managed services, allowing them to interconnect their data requirements throughout Asia.”
According to research firm Frost & Sullivan, the Singapore data center services market is expected to grow from $223 million in 2010 to $550.3 million in 2017, at a compound annual growth rate of 13.8 percent. Pacnet also recently announced plans for a data center in Tianjin, China, capable of hosting 2,000 racks, and will soon announce another data center in Chongqing, another Chinese metropolis.
“This facility reinforces our commitment to providing high quality, innovative data center solutions to the Singapore market, addressing customers’ needs for margin improvement, while continuing to meet environmental requirements,” Fagan said.
Pacnet, headquartered in Hong Kong and Singapore, boasts ownership of the region’s most extensive high-capacity submarine cable systems with more than 28,500 miles of fiber and connectivity to 24 data centers, including its facilities in Hong Kong, Singapore and Sydney.
In 2010, eWEEK reported on Pacnet’s partnership with Google and SubCom to lay a new fiber optic cable all the way across the Pacific. We also added some visuals — a 19-page slideshow — detailing how a project like this is accomplished. Take a look if you can.