*By: Ir. Habibie Razak - Regional Director (Energy), Surbana Jurong Group

The current data center industry is "booming" because of the demand for data and rapid growth of artificial intelligence (AI). In Indonesia, there are at least 7 very active data center companies in this business including Telkomsigma, Nex Data Center, DCI Indonesia, Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison, Biznet Data Center, Lintasarta and Edgeconnex.

Some foreign players who developed their wings in Indonesia such as Microsoft, Gemilang Informatics Mitra, Alibaba Cloud, Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Keppel Data Centers, Space DC, NTT Communications, Equinix, Digital Realty and Mitsubishi Corporation, Princeton Digital Group (PDG) (STT GDC) and several other players.

What factors have the growth of data central in the world and especially in Indonesia today. At least a few things below are playing drivers, including:

• The use of cloud computing services and its applications that developed very rapidly. fast.
• Internet of Things, United States is a leading market for industrial iot-driven technologies.

In addition to the data center growth drivers above, there are several challenges in the development of this data center industry, including:

• Power Demand
• Data Center Cooling
• Data Management Issues
• Cybersecurity and Protection from Breaches Data
• Space and Scalability
• Data Center Challenges and Sustainability

According to Analysis from McKinsey that the demand for AI-Ready Data Center Capacity will increase at an average of 33% per year between 2023 and 2030.

Two technical and economic aspects that affect the investment data center are large electricity needs and a source of cooling needs for this data center infrastructure.

Data Center is known as Hungry Infrastructure Power in the era of this energy transition is certainly encouraged to use electrical energy sources derived from new renewable energy or at least transitional energy (LNG C Gas).

Preparation of electrical energy for the data center is currently still taking electricity from the PLN grid in Indonesia which has not fully adopted 100 percent cleaner energy. Based on experience

Surbana Jurong Group www.surbanajurong.com In several DC projects that are currently being worked on in Indonesia and ASEAN, there are several greeher electrical energy preparation strategies that can be adopted and developed, among others:

• Hybrid Renewable Energy
  Integrating Solar, Wind, and other renewable energy sources to carry out sustainable data center operations. The use of hybrid RE also reduces dependence on Grid Power and Carbon Footprint and reduces Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE).

• Combined Heat and Power (CHP)

supplying electrical energy and cooling directly to the data center with high efficiency. With this concept we are also able to minimize energy losses and increase overall operational efficiency, reduce pue and indirect water use (indirect water usage).

• i mpor through a subsea:

provides access to clean energy sources (such as hydropower) from remote locations through the cables subsea. This concept certainly prepares stable, low-carbon power supply and contributes to a decrease in power usage effectiveness (pue). Kalimantan, for example, is rich in energy sources from Hydropower with Subsea Cable (HVDC) technology, capable of transmitting electricity to islands that will become data centers of data centers.

While the cooling data center solution involving the latest technology outside of conventional cooling such as Air-cooled, Water-cooled, Glycol-cooled and Chilled Water System include:

• Cryogenic Polygen
  Shipping Cryogenic Cooling and integrates power plants, cooling, and thermal storage for Ultra-Efficient Cooling. Cryogenic Polygen is also able to reduce dependence on energy-intensive traditional Cooling Methods, minimizing power usage effectiveness (pue).

And no less important, this technology is able to capture and reuse Waste Cold Energy, then optimize Water Usage Effectiveness (WUE).

• Combined Heat and Power (CHP)
  produces electrical and cooling energy as well as a single fuel source. This concept provides reliable & efficient cooling and reduces energy losses, and increases pue. No less important, CHP is also able to reduce water consumption by incorporating more advanced cooling techniques, positively affecting Wue.

One project undertaken by SJ Group in Singapore is a Floating Data Center with Onsite Power Generation where LNG is converted to gas through a regional process before being sent to a power plant.

Under conditions of cool environment, data center takes most energy, concepts that allow efficient energy by utilizing waste cold from the regional process to cool the data center.

Indonesia in the future will build a Hyperscale Data Center to be able to meet the rapid data and information requirements in terms of storage, regulation, processing, and submitting large data to support business performance, economic activities and government.

Indonesian Engineers are also required to have competence. Relevant & Unique Skills to be able to work in teams in designing and building data center infrastructure in Indonesia and in the world.

Indonesian Engineers are going global.