Singapore’s Digital Infrastructure Bill introduces a fine of up to S$1 million (US$770K) , or up to 10 per cent of the Singapore annual turnover of major data centers and cloud service providers for certain breaches under a newly proposed licensing regime for the industry. Licenses will be made mandatory for foundational digital infrastructure (FDI) which includes data centres with essential computing equipment — servers, storage drives and networking hardware — that requires 10 megawatts (MW) of electrical power to operate. Also included are cloud computing firms that earn more than an average annual revenue of S$100 million (US$77 million) in Singapore over three years.
The new proposals were released today through a public consultation paper issued by the Ministry of Digital Development and Information (MDDI) and Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA).
Under the proposed FDI license regime, the affected parties would have to ensure the physical and digital security of their services, put in place business continuity and disaster recovery plans, and notify IMDA of cybersecurity incidents or service disruptions.
Detailed requirements will be based on advisory guidelines issued in February 2025 for data centre operators and cloud service providers. Once the bill is passed in Parliament, subsidiary legislation and codes of practice will lay out the details in more precise terms.
The earlier advisory guidelines require data centers to put in place several measures to minimise service disruptions such as fire and flood mitigation measures and safeguards against supply chain attacks, malware and ransomware. Cloud service providers also need to strengthen security over users’ details such as user access, and maintain audit logs to enable detection and investigation of security incidents.
Data center operators that operate at least 3MW of electricity will be required to apply for a data centre (DC) licence which prescribes minimum power usage effectiveness or PUE requirements. Other factors taken into consideration for approval include water efficiency, renewable energy sources, greenhouse gas emissions and contributions to Singapore’s economy.
The Bill may also impose energy requirements on IT equipment, and water efficiency requirements.
The public can provide feedback on the Bill until July 22, 10am.