Call for Application (CFA2) – From Singapore to SIJORI and Beyond

Subtitle: Singapore + Johor + Jakarta–Batam + KL/Selangor + Bangkok/EEC

James Soh

CFA2 in a “Singapore+” View

Singapore’s second Call for Application for data centres (CFA2) is often discussed as a 200‑plus megawatt decision confined within one small island. In reality, it sits inside a much larger Singapore+ corridor that runs through Johor, Jakarta–Batam, KL-Selangor and Bangkok/EEC. The way CFA2 capacity is allocated and designed will shape not just Singapore’s AI hub ambitions, but also jobs, skills and economic value across this wider region.

For more than a decade, the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) has spearheaded an “External/Connected Singapore” strategy: Singapore is a Global‑Asia node, not a closed market. That same mindset now needs to be applied explicitly to CFA2 and AI‑era data centres.

Connected Singapore: The Strategic Context for CFA2

Singapore’s economic strategy treats the country as a regional command centre: decisions on expansion, capital deployment and risk are made here, even when assets and operations sit around Asia. The state has deliberately wired itself into surrounding markets through digital agreements and programmes that link government, companies and universities, so firms based in Singapore can reach customers and partners across the region with minimal friction.

Long‑term investments in research and innovation have made Singapore a home base for work on AI, infrastructure technologies and the green transition, with an expectation that these capabilities will be applied in neighbouring economies. At the same time, policy is geared toward building and attracting a highly skilled workforce, so complex, high‑value functions tend to be anchored here. Structured partnerships between multinationals, local SMEs and regional counterparts spread capability along supply chains instead of concentrating it in a few global players.

Applied to CFA2, this means new DC capacity should not be treated as a self‑contained project. CFA2 facilities become control and trust nodes in a corridor where large‑scale build‑out, power and many operational layers will sit in Johor, Jakarta–Batam and Bangkok/EEC, while high‑value decision‑making, governance and innovation remain anchored in Singapore.

Side Note:

A quick look at recent moves in the market underlines this Singapore+ reality. A KKR‑led consortium with Singtel is acquiring full ownership of ST Telemedia Global Data Centres at a S$13.8 billion enterprise value to drive its next phase of international growth from a Singapore base (link). Keppel DC REIT is consolidating 100% ownership of key Singapore data centres while continuing to grow a diversified global portfolio (link). DayOne, headquartered in Singapore with projects across Southeast Asia and beyond, is exploring a US IPO that could value it at up to US$20 billion, with a possible dual listing in Singapore (link).

At the same time, operators and platforms such as Bridge Data Centres and Digital Edge, as well as many regional MEP and specialist DC engineering firms, anchor their regional decision‑making, financing, design leadership and senior talent in Singapore while executing capacity in Johor, Indonesia, Thailand and other SIJORI Plus markets. Taken together, these examples show the same pattern: Singapore as hub and capital market, SIJORI Plus as execution and growth theatre

From Singapore Hub to SIJORI Plus Corridor

Singapore – CFA2 as the “Brain” and Trust Node

CFA2 capacity in Singapore should be understood as control‑plane and trust infrastructure, not just more white space. Singapore’s strengths are regulation, capital, connectivity, and the ability to host high‑value AI inference and decision‑support workloads securely and reliably.

With scarce incremental MW and strong sustainability constraints, the role of CFA2 sites is to concentrate high economic value per MW: governance, orchestration, model serving for regulated sectors, and regional coordination—while treating large‑scale build‑out and some operational layers as distributed across the SIJORI Plus corridor.

Johor – High‑Capacity Spillover and Build Engine

Johor has rapidly become the natural spillover basin for Singapore’s data centre growth. It offers significantly more land and power than Singapore, while remaining physically and network‑wise very close to the island (link).

In a CFA2–SIJORI Plus view, Johor is where you locate large campuses, construction jobs and much of the facilities workforce that would be hard to accommodate within Singapore’s footprint. Design, financing and high‑level governance may sit in Singapore, but hundreds of megawatts of actual build‑out and a large share of supply‑chain and operations jobs will materialise in Johor.

Jakarta–Batam – Indonesia’s AI DC Corridor

Indonesia’s DC and AI growth will hinge on a Jakarta–Cikarang + Batam corridor. Jakarta and its surrounding industrial zones already host a large and growing pipeline—over 700 MW of capacity in development—as the country’s main domestic digital basin (link).

Batam, by contrast, is a strategic but power‑sensitive satellite. It offers low‑latency proximity to Singapore and has attracted projects like NeutraDC/Nxera’s campus backed by PLN Batam power deals (link). Yet analyses of Indonesia’s grid and DC power market stress that Batam’s available and planned capacity will remain constrained relative to unconstrained AI DC demand unless significant upgrades and regional interconnections (such as trilateral “green super grid” initiatives) are realised (link).

For CFA2 thinking, this means Singapore DCs will both depend on and shape the Jakarta–Batam axis: workloads, standards and talent will flow from Singapore into these sites, while power, renewable capacity and scale will increasingly flow back into the SIJORI Plus corridor.

Bangkok + EEC – Thailand’s AI‑Ready Eastern Corridor

Thailand is building its own DC/AI corridor around Bangkok and the Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC). BOI approvals and recent announcements—including multi‑hundred‑MW, AI‑ready data centres and EEC‑linked investments—explicitly tie DC projects to job creation, skills development and technology transfer targets (link).

In the SIJORI Plus view, Bangkok/EEC function as the anchor for mainland Southeast Asia: serving Thai domestic demand, regional workloads, and acting as a complementary node to Singapore‑ and Johor‑centric architectures. For CFA2 bidders and backers, Thailand’s corridor is both a competitor and a partner—its growth creates more regional options for where to place workloads, jobs, skills and power‑hungry infrastructure.

Economic Value and Jobs per MW – What CFA2 Should Reward

When power and land are constrained, CFA2 cannot simply reward whoever proposes the largest or even the most efficient facility. It should reward proposals that deliver the most economic value and job creation per MW, across both Singapore and the SIJORI Plus corridor.

Direct data centre jobs – small in number, big in impact Direct DC jobs—facility engineers, technicians, AI infrastructure specialists, network and security staff—are not huge in absolute numbers, but they are typically high‑wage and high‑skill, with pay often well above national averages in hubs like Singapore. The quality of these roles and the career ladders they create matter as much as the headcount (link).

Supply chain and construction – where many jobs actually sit The larger volume of jobs sits in construction, MEP, commissioning, controls, logistics, and ongoing services. In practice, a significant share of these roles will be located in Johor, Jakarta–Cikarang, Batam and Bangkok/EEC, where big campuses and new builds are being executed. A CFA2 proposal that is honest about this distribution and sets out how it will develop local contractors, suppliers and skills in these markets is stronger than one that pretends everything happens inside Singapore (link).

Enabled jobs in the broader digital economy The biggest multiplier is in “enabled” jobs: the fintech firms, logistics platforms, manufacturers, healthcare providers, government digital services and AI startups that rely on this corridor’s infrastructure. CFA2 projects that can show a clear link between their Singapore hubs and specific sectoral use‑cases—e.g. regional risk analytics, supply‑chain optimisation, health data platforms—are better aligned with the Connected Singapore strategy than generic “hyperscale” capacity (link).

Enabled Power Infrastructure Renewal

One often overlooked benefit of CFA2 and the wider SIJORI Plus build‑out is the opportunity to renew and upgrade power infrastructure in ways that would be hard to justify without sustained data centre demand. AI‑era facilities, with their large and stable loads, can anchor investment in renewables and battery energy storage systems (BESS) across Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia.

Thailand is already piloting reforms that allow BOI‑promoted data centres to directly contract for up to 2,000 MW of renewable power through the grid, with eligibility rules that explicitly allow, and even encourage, projects to integrate battery storage to stabilise demand and reduce grid strain (link). In Malaysia, initiatives such as the Southern Johor Renewable Energy Corridor and large‑scale solar + BESS partnerships are being structured around hyperscale DC demand, with cross‑border export to Singapore as part of the business case.

Indonesia’s planned Green Super Grid aims to move renewable power from resource‑rich regions to demand centres like Jakarta and Batam, with data centres expected to be key offtakers along this spine and in future cross‑border links to Singapore and Malaysia. In all three countries, BESS and grid upgrades turn from pure cost items into strategic assets when tied to long‑term DC and AI loads.

For CFA2, this means bidders may want to show how their Singapore projects are linked—through PPAs, joint ventures, or coordinated planning—to renewable and BESS investments in Johor, Indonesia, and Thailand are not just solving their own power problems. They are helping to modernise regional grids, improve reliability, and de‑risk the broader ASEAN Power Grid vision for governments and financiers.

What CFA2 should explicitly ask for In this light, CFA2 evaluation can reasonably expect bidders to articulate:

• Direct jobs in Singapore (by type, skill level and progression), including AI and high‑density operations roles.

• Supply‑chain and construction job impacts in Johor, Jakarta–Batam and Bangkok/EEC, with concrete plans for training and vendor development.

• Sectoral economic value: which industries in Singapore and the region gain measurable competitiveness from these facilities.

• A small set of metrics per MW (jobs, training hours, local partners, sector use‑cases) that can be tracked over the life of the project.

What This Corridor Means for DC Professionals and Mid‑Career Entrants

This regional, CFA2‑anchored view is not just for policy papers and board decks. It also has very practical implications for people already in the DC world and for those considering a move into it.

For current DC professionals If you are already in data centres—operations, engineering, project management—the key shift is to see your career in terms of a corridor, not a single city. Experience in a well‑run facility in Singapore or Bangkok is increasingly valuable to new campuses ramping up in Johor, Batam, Jakarta–Cikarang and the EEC.

The skills with the highest regional portability are those linked to the AI and power constraints shaping CFA2: high‑density and liquid cooling, grid‑friendly operations, automation and monitoring, and risk/governance. Investing in these areas makes you more relevant to both Singapore CFA2 facilities and the larger SIJORI Plus build‑out (link).

For mid‑career entrants looking at DCs For mid‑career professionals in construction, MEP, industrial plants, utilities, networking or enterprise IT, the corridor creates multiple entry ramps:

• Singapore and Bangkok: better suited for roles that combine DC with policy, governance, risk, finance, or complex stakeholder management.

• Johor, Jakarta–Cikarang, Batam, EEC: rich in opportunities around project engineering, construction, commissioning, facilities ramp‑up and early operations as new sites come online (link).

The most efficient way to prepare is to combine DC fundamentals with at least one AI‑era module—for example, high‑density cooling, energy and sustainability, or DC automation—so you have both the vocabulary and a realistic sense of how your existing strengths map into these projects.

Pointers for CFA2 Bidders and Investment Backers

For CFA2 bidders and their capital partners, the core shift is to treat this exercise as corridor design or hub+hub, or hub+leaves, not just one single site location. A strong proposal is not merely a highly efficient, well‑engineered data centre in Singapore; it is a clear plan for how that facility will anchor and orchestrate value across Johor, Jakarta–Batam and Bangkok/EEC.

That means being explicit about your regional role definition (Singapore as brain and trust node, neighbouring hubs as build and scale nodes), your jobs and skills strategy per MW (both in Singapore and in the wider corridor), and your sectoral impact narrative (which industries, in which markets, will become more competitive because this CFA2 project exists). Investors and evaluators will be looking for evidence that you understand this Singapore+ reality and are designing your build, partnerships and governance accordingly.

Pointers for Data Centre Professionals and Mid‑Career Entrants

For people already in the data centre world—and those considering a move into it—the message is that careers are increasingly regional by design. The same CFA2 projects that anchor high‑trust AI and infrastructure in Singapore will depend on talent and delivery capability across Johor, Jakarta–Cikarang, Batam and Bangkok/EEC.

Advancing your skills now in AI‑era fundamentals (high‑density and liquid cooling, energy and sustainability, automation, governance) and being willing to engage with projects beyond your home city will put you in the slipstream of this shift. Whether you stay based in Singapore, Bangkok or elsewhere, thinking in terms of the SIJORI Plus corridor—and preparing yourself to work with teams and sites across it—is one of the most practical ways to future‑proof your role in the industry..