Singapore introduces liquid-cooling solutions for data centers as the city-state faces hot and humid conditions for over 85% of the year.

Singapore has introduced a national standard designed to help data centres adopt liquid cooling in the tropics, as rising computing demands make it harder to rely on conventional air-based systems alone.

Singapore Standard SS 726:2026, Liquid Cooling in Tropical Data Centres, was jointly developed by the Infocomm Media Development Authority and Enterprise Singapore through the Singapore Standards Council, with input from data centre operators, technology providers, academics and technical experts. The Singapore government describes it as the world's first standard specifically aimed at helping data centres adopt liquid cooling technologies in tropical climates.

The standard addresses system design, commissioning, operation, risk management and integration with existing air-cooled facilities, while also including guidance on energy and water efficiency. This pioneering standard demonstrates how forward-thinking regulatory frameworks can proactively address climate-driven infrastructure challenges.

**The constraint becomes clear when examining Singapore's climate.** A study published in Scientific Reports titled "Limitations to air free cooling in data centers under rising heat and humidity," led by researchers at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa, analysed hourly climate data and data centre locations across major markets. The researchers defined air-free-cooling-limiting conditions as inlet temperatures above 27°C occurring alongside either a dew point above 15°C or relative humidity above 70%.

Singapore had the highest exposure among the major markets studied, with such conditions occurring during more than 85% of the year over the study's historical period. The Pearl River Delta, encompassing Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Hong Kong, exceeded the thresholds for more than 40% of the year.

**AI workloads are intensifying the heat challenge.** Most data centres in Singapore currently use air cooling, but AI applications increasingly rely on accelerators such as graphics processing units that consume substantially more power and generate more heat than conventional servers. An industry estimate cited by the Singapore government puts the power consumption of an AI server rack at up to 50 times that of a conventional rack used for general-purpose computing.

Liquid cooling brings coolant much closer to the heat-generating hardware, allowing heat to be transferred more efficiently than with air alone. Singapore says deploying liquid cooling can reduce data centre energy consumption by more than 30% compared with conventional air cooling, although the actual savings depend on system design and operating conditions.

**Tropical humidity presents distinct engineering challenges.** Singapore's standard identifies equipment corrosion, microbial growth and biofilm formation in cooling fluid as risks associated with the country's high temperature and humidity. Liquid systems also depend on pumps, piping and heat exchangers, while leaks can cause substantial damage when coolant reaches sensitive IT equipment. Integrating liquid cooling into an existing air-cooled data centre can be complex and expensive because the cooling infrastructure becomes more tightly connected to the server racks.

SS 726 therefore incorporates guidance on coolant distribution units, piping materials, fluid quality, floor loading, monitoring and risk management, alongside practices adapted from the Open Compute Project and the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers. The standard is intended to provide guidance across the full lifecycle of a liquid-cooled data centre, beginning with design and pre-deployment and continuing through commissioning and day-to-day operation. Input from Singapore's national water agency, PUB, addresses measuring and calculating water utilisation efficiency in liquid-cooled facilities.

Industry participants including AirTrunk, Meta, the Open Compute Project Foundation and ST Telemedia Global Data Centres contributed to the working group, with ST Telemedia saying it plans to use the standard to guide future liquid-cooling deployments across its portfolio.

**Future conditions will likely intensify the need for such measures.** The Scientific Reports study analysed conditions from 1980 to 2024 and projected changes through 2050. It found that Singapore, already exposed to air-free-cooling-limiting conditions for more than 85% of the year, is projected to exceed the study's temperature and humidity thresholds year-round under its future modelling. Markets that currently experience less exposure, including Dublin, Chicago and Northern Virginia, were also projected to see substantial increases in threshold-exceedance hours. The researchers emphasise that their analysis does not prescribe a particular cooling technology or data-centre location, but rather shows how a warming and increasingly humid climate could reduce the amount of time that direct air-side economisation can operate within recommended environmental conditions, increasing the importance of alternative and hybrid cooling approaches.