AIDC Workshop 2025 – Pushing the Frontier: Innovations and Challenges
21/8/25, 7:37 am
On 4 July 2025, the AI Data Centre (AIDC) Workshop brought together more than 100 industry experts, key opinion influencers, and academic leaders to chart the future of sustainable digital infrastructure in the AI era. The event was co-hosted by IMDA and SGTech, with Red Dot Analytics (RDA) as a key partner in shaping the programme and curating dialogues that bridged research foresight with industry priorities.
Keynote: Intelligent, Resilient AI Infrastructure
Opening the workshop, Prof. Yonggang Wen, Chief Scientist at RDA and President’s Chair at NTU Singapore, underscored the urgent need for intelligent and resilient AI infrastructure to support the next wave of digital transformation.
Prof. Wen highlighted the paradigm shift toward “AI factories” across industries, noting challenges such as:
Increasing rack density and advanced cooling requirements
Rising complexity that demands automation and resilience by design
Financial pressure from rapid hardware obsolescence
The imperative to accelerate sustainability as the global data centre carbon footprint is expected to peak by 2030 with greater renewable integration
His call to action reinforced the need for innovation at both system and operational levels to ensure infrastructure keeps pace with AI’s exponential growth.
Industry Perspectives: Building for the AI Future
The workshop featured case studies from senior leaders Sujit Panda (COO, BDx Data Centers) and Verghese Jacob (SVP, DayOne), who shared practical strategies to cut carbon impact and boost energy performance
This set the stage for the panel discussion, “Investment, Innovation & Technical Standards: Shaping the Future of AI Data Centers in Singapore”, moderated by Jimin Jia, CEO of RDA. Panelists included:
Arvind Verma, Senior Assistant Director, IMDA
Yee May Leong, Managing Director, Equinix
Lye Yit Tho, VP Design, Bridge Data Centres
Suppan Saravanamuthu, Director, Iron Mountain Data Centers
The dialogue reaffirmed a collective commitment to aligning investment, innovation, and standards to ensure the sector’s growth remains feasible, responsible, and future-ready.
Advancing National Sustainability Efforts
Beyond industry initiatives, government agencies highlighted Singapore’s national drive toward sustainable digital infrastructure:
IMDA introduced its Energy Efficiency Grant, co-funding high-performance, energy-efficient IT hardware adoption.
PUB shared updates on water efficiency guidelines and its Water Efficiency Fund, encouraging data centres to implement conservation and sustainable water management practices.
These initiatives reflect Singapore’s strong public-private collaboration in shaping the next chapter of digital infrastructure.
Pushing the Frontier, Together
The AIDC Workshop 2025 showcased how academic foresight, industry innovation, and policy leadership converge to address the evolving demands of AI infrastructure. From strategic insights to practical solutions, the event reinforced Singapore’s growing role as a regional hub for sustainable, AI-ready data centres.
Red Dot Analytics is proud to support this journey, advancing an ecosystem where innovation, collaboration, and resilience push the frontier of digital infrastructure forward.