Princeton Digital Group reveals "wise" $1 billion+ Indonesia data centre investment to service Singapore

Princeton Digital Group (PDG), an APAC data centre company, is set to invest around $1 billion (£881 million) into a data centre campus in Indonesia.

The campus will be built in Batam and will contain four buildings, each with a 24 MW capacity across its 15-acre site. PDG said it has fully secured the power needed for the new infrastructure.

The development is part of PDG’s SG+ strategy which aims to help customers in Singapore expand their infrastructure to data centre campuses across Singapore, Batam in Indonesia, and Johor in Malaysia.

Construction of the Batam campus marks the first stage of the strategy. PDG is also planning on building another campus in Johor, although it hasn’t speculated when this will begin.

"I think the decision to invest in Indonesia is a wise one. Being only 20km from Singapore, it is still ideally placed to service that market with low network latency," said Tiny Haynes, principle edge computing infrastructure and services analyst at S&P Global.

"It has chosen a Special Economic Zone allocated by the Indonesian government which will provide financial and regulatory incentives for investment," he added.

"It is no doubt being built in an area where real estate prices are comparably cheaper than mainland Singapore and finally it has been able to allocate not just the space it requires, but the 96 MW of power which would be more challenging to source in Singapore," he said.

Batam is an island located 20km south of Singapore, and the new campus will be located in the Nongsa Digital Park, located on the northeastern part of the island.

PDG said that Joko Widodo, the Indonesian president, has described Nongsa and Batam as a “digital bridge” between the two countries.

“As a Singapore-headquartered Pan-Asia data centre operator, PDG is at the forefront of enabling customers to continue leveraging the unique set of characteristics that have made Singapore such a successful hub for the region," said Rangu Salgame, chairman and chief executive officer at PDG.

"Our SG+ strategy is aimed at providing a seamless infrastructure growth roadmap for our customers. The new campus in Batam reinforces our growth strategy and solidifies our already-strong presence across the region in China, Singapore, India, Indonesia, and Japan.”

“PDG’s investment in Nongsa Digital Park further strengthens the [special economic zone's] position as a data centre hub in the region,” said Muhammad Rudi, chairman of Badan Pengusahaan Batam (BP Batam), Batam Indonesia Free Zone Authority. “We look forward to working closely with PDG as the company continues to scale as a Pan-Asia leader in digital infrastructure.”

PDG is headquartered in Singapore. Its most recent investment was in December 2022, when it launched a 48 MW data centre in Mumbai. The company has a total capacity of 600 MW across 20 data centres in five markets. It’s also constructing a 100 MW data centre in Saitama, Tokyo, which is expected to be completed by 2024.