(Hanoi = Yonhap News) Correspondent Park Jin-hyung = In Southeast Asian countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia, where investment in artificial intelligence (AI) data centers is active, public opinion against data centers is growing, as is the case in the United States and other countries, and related authorities and companies are working hard to come up with countermeasures.
According to AFP on the 8th (local time), dozens of local residents recently protested against data centers outside Nongsa Digital Park, a data center dense area on Indonesia's Batam Island, adjacent to Singapore.
This is because residents' anger is directed at the data center as Batam Island experiences frequent disruptions in water supply due to drought.
Juniardi Adinda Sembiring Gurukinayan (54), a local merchant, said that because the tap water was cut off, “sometimes I had no choice but to skip the shower,” adding, “I couldn’t cook rice or vegetables without water.”
He said that while the initial reaction to the data center was to welcome the arrival of an industrial facility, residents now believe "the water shortage is related to the construction of the data center."
Another resident, Sulastri (38), said, “There has been a water shortage for the past year, and the situation has worsened over the past six months,” while washing dishes with pre-collected water because there was no tap water at home.
He also added that the government is supplying water through water trucks, but the water received this way is yellowish in color and smells.
The local water operator explained that water levels in local reservoirs were very low due to the drought and that the water supply system was suffering further disruptions due to electricity-related faults.
In relation to this, at the end of September, the authorities notified related developers that they must build a seawater desalination facility to supply cooling water to the data center in order to reduce the burden on local water resources.
Regarding the water shortage issue, Hong Kong's Gau Capital Partners, the owner of a data center in Nongsa Digital Park, said, "We are well aware of the pain and frustration experienced by residents near Batam," and mentioned measures such as introducing a cooling water recycling system and renewable energy.
In Malaysia, which is emerging as an AI data center hub in Southeast Asia, concerns about environmental deterioration are growing.
According to Singapore's ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Research Institute, data center capacity in the Malaysian state of Johor, adjacent to Singapore's north, has increased more than 200 times from just 10 megawatts (MW) five years ago to 2.1 gigawatts (GW).
In relation to this, the Malaysian government predicted in July that data centers will account for one-third of Malaysia's total energy consumption by 2035.
In the Kota Damansara area on the outskirts of the capital Kuala Lumpur, a data center construction site is empty.
As residents of the area strongly opposed the project by raising their voices online and collecting over 9,000 signatures and sending complaints to local lawmakers, the company eventually closed down its business last August.
Local resident Zahaydi Harun, 72, said the data center "uses a significant amount of water" and, as in the case of Batam Island, "if it doesn't rain for a month, we all feel the impact."
In response to this, Malaysian Human Resources Minister Ramanan Ramakrishnan said that he was not opposed to development or investment itself, but that "in the case of large-scale projects that can affect the lives of residents, residents should also have the right to voice their opinions."
Accordingly, the Malaysian government has recently been strengthening related regulations, including rejecting several data center investment plans that lack measures for power and water supply.
Google, which announced plans to build an AI data center in Malaysia worth $15 billion (approximately 20.5 trillion won) on the 4th, also decided to add more than 1GW of eco-friendly energy generation capacity in the region and bear power infrastructure costs.
In addition, the plan is to spend $160 million (approximately 218 billion won) to build a joint water infrastructure near the data center so that the data center and the local community can share the use.
