Tan Kiat How on Digital Infrastructure Bill

Two licensing regimes - one for security and resilience of foundational digital infrastructure services, namely major data centres (DCs) and cloud services, and another for the environmental sustainability of DCs. They aim to give the Infocomm Media Development Authority the tools to be an effective gatekeeper and standards-setter. In security and resilience, the government is targeting the underlying infrastructure whose disruption could affect many businesses and organisations at the same time. It will start with two types of services - major DC facility services with a critical IT load (CIL) of at least 10 megawatts, and major regulated cloud computing services that generate at least S$100 million in average annual revenue from users in Singapore over the preceding three years and provide either Infrastructure-as-a-Service or Platform-as-a-Service. As for environmental sustainability, the licensing regime will apply to operators of DCs in Singapore with a CIL of at least three megawatts, roughly the power demand of a major suburban mall. The maximum financial penalty for most breaches is S$1 million or 10 per cent of the licensee's annual turnover in Singapore, whichever is higher. Senior Minister of State for Digital Development and Information Tan Kiat How, who outlined the amendments in parliament on Tuesday (Oct 6), said the government’s ambition is not maximum compute but “maximum value from compute” for Singapore, businesses and its people.