Speaking to over 200 senior IT decision makers from the Singapore Government at the 11th Annual FutureGov Forum Singapore, Murray highlighted the importance of taking progressive steps to promote efficient energy consumption in data centre facilities.

“The rise of Infocomm services and Big Data means we need large infrastructures and data centres to support our various initiatives.”

Data centres are crucial in supporting the development and operations of nearly every sector of the economy. However, their demand for energy is growing rapidly in response to an increase in internet traffic, new computing paradigms like cloud and mobile computing, more complex applications and data storage demands.

While reliability and speed of access to data will remain major concerns, energy efficiency and ICT sustainability are becoming priorities for data centre operators.

“Today, the energy bill accounts for more than half of the operating expenditure in a typical data centre in Singapore. We as an industry are one of the biggest contributors of the energy problem globally and we will continue to be one unless we look for ways to drive improved energy efficiency in our data centres.”

The Singapore Government, for example, has taken bold steps to improve energy efficiency and reduce the carbon footprint of data centre facilities by setting up a progressive framework that ensures a significant reduction in energy consumption without hampering the mission-critical functions of the data centre.

Murray adds that as a global specialist in energy management, Schneider Electric’s expertise with all aspects of the data centre lifecycle allows them to review, assess and analyse the energy performance of data centre facilities.

“This allows us to help governments and other industries chart a path towards a future-proof data center that is both sustainable and green.”