Singapore announced on August 27, 2026 a national standard for cooling data centers with liquid in a hot, humid climate. Its name is "Singapore Standard (SS) 726:2026 Liquid Cooling in Tropical Data Centres," and the Infocomm Media Development Authority and Enterprise Singapore developed it through the Singapore Standards Council, "in close consultation with the industry." The release calls it "the world’s first standard to help data centres adopt liquid cooling technologies in the tropics." Parts of the release and its fact sheet follow, not the whole. The standard itself is sold through the Singapore Standards e-shop, and it is not reported here.
Why Liquid
Most data centers in Singapore "today use air-cooling," the fact sheet says. Servers for AI applications use accelerators that "consume significantly more power and generate more heat than servers used for general-purpose computing such as cloud and enterprise applications." Because "liquids such as water can remove heat more efficiently than air," it says, liquid cooling "becomes increasingly important for high-density computing infrastructure."
The release puts a saving on liquid cooling against air cooling. Its fact sheet takes that figure, and an estimate of how much more power an AI rack draws, from outside firms. Neither figure is reported here.
Implementation Challenges
The risk of leaks "is a key concern, as even a minor leak can cause substantial damage to expensive IT equipment." Adoption is "still relatively new," and so the industry "may also lack the expertise and experience to design, commission and operate these systems."
Integrating liquid cooling with existing air-cooling systems "can be complex and costly, with higher upfront costs and complex installation and operations." For that, the standard provides "guidelines on choosing suitable coolant distribution unit (CDU) type," and details the options for integrating such a unit with existing air-cooling facilities, "as well as the impacts on energy efficiency."
The Tropics, and the Lifecycle
Heat and humidity bring their own challenges. Among them, the fact sheet names "corrosion in equipment, microbial growth, and the formation of biofilms in the cooling fluid," which "can result in reduced cooling efficiency, equipment failure, and costly downtime." SS 726, the release says, "builds on existing international standards for liquid cooling, while addressing the specific requirements of operating such systems in tropical climates." In the fact sheet's words, "While international standards and industry best practices for liquid cooling are currently being developed, they are not specifically targeted for deployment in tropical environments."
The standard's best practices run across the lifecycle, "from initial design, pre-deployment and commissioning through to day-to-day operations." The fact sheet lists, among them, floor loading considerations, design criteria for cooling loops and equipment, piping materials selection, fluid quality requirements, and monitoring and management. The standard also incorporates input from PUB on how to measure and calculate water utilization efficiency in a liquid-cooled data center.
Neither the release nor its fact sheet says that an operator must follow the standard.
Will Singapore's air-cooled data centers move to liquid cooling under it?
Sources
- Infocomm Media Development Authority and Enterprise Singapore. Singapore launches world's first liquid cooling standard for data centres in tropical climates (media release MR No. 038/26, with its annex and media factsheet). 27 August 2026. regulator