Asia Pacific AI data centres 2026: power, policy and capacity by country

Asia Pacific is not one AI infrastructure market. Japan, Singapore and Taiwan are short of power or grid connections. Korea and India are buying GPUs through the state. Malaysia and Indonesia are taking spillover demand, and Australia has land and a pipeline it cannot yet fully count. Each country is solving a different bottleneck.

This post is the regional map. Five companion posts go deeper on Japan, South Korea, Singapore with Malaysia, Australia and India. Indonesia and Taiwan have no separate post, so they get more room here.

A note on method. Every figure below is labelled with who said it and when, and each source is listed at the end. Where no dated official or primary figure is available, the number is left out rather than estimated. Asia Pacific moves quickly, so treat all figures as of 19 October 2026 at the latest.

Key numbers at a glance

• Global data centre demand, International Energy Agency (IEA): expected to more than double over five years, to a level the IEA's director compared with Japan's entire present consumption (IEA, as reported by ITPro, 17 April 2025).
• Japan: data centres are expected to account for more than half of the country's electricity demand growth (IEA, as reported by ITPro, 17 April 2025).
• Malaysia: data centres could account for as much as one fifth of demand growth (IEA, as reported by ITPro, 17 April 2025).
• Japan, grid location: roughly 90 percent of data centres sit in the regions around the two largest cities (Japan's 2025 energy white paper, as cited by Power Japan Consulting, 13 August 2025).
• South Korea: Nvidia supply of more than 260,000 GPUs arranged with the science ministry and four companies (Data Center Knowledge, reported 3 November 2025).
• Singapore: second data centre call offers at least 200 MW, with a goal of at least 300 MW overall (Withers analysis via Conventus Law, call opened 1 December 2025).
• Australia: about 5 TWh a year used by roughly 165 data centres, with 67 GW of proposed connections in the queue (AEMO 2026 Electricity Statement of Opportunities, reported 25 August 2026).
• India: more than 38,000 GPUs onboarded to the common compute facility (Digital India, Government of India, page updated 14 October 2026).
• India, outlay: Rs. 10,372 crore for the IndiaAI Mission (same page).
• Malaysia, Johor: 1.1 GW of live IT power capacity and 8.5 GW incoming (HLIB research note, reported by The New Straits Times, 18 September 2026).
• Malaysia, utility: Tenaga Nasional has 8.35 GW of signed supply agreements, a large share in Johor (same HLIB note).
• Indonesia, Batam: a US$5 billion AI data centre on 30 hectares announced 25 May 2026 (Free Malaysia Today, via ANTARA and Bernama).
• Taiwan: Energy Administration expects AI data centres to draw about 3.1 GW to 4.1 GW through 2035 (Taipei Times, 19 June 2026).
• Taiwan, grid: night time reserve margin projected to bottom out at 7.1 percent in 2029 (Eco-Business, 24 June 2026, citing the Ministry of Economic Affairs).

Why power, not chips, sets the pace

A few terms first. A megawatt (MW) is a unit of power. A gigawatt (GW) is 1,000 MW. A terawatt hour (TWh) is a unit of energy: a billion kilowatt hours. A reserve margin is the spare generating capacity a grid keeps above its expected peak demand. An interconnection or grid connection is the formal approval and physical link that lets a large customer draw power from the network.

A data centre can be built in roughly one to two years. A power plant, a transmission line or a substation often takes longer. A Japanese industry analysis puts typical data centre builds at one to two years and energy facilities at one to fifteen, with solar at the short end and hydro and nuclear at the long end (Power Japan Consulting, 13 August 2025). That mismatch explains most of what follows. Countries with spare power and willing regulators attract projects. Countries without them either ration approvals or push projects elsewhere.

The IEA's framing is useful here. Its 2025 work expects data centre electricity demand to more than double over five years, with the effect uneven. In advanced economies where demand was flat, data centres become a main source of growth. For Japan the IEA expects more than half of demand growth to come from data centres. For Malaysia it says as much as one fifth (both as reported by ITPro, 17 April 2025). The IEA's own pages could not be opened for this article, so these are secondhand reports of IEA statements.

Japan: connection delays and the Watt-Bit idea

Japan has demand and capital, but its data centres cluster near Tokyo and Osaka while its large renewable and nuclear resources sit far away. The same analysis cites Japan's 2025 energy white paper for the 90 percent clustering figure and describes the mismatch with regions such as Hokkaido and Kyushu.

The government's answer is called Watt-Bit collaboration: coordinate the electricity side (watts) and the telecom side (bits) so data centres and the infrastructure that feeds them are planned together. The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry announced a public and private advisory council for this on 18 March 2025, with a first meeting on 21 March 2025 (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications). A June 2025 proposal set out three phases, as summarised by the analysis above: build near existing grid capacity in the next two to three years, co-locate large data centres with energy projects by about 2030, and spread data centres away from the cities in the later 2030s.

Details, including connection waiting times, are in the Japan post.

South Korea: the state as GPU buyer

Korea's headline move is procurement. The Ministry of Science and ICT arranged a supply of more than 260,000 Nvidia GPUs with Samsung Electronics, SK Group, Hyundai Motor Group and Naver Cloud, reported on 3 November 2025. The ministry itself is to secure 50,000 of the latest GPUs for sovereign AI models, to be deployed across the National AI Computing Center and the cloud operators Naver Cloud, NHN Cloud and Kakao (Data Center Knowledge).

Neither side disclosed financial terms. A Korean newspaper, the Chosun Daily, estimated the value at about 14.8 trillion won, roughly 7.8 to 10.4 billion US dollars, using an assumed price of 30,000 to 40,000 dollars for a B200 chip. That is a press estimate, not a contract figure. Local analysts quoted in the same report said the volume is about five times Korea's current GPU count, estimated at 45,000 units.

The South Korea post looks at power supply, siting and what is still unresolved.

Singapore and Malaysia: a pair that has to be read together

Singapore is small, land and power constrained, and selective about who gets capacity. In the first pilot call in 2022, about 80 MW went to Equinix, Microsoft, GDS Holdings and a joint venture of AirTrunk and ByteDance. The second call, opened on 1 December 2025 by the Economic Development Board and the Infocomm Media Development Authority, offers at least 200 MW, with proposals due 31 March 2026 (Withers analysis via Conventus Law).

The terms are tougher than before. At least half of the power must come from named low carbon pathways such as biomethane, low carbon ammonia, low carbon hydrogen, certain fuel cells with carbon capture, and building mounted solar. Applicants need a top Green Mark rating and a power usage effectiveness (PUE) of 1.25 or better at full load, compared with 1.3 in the pilot. PUE is total facility energy divided by the energy used by computing equipment, so lower is better.

Next door, Johor in Malaysia absorbs the demand Singapore cannot house. A broker note reported in September 2026 puts live IT capacity at 1.1 GW and incoming capacity at 8.5 GW, with Tenaga Nasional holding 8.35 GW of signed supply agreements and another 5 GW expected. The same note estimates data centre water needs at about 400 million litres a day and says Johor's water tariff rose in August 2025. These are one research house's estimates, not official data, and the note is mainly about a water utility's earnings. Power and water limits are the live questions there. The Singapore and Malaysia post covers both in detail.

Australia: a large pipeline and a careful operator

Australia's market operator publishes unusually frank numbers. Its 2026 Electricity Statement of Opportunities, reported on 25 August 2026, says about 165 data centres use around 5 TWh a year, roughly 3 percent of consumption on the National Electricity Market. Its central case reaches about 34 TWh in 2035 to 2036, or 13 percent. A high growth case reaches about 52 TWh (W.Media report of the AEMO publication).

The headline that draws attention is the queue: 225 projects seeking connection with 67 GW of proposed capacity, up from 38 GW in the previous assessment. AEMO says plainly that this should not be read as a demand forecast. About 36 percent of projects on the 2025 list have since been cancelled, including more than 30 percent of those classed as committed. Today's fleet runs at about 27 percent utilisation, and AEMO assumes mature fleets reach 45 to 51 percent.

That is a good lesson for the whole region. Announced capacity and real load are different things. See the Australia post for the full picture.

India: subsidised compute for startups and researchers

India's model is public compute offered at a subsidy. The government's Digital India page, updated 14 October 2026, says the IndiaAI Mission has onboarded more than 38,000 GPUs to a common compute facility, available through the AI compute portal to startups and academia at an affordable rate, with a mission outlay of Rs. 10,372 crore. The page gives no per hour price.

A trade report dated 6 March 2026 said 24,000 more GPUs had been added to reach 62,000, with a stated target of 200,000 through public private partnership (tele.net.in). That is a press report, not a government statement, and it sits above the government's own 38,000 figure, so the two disagree and the lower, official number is the safer one. The India post explains how the compute portal works and what data centre capacity looks like.

Indonesia: Batam and the push east

Indonesia is a large country with a young data centre market. Two things stand out.

The first is Batam, an island in the Riau Islands that sits close to Singapore. The communications and digital ministry (Komdigi) has described Batam as a focus for AI hubs in industrial zones, according to a July 2025 report. In May 2026 a developer called Equator Gate System Batam, backed by RangeIDC, a company listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, announced a US$5 billion AI data centre on 30 hectares in Nongsa. A power purchase agreement (PPA), meaning a long term contract to buy electricity at agreed terms, was signed with PLN Batam, a subsidiary of the state utility (Free Malaysia Today, 25 May 2026). Separately, Telkom's NeutraDC held a topping off ceremony on 30 October 2025 for a Batam facility starting at 18 MW and growing in stages to 54 MW (Jawa Pos).

The second is geography. A business news site lists items about the ministry accelerating plans to move data centre development eastward, away from concentration in the west, and about geothermal backed data centres in North Sulawesi. It also reports that West Java's governor ordered construction halted at one 640 MW campus until permits and environmental assessments are completed, amid scrutiny of water and power use (Indonesia Business Post tag page, undated). Treat the halt as a reported item to verify against the original, since the page gives no dates.

Funding for any national AI data centre is still being worked out, and no official, dated national capacity figure for Indonesia is cited here.

Taiwan: the grid is the constraint

Taiwan makes the chips that much of the world's AI runs on, yet it has a tight island grid with limited room for imports. The Ministry of Economic Affairs' Energy Administration said in June 2026 that AI data centres are expected to draw about 3.1 GW to 4.1 GW through 2035. It projected Taipower's reserve margin at 12.8 percent this year, 20.8 percent after 2030 and 23.1 percent in 2035 (Taipei Times, 19 June 2026).

The detail matters. The ministry's own forecasts, reported by Eco-Business on 24 June 2026, show the night time reserve margin falling to 7.1 percent in 2029, with about 3 GW still spare. They plan about 25.98 GW of new thermal capacity by 2035, mostly gas, of which 4.2 GW for 2033 to 2035 has no site yet. Demand is forecast to grow 2.5 percent a year from 2026 to 2035, up from 1.7 percent in the earlier forecast. Restarting the two Maanshan nuclear units could supply about 15 billion kWh a year, but no restart timetable exists, so nuclear is left out of the planning.

Taiwan is also an example of why a high headline margin can hide tight hours. The semiconductor industry and AI data centres are both named as demand drivers. TSMC's own capacity plans are outside the scope of this overview; the post on what TSMC's filings say covers them.

What is firm and what is uncertain

Firm, because an official or primary document states it:

• Japan's Watt-Bit council exists and was convened in March 2025.
• India's government reports more than 38,000 GPUs onboarded and a Rs. 10,372 crore outlay.
• Singapore's second call, its 200 MW size, its deadline and its criteria.
• AEMO's current consumption, forecasts and its warning about the connection queue, though read here through a news summary of the AEMO document.
• Taiwan's ministry forecast of 3.1 GW to 4.1 GW of AI data centre demand and its reserve margin path.

Uncertain:

• The IEA numbers, which are cited here through a press account rather than the IEA report itself.
• Korea's deal value, which is a newspaper estimate.
• India's 62,000 and 200,000 GPU figures, which come from a trade report and conflict with the official count.
• Johor capacity and water figures, which come from one broker note.
• Indonesia's funding and national capacity, and the undated West Java halt.
• Whether any announced campus in the region will reach full power on schedule. Australia's cancellation rate is a warning against assuming it will.

What to watch next

• Singapore's award decisions from the second call.
• Japan's selection of "welcome zones" for data centres and any grid connection reforms.
• Malaysia's treatment of water use and power approvals in Johor.
• Whether the Batam projects secure power and sign tenants.
• Taiwan's reserve margin in 2029 and any decision on nuclear restarts.
• The next AEMO forecast, to see how many queue projects survive.
• India's published GPU count and when any new tender closes.

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Quick check

Sources

• AI will chew through the same amount of energy as Japan by 2030, ITPro, 17 April 2025
• AI data centre development in Japan and clean energy transition, Energy Tracker Asia, 13 August 2025
• Public Private Advisory Council on Watt-Bit Collaboration, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, 18 March 2025
• South Korea to boost AI infrastructure with 260,000 Nvidia chips, Data Center Knowledge
• Singapore's second data centre call for application, Conventus Law
• AEMO: Australia's data centres to use 34TWh by 2035 to 2036, W.Media, 25 August 2026
• IndiaAI Mission expands AI ecosystem, Digital India, Government of India
• MeitY adds 24,000 GPUs, tele.net.in, 6 March 2026
• Ranhill set to ride Johor's data centre boom, New Straits Times, 18 September 2026
• Batam set to host US$5bil AI data centre project, Free Malaysia Today, 25 May 2026
• Batam diproyeksikan jadi kawasan pengembangan AI di ASEAN, Infobank News, 11 July 2025
• Telkomgroup NeutraDC Nxera Batam topping off, Jawa Pos, 30 October 2025
• Data Center tag page, Indonesia Business Post
• Taipei Times, 19 June 2026
• Taiwan raises power demand forecast on AI, chip industry growth, Eco-Business, 24 June 2026

Last reviewed: 19 October 2026.