Mingtiandi Forum to Explore Impact of AI on APAC Data Centres

It has been just over eight months since ChatGPT was released to the public and the generative AI tool has already set records for adoption while the resource requirements that it creates have been accelerating demand for data centre capacity globally.

Having gained 100 million active users within just two months of its November launch, the surge in use of ChatGPT and competitors like GoogleBard has pushed tech giants to lock in more server capacity, with the April through June period having been the biggest quarter ever for data centre leasing in the US, with more than 2.1 gigawatts contracted for during the period.

This wave of demand has already begun influencing the data centre industry in Asia Pacific, with Mingtiandi set to explore the impact that AI is having on demand for server capacity as one of the central themes of its fourth annual data centre forum on our MTD TV video platform. If you have not yet registered, you may do so through the link above.

To provide insights from inside the industry, Mingtiandi will be interviewing top executives from data centre operators and developers Princeton Digital Group, Logos, Empyrion DC, EdgeConnex and ESR during the program, which is sponsored by Yardi. Also speaking on the show will be experts from fund managers CapitaLand Investment, Warburg Pincus and Seraya Partners, as well as advisors from JLL, Baker McKenzie and energy specialist Engie.

AI-Drives Upswing

Starting off the program at 10:00 Hong Kong time on Tuesday, 5 September is an interview with Princeton Digital chairman and CEO Rangu Salgame, who will be appearing together with Ellen Ng, co-head of Asia Real Estate with Warburg Pincus, to discuss how the two companies are working together to meet an AI-driven spike in demand.

Following the Tuesday interview, Mingtiandi will hold a panel discussion focused on the region’s hyperscale market at 10:00 AM on Thursday, 7 September. The hyperscale panel features Rachit Mohan, APAC lead for data centre leasing at JLL; Paul Dwyer, head of data centres at Logos, and Mandy Lan, a special counsel at Baker McKenzie in Hong Kong who specialises in alternative real estate investments.

The third session in the data centre forum is dedicated to the Southeast Asia market, where there have been a growing number of data centre investments driven by the region’s favourable demographics and online development. In the Southeast Asia session on 12 September, Mingtiandi will speak with Zhang Yi, joint venture director for Asia Pacific at EdgeConneX; Si Pei Lee, business development manager for data centres at French energy specialist ENGIE Southeast Asia; and Ai Leen Tang, a partner with Baker McKenzie member firm Wong & Partners in Malaysia.

Japan, Korea and More

The data centre forum will return on Thursday, 14 September for a talk on data centre investment in Japan and Korea – two of the markets most favoured by institutional investors this year.

That panel discussion will include Diarmid Massey, CEO for Data Centres at ESR; Bob Tan, an executive director with the data centre practice group with JLL’s capital markets team; Patrick Boocock, CEO for private equity alternative assets with real assets division at CapitaLand Investment; and Jing Zhou, a senior director with the alternatives and strategic transactions unit at US investment manager Nuveen.

In the final session of the forum, on Wednesday, 20 September Mingtiandi will have an in-depth interview with Singapore’s Empryion DC and Seraya Partners.

In that dedicated discussion, Mingtiandi will speak with Empyrion DC CEO Mark Fong and James Chern, managing partner and chief investment officer with Seraya Partners about how the two companies have worked together to establish a significant player in Asia’s data centre world within two years of launching Empyrion.

All sessions in the data centre forum include a question-and-answer element at the end of the program, so please join to find out more from our field of experts.

Following the data centre forum, MTD TV’s programming for the second half of 2023 will continue in October with our office strategies forum, before the Mingtiandi team travels to Singapore in November for our second annual on-location forum in the Lion City.