By The Straits Times | Created at 2026-09-30 09:06:58 | Updated at 2026-09-30 09:54:19
55 minutes ago
JAKARTA – A governor of Indonesia’s most populous province has ordered Singapore’s BDx Data Centers to halt construction on a data centre due to a lack of required permits, amid a push by South-east Asia’s largest economy to catch up with regional peers in technology infrastructure projects.
BDx, which runs data centres for cloud companies and other large businesses across Asia, said it broke ground on a 640-megawatt artificial intelligence (AI) data-centre campus in Jatiluhur in West Java on Sept 22.
In a video of a meeting posted to Instagram on Sept 30, Governor Dedi Mulyadi of West Java told BDx representatives that construction work had to stop until required permits were obtained and the project’s environmental impact assessment process was completed.
BDx did not respond to a request for comment. It is unclear if construction has been halted.
“The project is being halted not because it violates environmental rules. It’s being halted because the permits have not yet been issued,” Dedi said in a separate video that was posted on YouTube on Sept 29.
Dedi said he supported investment in West Java provided projects were environmentally friendly, while noting concerns that some data centres have been associated with water shortages.
Around the world, there have been moves to freeze, restrict or ban new data-centre construction, as concerns mount over electricity costs, strained water supplies, land scarcity and the burden on local communities.
Data centres are expected to consume twice as much power and water by 2030 as they expand to meet the surge in AI demand, UN researchers said in June.
Opposition to data centres has emerged elsewhere in South-east Asia, including in Malaysia, the region’s fastest-growing data-centre market.
Indonesia’s data-centre market was valued at US$2.81 billion in 2025 and is forecast to reach US$6.08 billion in 2031, business intelligence company Research and Markets said in a report issued in January. REUTERS
