A subsea partnership built for the region’s next compute wave
Digital Realty has partnered with BW Digital to expand cross-border data connectivity between Singapore and Batam, Indonesia. At the centre of the deal is the rollout of BW Digital’s new Nongsa–Changi Cable System (NCC), a 50-kilometre submarine cable designed to create a low-latency, resilient data route between the two hubs. Under the partnership, NCC will land directly at Digital Realty’s SIN12 facility in Batam, giving enterprises seamless data-centre-to-data-centre interconnection across the Singapore–Batam corridor. The move responds to rising demand for cloud, AI, and real-time cross-border digital services in Southeast Asia, where compute capacity is growing fast but needs tighter network backbones to stay efficient.
Why the Singapore–Batam corridor is becoming a regional backbone
Singapore remains Southeast Asia’s most mature data-centre and cloud gateway, yet it faces land and power constraints that limit new large builds. Batam, by contrast, has emerged as the region’s overflow and scale partner. It sits just across the strait, offers ample land, and is already part of the SIJORI growth triangle that underpins regional manufacturing and digital trade. Over the last three years, hyperscalers and colocation firms have expanded in Batam to serve customers who need Singapore-grade connectivity without Singapore’s physical limits.
BW Digital has been one of the most aggressive builders in that corridor. It operates global subsea assets such as the Hawaiki cable and is developing a major campus at Nongsa Digital Park in Batam. Its flagship NDP-1 data centre is planned as a 144-megawatt high-density “AI factory” with liquid-cooling capability. Digital Realty’s SIN12 site sits in the same Batam ecosystem and already serves enterprises and cloud providers who want a stable landing zone close to Singapore. By tying NCC directly into SIN12, the two firms are reducing hops and friction in one of Asia’s highest-growth digital lanes.
What the NCC landing changes for customers
The partnership does three practical things. First, it turns NCC into a true data-centre-to-data-centre cable. Instead of landing only at generic stations, the system plugs into enterprise-grade colocation on both sides. That shortens latency and improves uptime because traffic no longer depends on multiple intermediary routes.
Second, it gives customers a clear expansion path. A company can host primary workloads in Singapore while placing AI training clusters, disaster-recovery stacks, or data-heavy analytics in Batam, and still interconnect as if both sites were on one campus. Digital Realty framed this as extending “Singapore-plus” capacity, while BW Digital described it as bridging sea cables with land-based platforms for AI use cases.
Third, NCC adds route diversity. Southeast Asia’s subsea map is growing rapidly, but many networks still funnel through a few high-pressure gateways. A direct Batam-Singapore system with multiple fibre pairs improves redundancy for operators, cloud providers, and regional banks that need constant availability. NCC is expected to be ready for service around late 2025, aligning with the broader wave of AI infrastructure coming online in the region
Connectivity is becoming the hidden limiter of AI scale
SEA’s AI story is often told through data-centre megawatts, GPU imports, and new cloud zones. Yet the less visible bottleneck is connectivity. AI workloads are not only compute-heavy; they are data-hungry and latency-sensitive. Training models, syncing large datasets, and serving real-time inference across borders all depend on stable, high-capacity links. If capacity grows without better cables, prices rise and performance falls.
That is why this partnership matters. Digital Realty brings a large customer base, mature interconnection services, and credibility with hyperscalers. BW Digital brings subsea engineering, Batam land scale, and a strategy to pair compute with renewable-friendly campus design. The combined effect is a corridor that behaves like one integrated digital metro rather than two separate islands. In a region where cross-border trade is the norm, that integration can lower costs for enterprises while speeding up regional AI adoption.
There is also a competitive dimension. Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam are pushing new data-centre policies, but Singapore-Batam already has a first-mover advantage in density and trust. By strengthening the corridor’s backbone now, Digital Realty and BW Digital are widening that lead.
What to watch as the corridor matures
Over the next year, the key signal will be how quickly customers shift workloads into Batam using NCC as the bridge. If uptake is strong, expect more “dual-hub” architectures where Singapore becomes the high-value interconnection core and Batam becomes the scale engine.
A second watchpoint is ecosystem spillover. As NCC stabilises low-latency transport, more regional services can anchor there, including cloud-native banking, gaming, and enterprise AI platforms that need consistent cross-border throughput. That should encourage more subsea investors to treat Batam not only as a landing spot but as a regional exchange point.
Finally, regulation will shape pace. Singapore and Indonesia have been aligning on digital trade and data-transfer frameworks, yet sovereign data rules still vary by sector. If the two governments extend clarity on cross-border cloud and AI data flows, the corridor’s value multiplies. If not, enterprises may keep sensitive workloads domestic while using NCC mainly for redundancy. Either way, the infrastructure is now ready for the next stage.
A corridor that turns two hubs into one digital platform
Digital Realty’s partnership with BW Digital is a strategic move to make Singapore and Batam function as a single, high-performance digital region. By landing the Nongsa–Changi Cable System directly into SIN12 and tying it to NDP-1’s AI-grade campus, the two firms are addressing the real constraint behind SEA’s AI boom: cross-border bandwidth with predictable latency. The result is not just another cable. It is a foundational corridor for cloud scale, AI factories, and regional digital services that need to move data fast and safely across borders.
