The Sustainable Digital Infrastructure Accord (SDIA), launched in March 2026 with 11 major operators as founding signatories, establishes the first Asia-Pacific-wide sustainability framework for data centers. Yet while energy efficiency and renewable electricity procurement are already familiar territory for the industry, the Accord's commitments on water stewardship, embodied carbon, and circularity highlight a more fundamental challenge: does Southeast Asia have the infrastructure, supply chains, and operational capacity needed to turn those commitments into reality?
RECCESSARY presents the special series “Beyond Energy: Southeast Asia’s data center challenges,” drawing on interviews with construction material suppliers, recycling companies, technology providers, and industry experts. Across five articles, the series examines whether the systems needed to support the next generation of sustainable data centers are developing as quickly as the facilities themselves, from water management and hardware circularity to the low-carbon cement and steel supply chains required to reduce embodied carbon.
