To make Singapore’s digital infrastructure greener, the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) has launched two major programmes, one of which is a S$30 million Green Computing Funding Initiative (GCFI) to co-develop innovative solutions for the industry.
IMDA’s new green initiatives have been launched in conjunction with the Government Technology Agency (GovTech) which has also initiated measures to make the public sector digital infrastructure more green.
The objective is to green the entire information and communications technology (ICT) sector (green ICT) and to tap on digital to green the rest of the economy (ICT for green).
These efforts are in support of the Singapore Green Plan 2030 and the public sector’s commitment to achieving net zero emissions around 2045.
GovTech will be fostering more partnerships to engage the wider ecosystem and develop solutions and best practices for digital sustainability.
IMDA’s GCFI will allocate money from the S$30 million fund to push for research to optimise software design and function for energy efficiency.
Improving hardware efficiency was necessary but not a sufficient measure to reduce carbon emissions to a more sustainable level, the agency said.
With the increasing use of technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), there is a need to reduce carbon emissions from the computing and software that powers the digital economy, IMDA said.
The GCFI fund will enable researchers from Institutes of Higher Learning (IHLs) to collaborate with the industry to solve problems related to green computing.
Green computing is defined as the practice of maximising energy efficiency while minimising impact on the environment through optimising software functions, leveraging on hardware energy efficiency designs and hardware-software co-optimisation.
To address the challenges faced by the industry, GCFI will focus on use cases that are currently unmet by commercial solutions. IMDA will call for proposals this year to invite researchers and industry to co-develop low-carbon digital solutions.
Private sector involvement
IMDA will also invite industry partners to participate in green software trials to better understand how to develop green software, reducing energy use and IT costs.
Participants, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), NCS, Ant Group, and the Singapore Institute of Technology, will apply carbon reduction techniques to digital applications and measure their impact.
The trials will look at the effectiveness of carbon reduction in real-world applications and the ability to deliver cost and energy efficiency without affecting performance. The trials will also generate valuable data and insights for IMDA to create guidelines for the industry on developing green software.
Green software is a nascent and growing space. It will position Singapore to further ICT growth and help tech companies remain competitive, the agency said.
At the same time, IMDA will continue efforts to green data centres (DCs), which account for the bulk of ICT sector emissions. In June 2023, IMDA launched the world’s first Standard for Tropical DCs. IMDA is now collaborating with industry partners to trial the standard in their live facilities.
IMDA said it was also driving ICT for green by empowering businesses on their sustainability journey. The agency has identified nine digital solutions for sustainability under the Advanced Digital Solutions (ADS) programme.
These digital solutions in resource optimisation and carbon management will allow companies to achieve productivity gains and cost savings, and gain access to new markets while reducing emissions. Under the ADS programme, grant support for up to 70 percent is provided for the adoption of digital solutions.
Public sector
GovTech on its part has facilitated the adoption of digital signatures and payments to reduce paper consumption, implemented digital workplace solutions such as video conferencing to reduce travel-related emissions and developed common platforms to encourage re-use in digital production.
Additionally, the agency has consolidated government data centres, launched the Government on Commercial Cloud (GCC) in 2019 and enabled the adoption of commercial cloud services.
To date, 70 percent of eligible government systems have been moved to the cloud. GovTech has also piloted data analytics capabilities to support and improve environmental policymaking, operations planning, and service delivery.
Going forward, GovTech will work more closely with the industry to jointly manage the government’s digital carbon footprint.
It hopes to achieve this through partnerships to jointly develop best practices and solutions that could reduce the environmental impact of digital technologies deployed by the Singapore Government.
IMDA noted that while ICT sector emissions form a relatively small part of global emissions, this could grow rapidly if not managed well.