The truth about Johor's data centre water situation until mid-2027

Is Johor all out of water and are data centres doomed? This week, two SCMP reports caused consternation in data centre circles. You can read them here and here.

Here's my unsensational take.

Mid-2027

Two stories on the South China Morning Post (SCMP) were published and widely circulated this week. I think I had half a dozen friends either text or tag me.

First of all, I think it's great we are seeing more stories. As recently as five years ago, there was little interest in data centres and minimal mainstream coverage.

So what did the reports say? Here are the two headlines: "Data centres in Malaysia's Johor told to wait for water 'until mid-2027'" and "In Malaysia's Johor, silicon dreams meet parched realities."

So, you can be forgiven for feeling somewhat panicky.

PS: The water consumption published in the article is wrong, likely due to a mistake in conversion of units.

Why water?

For readers not familiar with how data centres operate, why do facilities for hosting servers need so much water?

In data centres, water is primarily used by cooling systems designed for evaporative cooling, where water evaporates as the primary mechanism to expel heat.

With data centres today being far larger than ones just a few years ago - some are 10 times larger in capacity - the amount of water needed has correspondingly surged.

New water infrastructure

The SCMP report quoted a Johor state executive councillor as alluding to a water moratorium for data centre operators until "mid-2027."

Why 2027? From my research, multiple schemes are happening to increase the water supply. Here are two of them.

First, an infrastructure programme has been initiated to divert surplus water southwards from central and eastern regions with abundant water.

Second, Johor is also urgently building two water treatment plants: the Semanggar Plant with 50 million litres per day (MLD), and Layang 2 Phase 2 Plant with 160 MLD.

The Semanggar Plant is expected to be completed in 2026, whilst Layang 2 will be completed in 2027.

Note: A 100MW data centre at full load is estimated to need up to 6 MLD of water per day. The plants will add plenty of water.

Not a new challenge

From conversations I've had, water isn't a new challenge to data centre operators in Johor. But there are ways around it.

Operators can build wastewater reclamation plants, use "dry" coolers that don't need water though these use more power, or deploy liquid cooling systems where higher coolant temperatures work with water-free cooling methods.

So, it's only a temporary crunch and there are solutions available today.