SingTel is investing S$400 million to build a new data center in Singapore to meet demand for co-location and cloud services.

The new data center – Singtel's largest investment in Singapore to date – will be a Tier 3-Plus facility capable of meeting the critical hosting needs of the financial services sector, government agencies and cloud and internet service providers, Singtel says.

Both private and co-location data hosting will be available via the centre, which will be located in Jurong.

The centre is designed to meet the Monetary Authority of Singapore's Technology Risk Management guidelines which address existing and emerging risks confronting financial institutions.

Bill Chang, Singtel chief executive officer, group enterprise, says the centre will enable Singtel to attract and host world-class cloud players in Singapore and position the company as a global hub for cloud computing and innovation.

The 570,000 square foot facility is expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2016, and will be able to host a range of technologies including cloud solutions, smart applications and different platforms for analytics.

With power capacity up to 36 megawatts, the facility will be one of the highest power densities in the region, Singtel says, enabling it to cater to customers' future growth and deploy and scale virtualisation and blade servers more efficiently according to future needs.

Integrated climate control and a critical cooling system using recycled NEWater, will also be included, with customers able to use the centre's infrastructure management tools to optimise and manage energy consumption and costs.

The new facility brings Singtel's Asia Pacific data center network to 13, including nine in Singapore and two each in Hong Kong and Australia.