JAKARTA, Sept 30 — The governor of Indonesia's most populous province has ordered Singapore's BDx data centres to halt construction on a data centre due to a lack of required permits, amid a push by Southeast Asia's largest economy to catch up with regional peers in technology infrastructure projects.
BDx, which runs data centres for cloud companies and other large businesses across Asia, said it broke ground on a 640-megawatt artificial intelligence (AI) data-centre campus in Jatiluhur in West Java on Tuesday (September 22).
In a video of a meeting posted to Instagram today, Governor Dedi Mulyadi of West Java told BDx representatives that construction work had to stop until required permits were obtained and the project's environmental impact assessment process was completed.
BDx did not respond to a request for comment. It is unclear if construction has been halted.
"The project is being halted not because it violates environmental rules. It is being halted because the permits have not yet been issued," he said in a separate video that was posted on YouTube yesterday.
Dedi said he supported investment in West Java provided projects were environmentally friendly, while noting concerns that some data centres have been associated with water shortages.
Around the world, there have been moves to freeze, restrict, or ban new data-centre construction, as concerns mount over electricity costs, strained water supplies, land scarcity, and the burden on local communities.
In June, United Nations researchers said that data centres are expected to consume twice as much power and water by 2030 as they expand to meet the surge in AI demand.
Opposition to data centres has emerged elsewhere in Southeast Asia, including in Malaysia, the region's fastest-growing data-centre market.
In a report issued in January, business intelligence company Research and Markets said that Indonesia's data-centre market was valued at US$2.81 billion (RM11.46 billion) in 2025 and is forecast to reach US$6.08 billion (RM24.81 billion) in 2031.
