TopTier Newsletter - December 2024

This issue has been edited by Elie Kaufman with contributions from the Data Centre's team.

In this edition, we cover key topics in the data centre sector, including increasing investments, the impact of energy efficiency regulations, and the management of these centres in Singapore from an ESG perspective. We also discuss the push towards green data centres, the UK's preparation for AI infrastructure, the potential use of nuclear power in AI data centres, and provide you with a handy guide to the EU AI Act.

Please get in touch if you would like to discuss any of the issues raised in these articles, or visit our webpage for more information about Bird & Bird’s International Data Centre Group.

Click on the links below to jump to the respective article:

Contents

1. Investing in data centres
2. Impact of the Energy Efficiency Directive and the Energy Efficiency Act
3. Management of data centres in Singapore - ESG
4. The quest for green data centres
5. Investment in UK data centres to prepare the infrastructure needed for AI
6. Nuclear power for AI data centres
7. EU AI Act Guide - ready to download!
8. Events

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Investing in data centres: understanding permanent establishment issues

For the purpose of Value Added Tax (VAT) regulations, the concept of a permanent establishment (PE) is crucial for defining the areas of competence among EU member states. This concept ensures that the place of tax connection for service provisions is detected, thereby avoiding "conflicts of competence" that could lead to double taxation or non-taxation of income. 

Read the full article

For more information, please contact Giuliana Polacco and Andy Van Esdonk.

Impact of the Energy Efficiency Directive and the Energy Efficiency Act on companies, especially data centre operators 

The Energy Efficiency Directive (EED) and the Energy Efficiency Act introduce increasing obligations for companies, especially for data centre operators, in terms of energy saving and energy efficiency. As the first deadline for reporting certain energy-relevant data from data centres in Germany ended on 15 August 2024, we are taking this opportunity to provide more detailed information on the impact of the EED and the Energy Efficiency Act.

Read the full article

For more information, please contact Dr. Dirk Barcaba and Elie Kaufman, LL.M. 

Management of data centres in Singapore - an ESG perspective

Singapore has over 1.4GW of DC capacity across 70 operational DCs with capacity expected to at least double within the next decade. Following from a moratorium on new data centre projects that was implemented to manage the growth and curtail the energy consumption of the industry, the government set out plans for new data centre projects to be subject to higher sustainability requirements. The Infocomm Media Development Authority (“IMDA”) has also launched a Green Data Centre Roadmap targeting at least 300MW of capacity to be deployed using green energy in the next few years.

For more information, please contact Jonathan Kao.

The quest for green data centres

The global uptick in the adoption of digital technologies and the use of artificial intelligence has spurred the demand for data centres as well as the energy demands of these data centres. Southeast Asian countries are vying to draw more investments into the data centre space. In the coming years, Singapore plans to add at least 300MW more of data centre capacity to the existing 1.4GW of combined computing capacity of more than 70 data centres in Singapore. Malaysia is seeing enormous growth in the data centre scene, attracting data centre investments including from tech giants such as Google, Nvidia and Microsoft.

Read the full article

For more information, please contact Sandra Seah and Genessa Chew.

Investment in UK data centres to prepare the infrastructure needed for AI

The increased demand for artificial intelligence has seen an increase in demand for data centres, which provide data storage, processing power and connectivity. In the UK, there has been a recent influx in overseas funding for data centres alongside a government announcement that data centres will now be classed as ‘Critical National Infrastructure’ (CNI). It is hoped that this additional stability and increased investment will provide the UK with the capacity to train the next generation of AI and create a lucrative steam of revenue in the new era of computing.

Read the full article

For more information, please contact Natalie Northridge and Kate Deniston.

Nuclear power for AI data centres

Following Google’s recent announcement that it is investing in nuclear technology to support its US data centres, nuclear power, particularly in the form of small modular reactors (SMRs), is emerging as a potentially promising solution to meet the growing energy demands of AI.

Read the full article

For more information, please contact Josh Gallichan and Kate Deniston.

EU AI Act Guide - now ready to download

To guide you through the EU AI Act, our multi-disciplinary global team of AI experts has launched our EU AI Act Guide which summarises key aspects of the new regulation and highlights the most important actions organisations should take in seeking to comply with it. Serving a similar purpose as our GDPR Guide, our EU AI Act Guide is divided into thematic sections, with a speed-read summary and a list of suggested priority action points.

To access the guide, click here.

Events

Navigating the EU AI Act: Understanding general-purpose AI models

12 December
15:00 - 16:00 GMT
Online

Join us for the third webinar in our EU AI Act webinar series for a detailed exploration of general-purpose AI models, highlighting the key legal aspects you need to be aware of.

In this webinar, we will cover the following topics:

• Terminology and general-purpose AI value chain
  
• Obligations for providers
  
• General-purpose AI models with systemic risk