ASEAN Beat | Environment | Southeast Asia

Whose Water Powers the Cloud? Data Centers and the Right to Water in Johor

When Singapore restricted data center growth to protect its own resources, the environmental cost shifted to Johor in neighboring Malaysia.

In February 2026, residents of Gelang Patah in Johor, Malaysia, protested outside a data center construction site. Their concern was simple: not enough water left for them. The protest was small. The problem it pointed to is not.

Johor has become Southeast Asia’s fastest-growing data center hub. Its aggregate capacity nearly doubled over the past year, reaching about 5.8 gigawatts (GW) by mid-2025. The reason is clear. Johor shares a border with Singapore, a major data center market in Southeast Asia, where over 30 international submarine optical cables converge. Due to Singapore’s planning controls and a moratorium on new data centers, global technology companies (such as Microsoft, Equinix, ByteDance and Zdata) have increasingly looked beyond the city-state and begun to target Johor for new data center development.

Data centers drink a lot. They not only consume electricity but also require significant water for cooling. Servers run 24/7 and generate heat, and water-based cooling systems can draw heavily on local supplies. When data center capacity expands rapidly, water demand can begin to compete with freshwater resources. Specifically, a medium-sized data center can use up to 110 million gallons of water per year for cooling purposes alone, an amount comparable to the annual water use of around 1,000 households. Larger, mega-sized data centers can use up to 5 million gallons per day, reaching approximately 1.8 billion gallons per year. This issue is not limited to water use at industrial facilities. Every time a user prompts an AI system, water use can accumulate behind the scenes. It has been estimated that GPT-3 needs to “drink” (i.e., consume) a 500mL bottle of water for roughly 10 to 50 medium-length responses, depending on when and where it is deployed. While one question may seem trivial, the scale of use matters: with millions of users interacting with AI systems around the clock, the digital economy’s “invisible thirst” can add up quickly.

Johor’s state government recognized the problem and acted. It classified Tier 1 and Tier 2 data centers as high water users, drawing nearly 200 times more water than smaller facilities, and halted new approvals for that category. The industry did not self-correct; the government had to act. A regulatory response, however, does not resolve the underlying issue. Access to safe and sufficient water is a fundamental right, established under the U.N. Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights’ General Comment No. 15. The U.N. Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights require corporations to identify and prevent rights harms before they occur, not after residents take to the street. In Johor, due diligence came after the protest.

What happened in Johor is not just a local story. Singapore restricted data center growth to protect its own resources. The environmental cost did not disappear; it moved to Johor. This is environmental externalization: the benefits of digital services flow globally, the burdens land locally. The people of Gelang Patah are not heavy users of the cloud infrastructure that their water sustains.

Data center investment brings real benefits for local economies. Jobs, infrastructure, and the expansion of the tech ecosystem can be attractive growth drivers for host communities. Yet the central question is not simply whether to develop, but how development proceeds and whether it adequately accounts for local communities and essential resources. The Johor protest forces a basic reckoning: whose water and environment ultimately underwrite the digital conveniences the rest of us enjoy? 

Rather than leaving licensing to corporate discretion, governments should institutionalize mandatory water-impact assessments, information disclosure, and meaningful community consultation as core permitting requirements. Similarly, in accordance with the U.N. Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, corporations must conduct robust human rights due diligence to proactively identify and mitigate risks to water accessibility. This is a baseline condition, not an optional standard for reducing “social risk” and ensuring the sustainable growth of digital infrastructure.

Get to the bottom of the story

Subscribe today and join thousands of diplomats, analysts, policy professionals and business readers who rely on The Diplomat for expert Asia-Pacific coverage.

Get unlimited access to in-depth analysis you won't find anywhere else, from South China Sea tensions to ASEAN diplomacy to India-Pakistan relations. More than 5,000 articles a year.

Unlimited articles and expert analysis

Weekly newsletter with exclusive insights

16-year archive of diplomatic coverage

Ad-free reading on all devices

Support independent journalism

Already have an account? Log in.

In February 2026, residents of Gelang Patah in Johor, Malaysia, protested outside a data center construction site. Their concern was simple: not enough water left for them. The protest was small. The problem it pointed to is not.

Johor has become Southeast Asia’s fastest-growing data center hub. Its aggregate capacity nearly doubled over the past year, reaching about 5.8 gigawatts (GW) by mid-2025. The reason is clear. Johor shares a border with Singapore, a major data center market in Southeast Asia, where over 30 international submarine optical cables converge. Due to Singapore’s planning controls and a moratorium on new data centers, global technology companies (such as Microsoft, Equinix, ByteDance and Zdata) have increasingly looked beyond the city-state and begun to target Johor for new data center development.

Data centers drink a lot. They not only consume electricity but also require significant water for cooling. Servers run 24/7 and generate heat, and water-based cooling systems can draw heavily on local supplies. When data center capacity expands rapidly, water demand can begin to compete with freshwater resources. Specifically, a medium-sized data center can use up to 110 million gallons of water per year for cooling purposes alone, an amount comparable to the annual water use of around 1,000 households. Larger, mega-sized data centers can use up to 5 million gallons per day, reaching approximately 1.8 billion gallons per year. This issue is not limited to water use at industrial facilities. Every time a user prompts an AI system, water use can accumulate behind the scenes. It has been estimated that GPT-3 needs to “drink” (i.e., consume) a 500mL bottle of water for roughly 10 to 50 medium-length responses, depending on when and where it is deployed. While one question may seem trivial, the scale of use matters: with millions of users interacting with AI systems around the clock, the digital economy’s “invisible thirst” can add up quickly.

Johor’s state government recognized the problem and acted. It classified Tier 1 and Tier 2 data centers as high water users, drawing nearly 200 times more water than smaller facilities, and halted new approvals for that category. The industry did not self-correct; the government had to act. A regulatory response, however, does not resolve the underlying issue. Access to safe and sufficient water is a fundamental right, established under the U.N. Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights’ General Comment No. 15. The U.N. Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights require corporations to identify and prevent rights harms before they occur, not after residents take to the street. In Johor, due diligence came after the protest.

What happened in Johor is not just a local story. Singapore restricted data center growth to protect its own resources. The environmental cost did not disappear; it moved to Johor. This is environmental externalization: the benefits of digital services flow globally, the burdens land locally. The people of Gelang Patah are not heavy users of the cloud infrastructure that their water sustains.

Data center investment brings real benefits for local economies. Jobs, infrastructure, and the expansion of the tech ecosystem can be attractive growth drivers for host communities. Yet the central question is not simply whether to develop, but how development proceeds and whether it adequately accounts for local communities and essential resources. The Johor protest forces a basic reckoning: whose water and environment ultimately underwrite the digital conveniences the rest of us enjoy? 

Rather than leaving licensing to corporate discretion, governments should institutionalize mandatory water-impact assessments, information disclosure, and meaningful community consultation as core permitting requirements. Similarly, in accordance with the U.N. Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, corporations must conduct robust human rights due diligence to proactively identify and mitigate risks to water accessibility. This is a baseline condition, not an optional standard for reducing “social risk” and ensuring the sustainable growth of digital infrastructure.

Haewon Seo is a graduate student at American University's School of International Service. Her research focuses on resource security and energy policy.

Malaysia data centers

Singapore data centers

© The Diplomat