How much power and water will Oton’s proposed AI data center need?

By Rjay Zuriaga Castor

ILOILO CITY – A proposed artificial intelligence data center carrying an investment of up to EUR 500 million, requiring as much as 50 megawatts of continuous power and thousands of cubic meters of water for cooling, is now being pitched for Oton, Iloilo — but questions remain over the project, its backers, and its future.

Those questions come amid growing global scrutiny of the environmental footprint of the AI boom, particularly the electricity and water needed to run the data centers behind increasingly complex computing systems.

Water and power use rank among the main controversies surrounding that boom. Many facilities draw large volumes of water directly for cooling, especially those relying on evaporative systems and cooling towers.

Others shift part of the burden indirectly onto electricity generation, which also consumes water.

Several reports suggest the scale can be very large, especially for hyperscale campuses in dry or water-stressed regions.

Bloomberg has reported that a typical 100-MW data center can consume about 2 million liters of water a day, while the International Energy Agency projects that global data center water use could rise sharply by 2030.

Oton is a coastal municipality bordering Iloilo City to the west and one of the fastest-growing towns in the province, with residential and commercial expansion pushing outward from the city boundary.

Daniel Stefan Robertsen, who identified himself as managing director and AI data center developer for Norway Green Energy, explained during the Aug. 14 public consultation in Barangay Abilay Sur how the facility would meet its electricity and cooling requirements.

Robertsen said he had already sent a letter of intent to Iloilo I Electric Cooperative Inc. concerning the power requirements of the proposed 10-hectare hyperscale AI data center campus.

ILECO I is the electric cooperative serving Oton and other municipalities in Iloilo’s first and second districts.

He said the facility would not simply tap the existing electrical infrastructure used by households and other businesses.

“I will not connect to use your power. I will build my own power substation on the land,” he said.

He said the project planned to construct a 50-MW power substation, allowing the facility to meet its electricity requirements without directly interfering with existing energy infrastructure.

“That is why for the data center I will need 5 hectares, but I will make it 10 because I will build a power substation of 50 MW, with 25 MW each. That will permit me not to interfere with the private energy infrastructure,” he explained.

The plans also include a dedicated, developer-funded substation with a 69-kilovolt/115-kilovolt interconnection, power-quality monitoring, and dual-feed redundancy.

The proposed data center would initially operate at 10 MW before expanding to its full 50-MW capacity.

Robertsen also described the facility as a “flat load,” meaning its electricity demand would remain relatively constant because the data center is designed to operate continuously.

Unlike ordinary consumers whose electricity consumption fluctuates with the time of day, the proposed AI data center is expected to maintain a largely constant demand to keep its computing equipment and other critical systems running.

A 50-MW load would represent a significant addition to demand on the Panay grid, which drew scrutiny after the island-wide blackout of January 2024.

WHY A DATA CENTER NEEDS WATER

In his 18-slide presentation, which lasted about 30 minutes, Robertsen did not discuss the water requirements of the proposed hyperscale facility.

That prompted Sangguniang Bayan member Annie Rose Paro to raise the issue during the question-and-answer portion of the hearing.

Robertsen explained that servers and other high-density computing equipment generate significant heat and must be continuously cooled to prevent overheating.

He said older data centers traditionally used chilled-water cooling systems involving cooling towers, pumps, and a network of pipes running through the facility.

“Previously, data centers would use chilled-water systems. They have a large tower with water and pumps,” he said.

According to Robertsen, the water would circulate through those pipes and return to the cooling system for reuse.

Robertsen said the proposed Oton facility would instead use newer cooling technologies designed for high-density AI computing.

He identified liquid-direct-to-chip technology, which routes coolant to the processors themselves rather than chilling the surrounding air, as one of the systems that could be used.

“Now, we don’t use the chilling water system anymore. We use technology that is liquid direct to chip,” he said.

BIG VOLUME OF WATER CIRCULATING DAILY

Robertsen said the proposed data center would require about 500 cubic meters of water for every 10 MW of capacity.

At full 50-MW capacity, that would mean approximately 2,500 cubic meters of water circulating through the cooling system per day.

He stressed, however, that this should not be read as the facility consuming a fresh 2,500 cubic meters every day.

Robertsen said the figure instead represented the volume of water held within the cooling system, which would operate on a recycling or closed-loop basis.

“We do not use the water totally. We are recycling. It is closed loop,” he said.

Under the system he described, water would move from the cooling infrastructure to the servers and return to the cooling tower, where it would be reused.

“It is coming from the tower, it is going to the server, it is coming back. It is a cycle,” he said.

He said the water would be continuously filtered and returned to the system rather than disposed of as wastewater.

“We don’t dispose of the water,” Robertsen said.

Despite describing the cooling system as closed-loop, Robertsen acknowledged that some water would still be lost through evaporation.

“Yes, there will be some evaporation,” he said.

The exact volume expected to be lost that way was not established during the consultation, based on his presentation and responses.

SEPARATE WATER PIPELINE

Robertsen said he had also sent a letter of intent to Metro Pacific Iloilo Water regarding the project’s water requirements.

Metro Pacific Iloilo Water is the joint venture that supplies Iloilo City and several neighboring towns, including Oton.

He said Norway Green Energy would construct and finance its own pipeline network for the data center rather than drawing on the existing network serving consumers.

“We don’t interfere with your network of pipes. We build our network of pipes in front of the data center,” he said, noting that the company would pay for the construction of the project’s own water pipeline infrastructure.

Robertsen also said water used in the cooling system would be filtered, with a portion intended to be returned to the water provider.

The precise volume that would be returned, and the technical process governing its treatment and discharge, were not fully detailed during the hearing.

Water use became the central issue in the final moments of the nearly hour-and-a-half consultation.

Robertsen appeared irritated by the questioning and challenged the concerns being raised.

“Did you ever work in the data center? Yes? No?” he asked Paro.

He later maintained that he was not forcing the community to accept the project.

“If you don’t want it, I don’t want it either. I am not forcing somebody to build the data center. I am not here to convince you. Let me say this: if you think that the data center is something toxic and you don’t want it, then let us stop the discussion now,” he said.

NORWAY GREEN ENERGY AS FUNDING VEHICLE

Robertsen said Norway Green Energy would serve primarily as the vehicle for bringing investment capital into the proposed data center rather than directly building and operating the facility.

“Norway Green Energy is the vessel for the money. I bring the money from Norway and from other parts, but the company that will build and operate the data center will be a Filipino data center,” he said.

Robertsen said he intended to establish a Philippine company with a Filipino partner that would eventually build and operate the facility.

“I will set up here myself with a Filipino partner, a Filipino company […] I am a foreigner, and you are all my Filipino partners,” he said.

Norway Green Energy has no readily available digital footprint, and publicly accessible information documenting Robertsen’s professional background is also limited.

He said he had previously developed more than 600 MW of data center capacity, with projects in Europe, Abu Dhabi, and New Zealand.

“I built enough data centers. I built 600 MW-plus in Europe, Abu Dhabi and New Zealand. I know data centers, and I know them very well,” he said.

The only publicly available report linking Robertsen to work as a data center manager and infrastructure professional is a January 2018 report noting his appointment as president of Digital Green Energy Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary of the U.S.-based, publicly traded bitcoin mining and digital-asset infrastructure company Riot Blockchain Inc.

The same report indicated that he was chairman and CEO of Bitfury Norway AS, a company known for blockchain infrastructure, high-performance computing, and data center solutions.

It also noted that he previously served as head of critical and data center facilities management at global IT services firm Datacom Systems, regional facilities operations manager for Telenor AS/Hanesth Group, and European data center operations manager for Facebook Inc.

A PHP 35-BILLION PROJECT

Robertsen said the project would require a major capital commitment, with an estimated EUR 400 million for the first phase and an operational budget of around EUR 10 million a month while the data center is being developed and brought into operation.

He estimated the total investment at about EUR 500 million, or roughly PHP 35.48 billion.

“Altogether, the investment will be half a billion euros. Nobody will invest such an amount of money for one year or three years. The data center here will be here to stay,” he said.

The development would involve what Robertsen described as future-ready AI infrastructure and sustainable energy solutions for high-density computing loads.

He said the project would use standardized modular structures to accelerate construction, with the planned data center buildings designed to rise two stories.

“We will build it in about 15 months, so we will be building 10 megawatts,” he said, referring to the initial phase.

Robertsen also said he intended to recruit as many workers as possible from the local community.

A LONG-TERM INVESTMENT

Robertsen argued that the facility should be viewed as long-term infrastructure rather than a temporary business venture.

He said an AI data center is not simply a facility for storing information, describing it instead as “mission-critical infrastructure” that would support computers and digital applications.

“All the applications, economy, financial, medical, school, administration — everything will be run by AI data centers,” he said.

Robertsen said the project was intended to prepare Iloilo and Western Visayas for the growing demand for artificial intelligence and digital infrastructure.

“I believe that this will bring the future. I am not building this for me. I am building for the next generation,” he said.

Robertsen said Iloilo is rapidly emerging as a business and technology center, citing the growth of business process outsourcing operations and the movement of businesses from Manila — developments he said were suited to the establishment of an AI data center in the region.

“Now, the digital revolution is coming,” he said.