Why Singapore, and why now
If you're deploying infrastructure anywhere near Southeast Asia, Singapore has probably already come up in your planning - and the numbers explain why.
Singapore is the landing point for 27 international submarine cables, roughly 29% of the 97 cables operating across ASEAN. New systems including Bifrost, Apricot, Candle, and Asia United Gateway East will keep extending that lead through 2029.
Peering keeps regional traffic local
Cable density is only half the story. Singapore also hosts SGIX and a dense private peering ecosystem operated by providers like Equinix and Digital Realty. That means traffic between, say, Indonesia and Thailand doesn't need to cross an international cable at all - it peers locally, which is why round trips complete in single-digit milliseconds instead of tens of milliseconds.
The latency numbers
- Jakarta: 30–40ms
- Bangkok: 35–45ms
- Manila: 40–50ms
- India: 40–70ms
- Sydney: 50–70ms
- Tokyo: 65–80ms
Overall, Singapore delivers sub-50ms latency to 600M+ people across Southeast Asia and reaches 2B+ users across broader APAC within 100ms.
Hyperscalers are voting with capital
AWS, Google, and Microsoft have committed a combined $20B+ to the region, most of it anchored around Singapore's core infrastructure - a signal that's hard to ignore if you're deciding where to build.
When alternatives make sense
Singapore isn't always the answer. Thailand and Malaysia's Johor region offer meaningfully lower costs, and Johor in particular connects via terrestrial fiber directly into Singapore's cable infrastructure. For cost-constrained early-stage deployments, that's a reasonable starting point - with a migration path to Singapore as traffic and revenue scale.
Full breakdown, latency tables, and regulatory comparisons (Singapore vs. Hong Kong):
👉 https://www.fitservers.com/blogs/singapore-internet-infrastructure/
