SINGAPORE, July 8 — For communities across Asia that rely on the cloud for everything from video calls with family abroad to banking and online education, the digital infrastructure that makes it all possible is facing a surprising vulnerability: copper thieves. Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, and Google have announced combined investments of over $100 billion in data center construction through 2027, according to industry analysts at Gartner in a 2024 report.
But that massive expansion is running into a problem that feels closer to a construction site heist than a high-tech supply chain issue. Copper theft is causing project delays of up to three months and cost overruns of 5 to 10 percent, Gartner found.
For a region like Southeast Asia, where data center investment has surged to meet growing demand from millions of new internet users, those delays mean new capacity comes online slower than planned. AWS, the world’s largest cloud provider, operated 105 availability zones globally as of 2025. Each zone is a cluster of data centers, and each data center requires enormous amounts of copper wiring for power and network connections.
That copper has become a target. Microsoft acknowledged the risk in its 2024 annual filing, noting that supply chain disruptions — including theft — could affect its cloud infrastructure expansion.
The company did not specify the financial impact, but the warning signals that the problem is material enough to flag for investors. Google’s 2024 environmental report revealed that data center construction accounted for 60 percent of its capital expenditures. With that much money tied up in building, any delay or cost increase carries weight.
The company has not detailed its losses from theft, but the scale of its construction spending makes even small percentage overruns significant. The three tech giants have responded with beefed-up security: 24/7 guards, surveillance cameras, and GPS tracking on materials. Yet thefts continue, according to the Gartner report.
The persistence suggests that the value of copper — and the relative ease of stealing it from sprawling construction sites — continues to outpace the deterrents. The Uptime Institute’s 2024 survey of data center operators found that 39 percent experienced a security incident involving theft or vandalism in the prior year.
That survey covers operators of all sizes, not just the hyperscale cloud providers, indicating the problem is widespread across the industry. For families across Asia, the impact is indirect but real. Data centers in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand are being built or expanded to handle the region’s exploding data demand.
Delays in those projects can slow the rollout of new services or push up costs that eventually flow through to consumers. Closer to home, the Philippines has seen its own data center boom, with global providers and local firms investing in new facilities.
Copper theft is not new in the country — it has long plagued telecommunications and power infrastructure. But the scale of modern data center construction creates a fresh target. The copper inside a single large data center can be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars on the black market.
Thieves typically strip wiring from construction sites at night or during weekends when security is thinnest. The stolen copper is sold to scrap dealers, often with little documentation. GPS tracking on materials is one of the newer countermeasures.
By tagging spools of copper cable and other high-value items, companies can track their location in real time. If a tagged spool moves off-site without authorization, security teams are alerted immediately.
Still, the thieves adapt. Some have learned to remove or disable GPS tags. Others target copper that has already been installed but not yet energized, cutting it out of walls and conduits.
The 24/7 guards help, but a single construction site can span dozens of acres, making complete surveillance difficult. The Gartner report did not break out the financial impact by region, but analysts note that copper theft is a global problem.
In Asia, where construction labor is often cheaper than in the West, the economics of theft can be particularly attractive to organized crime groups. The three cloud providers have not publicly disclosed the total value of copper stolen from their sites. But the combination of project delays and cost overruns suggests the problem is costing them tens of millions of dollars annually, based on the scale of their construction programs.
For the broader tech industry, the copper theft issue highlights a vulnerability in the physical layer of the cloud. While much of the discussion around data center security focuses on cyber threats — hacking, ransomware, data breaches — the physical security of the facilities themselves remains a weak point. The Uptime Institute survey found that theft and vandalism incidents were more common than many operators expected.
The 39 percent figure covers a 12-month period ending in 2024, meaning nearly two in five operators dealt with a physical security breach. Looking ahead, the cloud providers are exploring alternatives to copper, including fiber optics for data transmission and aluminum for some power applications.
But copper remains the standard for electrical grounding and high-current power distribution in data centers. Replacing it would require significant redesign of existing standards. For now, the companies are doubling down on security.
The 24/7 guards, cameras, and GPS tracking represent a significant operational expense, but one that is still cheaper than the delays and cost overruns caused by unchecked theft.
