Willis, a business of WTW, has established a dedicated Data Centre Industry Practice for Asia, signalling a major step in addressing the rapidly evolving risk environment surrounding data-centre infrastructure. The announcement comes on the backdrop of a projected US$160 billion worth of data-centre projects across South & Southeast Asia and Australasia over the coming years.
The new practice will bring together expertise from across Willis’s business lines to deliver a “single, integrated proposition” tailored for clients spanning financiers, developers, operators and tenants. According to Luke Ware, Head of Asia at WTW: “This dynamic sector presents a complex insurance landscape, with stakeholders ranging from financiers and developers to operators and tenants. Data Centres face a broad spectrum of risks, including natural hazards, business interruption, environmental exposures and cyber threats, across every stage of their lifecycle, from financing and construction to operations.”
To lead this new Asia-practice, Lay See Ong has been appointed Practice Leader and will operate out of Singapore. Ong brings over 25 years of risk advisory and brokerage experience, particularly in Technology, Media & Telecom (TMT) and complex infrastructure sectors. The move reflects Willis’s strategy to deepen specialist risk solutions as demand for infrastructure, cloud services and AI-driven computing escalate across the region.
As Asia becomes a key growth engine for data-centre investment, insurers and brokers are under increasing pressure to offer customised risk-transfer mechanisms. The establishment of this practice positions Willis to offer more holistic coverage strategies capable of addressing both construction-cycle risks and long-term operational exposures in the sector.
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