How Sunway Construction Uses Hubble Safety Management System to Drive Safety Excellence and Speed in Hyperscale Data Centre Construction

Data centre construction in Asia is experiencing a significant boom, driven by the escalating global demand for hyperscale infrastructure. Giant tech firms like Google, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft are building data centres in ASEAN, particularly in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand. Key hotspots in Malaysia include Johor, Bukit Jalil, and Cyberjaya. According to Knight Frank's Asia-Pacific Data Centres Report 2025, Johor is the fastest-growing data centre hub in Southeast Asia, with aggregate supply nearly doubling in the past year to 5.8GW in Q2 2025. Behind this surge lies a relentless pressure: build faster, build bigger, and above all — build safer. The industry faces a unique challenge: achieving both speed and safety simultaneously. Hyperscale data centre projects demand not just speed, but precision and zero-tolerance safety.

For Sunway Construction, building a data centre extends beyond steel and concrete; it is about building trust — safely, at scale, and on time. Hubble.Build stands as the integrated construction management software redefining digital safety workflows in these complex builds.

About Sunway Construction

Sunway Construction is one of Malaysia’s leading and most established construction groups, with a track record spanning infrastructure, commercial, and industrial projects across Asia. The company’s foundation rests on operational discipline and uncompromising safety standards — standards that have shaped its reputation for delivering complex builds under pressure. In data centre construction, Sunway Construction applies the same rigour found in its civil and infrastructure works but adapts it for hyperscale precision, where milliseconds of downtime translate to business risk. 

Driven by an ambition to lead digital transformation in construction, Sunway Construction has embraced data, automation, and integrated platforms to strengthen its execution. The company views technology not as a supplement but as a necessary system of accountability and speed. This mindset makes its partnership with Hubble.Build a natural evolution — blending Sunway’s deep field expertise with digital intelligence that continuously improves safety, coordination, and decision-making in high-stakes data centre environments.

What’s at Stake — The Safety Challenge in Hyperscale Data Centre Projects

Hyperscale data centres operate at an immense scale, under considerable pressure. A single 20MW project, for example, can host tens of thousands of servers, necessitating hundreds of workers and contractors in tightly coordinated activities, all while adhering to tight timelines. Typical safety management often encounters bottlenecks, including fragmented systems, manual Permit-to-Work (PTW) processes, and reactive inspections. According to Singapore’s Workplace Safety and Health Council, construction remains the highest-risk sector, accounting for nearly 25% of all workplace injuries in 2024. Furthermore, data centre contractors report that up to 30% of project time can be lost due to inefficient permitting and safety-related stoppages. This highlights the critical need for transformation, which led Sunway Construction to adopt Hubble.

Safety Workflows Before Using Hubble

Prior to Hubble, Sunway Construction relied on a system characterised by spreadsheets, paper-based PTW, delayed approvals, and scattered inspection data. Permit-to-Work approvals required multiple physical signatures. Paper flow became a bottleneck that slowed entire work fronts. Safety inspections were inconsistent. Paper records easily went missing, and follow-ups were difficult to track. When there are many different teams on site, one delayed permit could hold up an entire zone. This system presented three key breakdowns: 

• significant time wastage
• critical accountability gaps 
• a pervasive lack of data visibility

The lack of centralised data made real-time monitoring nearly impossible. Project managers often learned about issues only after audits — not during live operations. The cost of that information lag was high.

How the Hubble Safety Management System Transformed Operations

The Hubble Safety Management System introduces integrated modules specifically designed for large-scale, high-speed environments. Hubble seamlessly connects various workflows:

• Permit-to-Work Automation: This cloud-based, digital system offers real-time tracking, significantly reducing approval cycles from days to mere hours.
• Inspections & Incident Reporting: Site data is efficiently captured via a mobile app, enabling proactive risk detection.
• Analytics & Dashboards: Instant visibility into safety trends empowers project directors to make early and effective interventions.

Sunway Construction recorded a 50% reduction in PTW turnaround time and a 35% reduction in inspection delays within three months of adoption. Additionally, safety incident reporting compliance rose from 68% to 95%.

The Human Perspective — From the Ground Up

On-site engineers at Sunway Construction have experienced a tangible shift. Supervisors no longer chase signatures or forms. Approved personnel can be tracked instantly to PTWs, and safety records are traceable in real time. This digital transparency has fostered a cultural change, moving from reactive compliance to proactive safety ownership. The human impact is evident in fewer late-night calls, faster communication, and improved morale across teams.

Business Impact Beyond Compliance

Centralisation is often overlooked as a safety enabler. Yet for Sunway Construction, the ability to manage certified personnel, equipment, and documentation from a single source of truth is game-changing. Hubble offers a unified resource, workforce, and safety management system that reduces dependency on paper-based processes. The impact extends beyond compliance. It improves predictability — critical for hyperscale projects where every hour counts. 

• Real-time dashboards give managers insight into toolbox meetings, safety inspections, and PTW progress. 
• Patterns in incidents and corrective actions are tracked, enabling analytics-driven prevention. 
• Workflows are digitalised, reducing paperwork and capturing visual evidence on-site. 

This foundation builds organisational resilience — where safety and productivity are no longer competing priorities but mutually reinforcing ones.

Operational efficiency directly translates into measurable project success. This includes faster project completions without compromising safety, alongside consistent documentation for client audits and hyperscaler compliance requirements. Every hour saved in safety clearance can keep a hyperscale project aligned to its aggressive commissioning targets. Hubble’s scalability further positions Sunway Construction for strategic regional expansion.

Why Hubble.Build Leads in Data Centre Construction Management

Hubble.Build stands out as the integrated construction management platform suitable for tier-one data centre contractors. Its key differentiators include local compliance intelligence, modular integration encompassing safety, quality, and workforce designed for hyperscale coordination. We built Hubble.Build to help contractors like Sunway Construction in Malaysia deliver precision and safety, even under hyperscale pressure. 

Lessons Learned and Future Outlook

Sunway Construction’s experience offers key lessons relevant to any large-scale contractor in Southeast Asia:

• Visibility informs better judgment. What gets measured gets mitigated. 
• Integration reduces enforcement friction. Unified systems drive faster closure of safety actions. 
• Proactive culture sustains progress. When ownership moves from compliance teams to the field, safety becomes continuous, not episodic. 

Looking ahead, the future outlook involves exploring AI-assisted safety analytics to predict high-risk zones before incidents occur — learning from patterns across thousands of data points. This predictive layer, powered by site data and machine learning, marks the next evolution of safety transformation. By embedding intelligence into every stage of construction, companies can continue to redefine what excellence in safety means at hyperscale.

A New Standard for Safe, Fast Delivery

The partnership between Hubble and Sunway Construction reinforces leadership in both digital transformation and construction safety. At the pace hyperscale construction demands, safety can no longer sit on the sidelines. It must be embedded — seamlessly, intelligently, and in real time. For Sunway Construction, adopting Hubble was not a technology upgrade. It was a statement of intent: that safety and speed can, and must, coexist. Hubble.Build continues to set that benchmark — making safety a business accelerator, not a bottleneck. 

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Why is safety such a critical challenge in hyperscale data centre construction?

Hyperscale data centres demand rapid delivery under high operational pressure. With hundreds of workers on-site and complex concurrent workflows, even a single delayed permit or safety incident can cause significant downtime. This makes safety excellence and speed equally non-negotiable. 

2. What safety pain points do traditional construction sites face?

Conventional safety processes rely on paper-based permits, delayed approvals, and isolated reporting. These cause inefficiency, accountability gaps, slow incident responses, and data fragmentation across teams. 

3. How does the Hubble Safety Management System solve these challenges?

Hubble digitalises the entire safety workflow through real-time Permit-to-Work automation, mobile-enabled inspections, and analytics dashboards — ensuring faster approvals, enhanced accountability, and data visibility across project teams. 

4. How does Hubble empower on-site teams? 

The system eliminates manual paperwork and approval bottlenecks, allowing supervisors and engineers to focus on proactive safety management rather than administrative follow-ups. This shift fosters accountability, collaboration, and a stronger safety culture. 

5. Does improving safety also enhance project speed and profitability? 

Yes. Every hour saved in safety clearance keeps hyperscale data centre projects aligned with aggressive delivery timelines, minimising downtime and optimising labour productivity — without compromising compliance.

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