Thai investment board approves data centre projects from Google, GDS

Thai investment board approves data centre projects from Google, GDS

Thailand’s Board of Investment (BOI) says it has approved 66.2 billion baht (US$1.96 billion) worth of investments for new data centre projects in Chonburi Province backed by Google and China’s GDS.

According to a statement released Friday, the BOI approved a THB32.8 billion investment from Quartz Computing  – a subsidiary of Google’s parent company Alphabet – to establish a hyperscale data center in Chonburi.

Google announced plans for the data centre at the end of September 2024, along with a new cloud region in Bangkok to meet growing demand for connectivity services and foster the development of AI in Southeast Asia. The cloud region has been in the pipeline since August 2022. The Chonburi data centre is expected to be ready for service in 2027.

Meanwhile, the BOI also approved a THB28 billion investment from Digitalland Services, a local subsidiary of GDS IDC Services, to build its own hyperscale data centre in Chonburi. GDS has said it intends to launch services in Thailand sometime in 2026.

According to a report from Thai PBS World, BOI secretary general Narit Therdsteerasukdi said investors have applied for incentives for 47 data centre and cloud service projects in Thailand worth THB173 billion baht, with most of the investment coming from the US, Australia, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, India and Thailand.

At the same meeting Friday, the BOI also approved a THB6.15 billion project from Cheng Yi Technology to establish a factory in Chachoengsao Province to produce prepreg and copper clad laminate components for printed circuit boards.

"The continuous flow of new foreign investment in data centres and the electronic supply chain reinforce's Thailand's status as a regional tech hub," Narit said in a statement.

Thailand is one of several southeast Asian countries trying to establish itself as regional data centre hub to meet demand for cloud services, edge computing and hyperscale workloads, particularly AI. According to Next Move Strategy Consulting, Thailand’s data centre market value is expected to grow from US$652 million in 2023 to over US$1.5 billion in 2030 at a CAGR of 13%.

Last week, Equinix announced it will invest around US$500 million in phases over the next ten years in Thailand, starting with two new IBX data centres in Bangkok.

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