In a landmark development, Singapore Telecommunications Limited (“Singtel”) Gulf Energy Development Public Company Limited (“Gulf Energy”) and telecom company AIS have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to jointly develop and operate data centres in Thailand.
This collaboration is part of Singtel’s strategy to develop a regional data centre business with partners and associates by capitalising on the strong growth potential of digital infrastructure, Singtel said in a statement. AIS, one of Thailand’s leading telecommunications company and a regional associate of Singtel, has a large local sales force with deep relationships with Thai enterprises, local data centre operations know-how and will be able to provide connectivity solutions for the data centre business.
Gulf Energy is Thailand’s largest private power producer. AIS’ strengths complement Singtel’s expertise in developing and operating data centres and established relationships with multinational hyperscaler customers and Gulf Energy’s extensive local business network and access to land and power, including green energy. The inclusion of AIS in the partnership will help strengthen and accelerate plans to build Thailand’s leading data centre business and capture the rapid growth in demand for digital infrastructure in Thailand from both local enterprises as well as hyperscalers.
As a part of the joint development agreement, Singtel, Gulf Energy and AIS have agreed to work closely and expeditiously to establish the joint venture company. Site selection has already commenced, and the company will start the development of best-in-class data centres utilising energy efficient technologies and green energy solutions in the coming months, Singtel said.
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Action in the data centre market is picking up in Thailand. Recently, ETIX Everywhere, an IT service management company acquired a 67 per cent stake in Genesis data centre, which will form the basis of a new data centre campus to be jointly developed with its local partner Interlink Telecom.