Thai billionaire Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi is banking on a boom in data center and data storage services demand in Thailand for his newest venture.
Mr. Charoen is reportedly investing US$231 million (7.3 billion baht) through his real estate company, Frasers Property, in building a data center in Bangkok.
According to Supparat Sivapetchranat, the Chief Executive Officer of ST Telemedia Global Data Centres (Thailand), the investment comes after seeing a ‘robust demand’ from companies and individual consumers, particularly in online shopping, video conferencing and food delivery.
“The pandemic has accelerated digital transformation among companies and business enterprises in Thailand. This has boosted growth for data center demand at a much higher pace than we have expected,” said Mr. Supparat of STT GDC.
The new data center, which will begin operation early next year, will also benefit from the rollout of 5G mobile phone services.
Frasers Property will own a majority stake in the operator of the new data center, while STT GDC will hold the rest.
The first phase of the Thailand data center will have 30,000 square meters of gross floor area and offer colocation services to banking and financial institutions, e-commerce players, global cloud operators and others, according to the company.
“There is a projection that the demand for data centers in Thailand will grow more than 20% a year. This is a very strong growth. Every application at the end of the day is on the data center,” said Mr. Supparat.
The projection could, indeed, come true, as moves by Orient Link and NEC Corporation to build a MIST submarine cable connecting Thailand with Singapore, Malaysia, Myanmar, and India could open up the space for more data centers to be built.
On top of this, Jasmine Telecom System and South Korea’s KT Corporation recently signed a strategic collaboration agreement to develop an Internet Data Center business in Thailand.
In addition, Thailand’s cloud computing sector could take liftoff, 24,000 cloud computing jobs predicted to be created in the country over the next four years.
Earlier this year, STT GDC also made history in Thailand after becoming the first data center provider in Thailand to achieve both the TIA-942 Certification Rated-3 and Uptime Institute Tier III Certification of Design Documents.
Mr. Charoen, whose net worth of US$12 billion ranks him as the richest Thai, joins companies such as WHA Corp in increasing investment in technology and automation to attract local and global companies to their facilities.
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Image credit: The Nation, Bangkok
