Japan data centre providers invest US$164m in Thailand expansion

Thailand has seen a significant influx of investment from data centre providers, with two Japan-based companies investing a combined US$164 million in the country. This comes as digital transformation and cloud computing continue to grow exponentially.

Telehouse recently launched its first Thai data centre, investing US$74 million in the project. Meanwhile, NTT invested 3 billion baht through its subsidiary, NTT Global Data Centers Corporation, to develop its largest data centre in Thailand, set to begin operations in the second half of 2024.

Major global cloud and data centre providers have been expanding their presence in Thailand for several years. Early investors included Tencent Cloud, Huawei, and NTT, with Alibaba Cloud, Amazon Web Services, and Google Cloud joining the fray last year.

In May, Telehouse, which is 66% owned by KDDI, opened its first data centre in Thailand on Rama IX Road in Bangkok. The facility is the company’s third in Southeast Asia and covers a building area of 9,000 square metres with a 9.5 megavolt amperes power capacity.

Ken Miyashita, managing director of Telehouse (Thailand), said the company aims to provide secure and reliable data centre services and become a connectivity hub in Southeast Asia. Telehouse Thailand currently has over 10 partners supporting the ecosystem of “interconnection” in the data centre, including telecom operators, cloud, and content providers.

In March, NTT announced a 3 billion baht investment through NTT Global Data Centers Corporation to develop its newest and largest data centre in Thailand. The BKK3 facility will provide a maximum IT capacity of 12 megawatts across approximately 4,000 sq m of IT space when fully built out.

Takeshi Kimura, managing director of NTT Global Data Centers Holding Asia Pte, emphasised the rapid changes in economic activity based on digital infrastructure in South Asia. The company plans to expand further in the region to support the growth of Thailand’s digital economy, including the surge in electronic transactions and data consumption.

Sutas Kongdumrongkiat, chief executive of NTT in Thailand, highlighted the increasing importance of infrastructure for high volume real-time data transmission as the country progresses with digital transformation. He also noted the expected growth in demand for data storage and managed hosting services across Thailand.

The new data centre aligns with NTT Group’s “Green Innovation” vision for 2040, aiming to achieve net-zero emissions across its operations by 2030 and its value chain by 2040. This is in line with Thailand’s commitment to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.

According to Gartner, Thai organisations are expected to spend 54.8 billion baht on public cloud services in 2023, representing a 31.7% increase from 2022.