Thailand's investment board has authorized investments totaling 90.9 billion baht ($2.7 billion) in cloud services and data centers, the most recent additions to the nation's growing technology industry.
The move was taken as American cloud companies, such as Google, Amazon, and Microsoft, seek to expand their presence in Thailand and the surrounding area.
Both domestic and foreign businesses will construct and run Thailand's recently authorized data centers.
The largest, a 300 MW facility in Rayong Province, will be constructed by China's Beijing Haoyang Cloud Data Technology Company at a cost of 72.7 billion baht ($2.16 billion).
A new 35 MW data center in Chonburi Province will be built with an investment of 13.5 billion baht ($400 million) by GSA Data Center 02, a joint venture between GULF and ST Dynamo.
For 4.72 billion baht ($140 million), Singapore's Empyrion Digital will construct a third 12 MW facility in Bangkok.
For Thailand's cloud industry, the planned data centers—particularly Beijing Haoyang's—represent a major capacity increase.
Currently, the majority of data centers in the nation have a maximum capacity of about 30 MW.
However, the BoI has authorized a number of large-scale construction projects in recent months.
These include Quartz Computing, an Alphabet company, investing 32.8 billion baht ($980 million) to construct a massive new plant in Chonburi.
The first specialized cloud region in Thailand is expected to debut this year, according to Amazon Web Services (AWS), one of the major American cloud providers. Not far behind, Google and Microsoft have both set similar goals for the nation.
The three major tech companies intend to spend billions of dollars developing their infrastructures in Thailand. For instance, over the next 15 years, AWS intends to invest $5 billion in the nation.
Thailand is observed to be competing with Singapore in terms of digital connection, as seen by the numerous submarine cables that land on its coast. Additionally, data center developers are searching for fresh prospects outside of the well-established Singapore hub as regional cloud demand increases.
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With incentives from the BoI such as tax cuts, property ownership rights, and import duty exemptions to promote investment, the Thai government has also aggressively supported the expansion of digital infrastructure.