Thailand's data centre market is anticipated to post triple-digit growth over the next two years, fuelled by an influx of global cloud service providers and tech companies, according to hyperscale data centre firm ST Telemedia Global Data Centres (Thailand) (STT GDC Thailand).
Data centres form the digital infrastructure that contributes to the country's economic growth, Supparat Sivapetchranat Singhara na Ayutthaya, the company's chief executive, told the Bangkok Post.
STT GDC Thailand is a joint venture between Frasers Property Limited (FPL) and Singapore-based ST Telemedia Global Data Centres.
The company is slated to open STT Bangkok 3, its third data centre in the country, at the end of this year, according to a statement released by the company yesterday.
The two-megawatt data centre is located in the One Bangkok district, Thailand's largest integrated mixed-use development in the central business district.
Mr Supparat expressed the company's support for Thailand's economic growth and its positioning as a digital hub in the region.
Thailand can be a strategic regional hub of data centres as its investment value is expected to reach 200 billion baht with a capacity of 500MW over the next five years, up from the current 157MW, he said.
Mr Supparat said the data centre business supports economic growth, given that it requires long-term investment of 15-30 years.
He said Thailand's data centre facilities meet international standards, which attract global tech companies.
Moreover, Thailand has a geopolitical advantage that can attract Chinese businesses to relocate to data centres here because of its political neutrality and strong regional transport connectivity, said Mr Supparat.
He said the data centre business is expected to continue to grow for 5-8 years. STT GDC Thailand expects to grow 20-30% this year. The company also expects to see more intense competition among data centre operators.
Bruno Lopez, president and group chief executive of ST Telemedia Global Data Centres, left, Panote Sirivadhanabhakdi, group chief executive of Frasers Property, centre, and Mr Supparat.
The company's business supports big players, so it will feel the least economic impact, he said.
Its planned total data centre capacity is up to 40MW with total investment of 16 billion baht. In the current first phase, it offers total capacity of 20MW, of which 60% is used.
"We're the largest Indochina colocation data centre," said Mr Supparat.
The company is designing the second phase to support customers who use artificial intelligence systems.
As electricity bills account for 40% of data centre expenses, he said the new government should reduce electricity costs to be on par with Malaysia's in order to attract more investment by data centres and tech companies.
ALTERNATIVE ENERGY
In November last year, STT GDC Thailand signed a memorandum of understanding with PTT Digital Solutions Co, an information and communication technology service provider under the PTT Group, to jointly study, design and undertake a feasibility study to harness cold energy released from the regasification of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to produce electricity and chilled water for cooling the data centre environment.
The regasification of LNG entails significant embedded energy, also known as cold energy, which is an untapped resource that can be used to produce electricity as well as to cool a data centre environment.
PTT Digital in collaboration with PTT Group will help facilitate the tapping of this cold energy, which would otherwise go to waste, as an alternative energy source in the data centre environment.
This will be a first for Thailand and will set new standards in the reduction of carbon emissions for the data centre industry.
In other countries such as Singapore and South Korea, telecom firms and data centres have also established joint ventures to reduce carbon emissions and cut electricity costs by using alternative energy.
Korea Telecom and Korea Gas announced a plan to build a data centre cooled by an LNG plant.