Recently, Thailand's State-owned Enterprise Policy Office (SEPO) has instructed Thailand's National Telecommunications (NT) to intensify its efforts to develop two new data centers to meet the high demand for digital transformation by government departments under the national "cloud first" policy.。

It is reported that NT's two existing data centers, located in Bang Rak and Nonthaburi, mainly serving state-owned enterprises and institutions, are currently operating at almost full capacity and are not expected to expand their service capacity in the next one to two years.。

NT President Col Sanphachai Huvanandana said the development of the new data center is one of several additional initiatives within its existing business strategy to create new revenue streams for the company.。They will also drive NT's real estate appreciation in Bangkok and six adjacent areas - of which the office in Khlong Toei (4 lai) and the office in Ngam Wong Wan (70 lai) are two of the planned areas.。

Sanphachai said that the development of the new data center is expected to take 20 months, so the development plan must be completed as soon as possible。In the initial phase, NT plans to co-invest around 1,000 server racks with foreign partners。As part of the company's real estate appreciation strategy, the project is expected to be located at its office on Ngam Wong Wan Road.。

Under the Thai government's "cloud priority policy" and digital transformation process, cloud data servers can save the government budget to a great extent。It is estimated that the local cloud computing market in Thailand may grow at a rate of about 20% per year.。Therefore, SEPO attaches great importance to this data center construction project.。

Singapore has stopped expanding its local cloud and data center ecosystem, making Malaysia a direct competitor to Thailand.。In order to attract investment, the country has introduced additional preferential policies, such as electricity prices are only half of Thailand's, and provide investors with free land for the construction of cloud computing data centers.。

In this case, Thailand's attractiveness to investors lags far behind。Therefore, NT must coordinate with Thailand's Ministry of Digital Economy and Society (DES) and implement relevant preferential policies, and NT will also look for more private company customers to use its cloud services.。

However, despite the huge demand, given NT's SOE status, any investment budget would need to be approved through the annual budget, so its investment budget is limited。So partnering with the private sector is one of the best ways to actually advance the new cloud and data center。

For NT, the development of a cloud data center in Thailand will also use artificial intelligence (Al) and big data technology to provide services to support the operations of national governments, enterprises and institutions with its secure and systematic advantages.。

On December 16, NT presented SEPO with its add-on business plan for 2024, which includes the development of seven projects: adding value to its existing property in Bangkok; exploring new business opportunities in artificial intelligence (Al) and data technology; operating digital government services; forming a joint venture; increasing sales in its mobile business through machine-to-machine and Internet of Things (IoT) solutions; developing "carbon-neutral and last-mile" services and finding partners for its broadband services.。

In addition, Sanphachai also revealed that there are already four foreign companies interested in working with NT to develop these two new data centers, Amazon Web Services (AWS) or one of them.。Prior to the merger of CAT and TOT to become NT, AWS was a business partner of CAT Telecom。

Sources also said that Microsoft and Huawei are also likely to be its two potential partners.。