Thailand sets new rules for data centres as applications surge

[BANGKOK] Thailand’s data centre committee said on Tuesday (Oct 27) that it would establish a set of minimum requirements for data centre operators, including standards for location and land use, fuel storage and water management infrastructure as well as an environmental code of practice.

Data centres will be divided into seven tiers based on power demand, the committee said.

New data centre applications are expected to open in early 2027, after the criteria are submitted to cabinet next week, said Danucha Pichayanan, secretary-general of the National Economic and Social Development Council.

Existing data centres will have one year to meet the new minimum requirements, Danucha said.

There are more than 100 prospective operators, he added.

Thailand has seen a wave of data centre investments in recent years, prompting the government to scrutinise their impact.

As of February, it had 42 data centres, representing 3,400 MW of IT load and about 750 billion baht (US$22.58 billion) in investment.

South-east Asia’s second-largest economy wants to position itself as a regional data infrastructure hub, similar to Singapore and Malaysia.

Some of the largest data centre projects have been from TikTok, which invested US$24.61 billion this year.

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Thailand sees US$50.3 billion in investment applications in first nine months, up 28% on year

In 2024, Google announced a US$1 billion investment in data centre and cloud architecture. REUTERS