Thailand sets new rules for data centres as applications surge

BANGKOK, Oct 27 (Reuters) – Thailand’s data centre committee said on Tuesday 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

• Danucha said that there were more than 100 prospective operators

• 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 ($22.58 billion) in investment

• Southeast 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 $24.61 billion this year

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

($1 = 33.2200 baht)

(Reporting by Chayut Setboonsarng, Editing by David Stanway)