The data center market in Thailand has received a boost with the infusion of 10.15 billion baht (US$30.8M) that was approved by the Board of Investment of Thailand (BOI) last month. The news comes in the wake of the new government’s digital economy policy to turn Thailand into a trade hub in ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Networks) through the use of information technology (IT).

TCC Technology will invest in a data center costing 3 billion baht, while Digital Port Asia of Japan will invest 1.15 billion baht in another facility, according to the Bangkok Post. Separately, SuperNAP International will invest 6 billion baht in its own data center project.

The IT market in Thailand is benefiting from economic stimulation as the government plans to enhance its IT infrastructure capacity. In the government’s budget for rgw fiscal year starting October 2014, Reuters reported that nearly 18 percent of the 2.58 trillion baht (US$78.4B) in planned spending is earmarked towards investments.

Reasons to invest
Waleeporn Sayasit of TCC Technology (TCCT), confirmed her firm’s three billion baht investment to Datacenter Dynamics. TCCT currently operates three data centers in Thailand: one at the Empire Tower Data Center (ETDC) in the central business district area of Bangkok, the new Bangna Data Center (BNDC) near the international airport serving Bangkok, and a data center at Amata Nakorn (AMDC) in the eastern part of Thailand.

TCCT expects the IT market in Thailand to grow rapidly in 2015 and 2016 as the country transforms itself to be more interconnected, says Sayasit. According to her, this adoption of a more regional stance is expected to eventually translate into a steep growth in the IT market to a CAGR of 15 percent.

When we wrote about Thailand’s data center industry in October, we noted how the country had several inherent advantages as a data center location, including its strategic position as the gateway into countries that make up the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS), many of which share their borders with Thailand.

The news of the data center investments and the government’s renewed focus on IT is a welcome one, and could signify that the country is finally getting its act together after the May 22 coup last year that had paralyzed the government and bureaucracy.