OREANDA-NEWS Edgnex Data Centers, owned by Dubai-based Damac Group, is investing more than 32 billion Thai baht (about $1 billion) in the construction of three to four data centers (data centers) in Thailand, Bloomberg reports.

The construction will be handled by a joint venture between Edgnex (70%) and Thai Proen Corp. (30%). Edgnex will also be the operator of data centers, writes Investment Monitor.

The first data center will be located in the center of Bangkok and will be operational by March next year. Its initial capacity will be 5 MW, the design capacity will be 20 MW.

Potential clients include artificial intelligence (AI) companies and government agencies, said Damac founder Hussain Sajwani.

In total, Damac wants to build data centers in Thailand with a total capacity of about 100 MW.

The company also intends to invest in the construction of luxury housing in this country and can become an example for other Dubai companies in developing its market, Sajwani said.

This year, the Thai authorities accelerated the implementation of the national AI strategy for 2022-2027 and by 2025 they want to bring the state into the top 50 in terms of AI readiness (now it ranks 59th).

Recently it became known that the American Google wants to invest $ 1 billion in the construction of data centers in Thailand, and Oracle will invest more than $ 6.5 billion in the creation of a public cloud infrastructure in neighboring Malaysia.

In addition, Microsoft, Nvidia and Amazon are investing billions of dollars in the AI infrastructure of Southeast Asia. The region is inhabited by about 685 million people.

According to forecasts, the total capacity of data centers in the wider Asia-Pacific region in 2024-2029 will grow from 14.27 thousand. MW up to 23.2 thousand. MW, or 10.2% on average per year, according to the Kaohoon International news resource.