China’s Galaxy Data Center to Invest $2B in Thai Digital Infrastructure

China’s Galaxy Data Center is the latest player to enter Thailand’s booming data centre market, with the international arm of Beijing-based data centre developer and operator Hoyinn Technologies announcing a plan to invest $2 billion building data centres in the kingdom.

Galaxy’s $2 billion initiative will establish a large-scale computing and green energy cluster in Rayong province on Thailand’s eastern seaboard, the company said in a release late last week.

The company made the announcement after attending an investor forum with Thailand’s acting prime minister, Phumtham Wechayachai, last Wednesday along with representatives of global and regional tech giants Google, Samsung, Sony, BYD, and TikTok.

“By deploying GW-scale (gigawatt-scale) green AI data centre technologies, integrating international green energy resources, and fostering partnerships, GDC (Galaxy Data Center) will accelerate the development of a robust digital ecosystem in Rayong,” Galaxy founder Feng Hui said. 

150MW Facility

The GDC announcement comes after Cushman & Wakefield reported in June that Thailand is expected to achieve the second fastest pace of data centre construction per capita in the Asia-Pacific region through 2030, ranking second only to Malaysia.

The consultancy estimates that Thailand is on track to achieve a 70 percent improvement in per capita data centre capacity over the next five years, with the population-per-megawatt ratio to fall to 220,000 people per megawatt by 2023, from the current 800,000.

GDC will host its data centre in Silicon Tech Park in Ban Chang, the westernmost district of Rayong, according to a separate release by Hoyinn Technologies (also known as Heying) in June.

Under an agreement between GDC and Silicon Tech Park, the partners will jointly develop a gigawatt-scale green AI data centre and a photovoltaic power facility at the site, to support the Thai market as well as other parts of  Southeast Asia, Hoyinn said in the release.

The IT load of the data centre is expected to be approximately 150 megawatts (MW), according to an announcement by Thailand’s Board of Investment (BOI) which approved the project in May.

A wholly owned subsidiary of Chinese conglomerate Tianjin Zhengxin Group, Hoyinn operates data centres mainly in Hebei province near Beijing. Among the company’s projects in Hebei is a joint venture facility with Keppel Data Centre Fund II with the Singaporean venture owning a majority stake in that Huailai county property.

Growing Hotspot

Galaxy’s Rayong project fits into a growing stream of data centre investment in Thailand, as the country becomes Southeast Asia’s latest hot market, with Chinese investors playing a leading role.

In June, Stratus Technology, an affiliate of China’s ZDATA Technologies, received approval from the Board of Investment for a 23.7 billion baht  data centre project with that facility also to be developed in Rayong.

In March, Beijing Haoyang Cloud Data Technology, a mainland Chinese platform which counts US private equity major Apollo Global Management among its backers, received approval from the Thai Board of Investment for a THB 72.7 billion data centre with a planned 300MW of capacity in Rayong.

Global tech titans have also turned their attention to Thailand’s burgeoning data centre market. Alibaba Cloud launched a second data centre in the country in February, and TikTok maker ByteDance won BOI approval for $3.8 billion in projects in January.

Google unveiled a $1 billion digital infrastructure investment plan for the kingdom in September.