France-based data centre operator Etix Everywhere is considering setting up a second data centre in Thailand to serve future demand, in line with increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) among enterprises.
"A second site is on the table to serve customer demand, as we have to be ready to deliver it fast. We have shortlisted real estate that could be used to serve this demand," Pierre Patris, Etix Everywhere's chief executive for Asia, told the Bangkok Post.
Etix Everywhere and Interlink Telecom Plc (ITEL) set up Etix Itel Bangkok Co, a joint venture that operates Etix Bangkok#1 data centre in Samut Prakan.
Etix Itel Bangkok invested US$20 million in phase 3 and 4 of the data centre.
The company completed phase 3 in the first quarter this year, costing $11 million and adding 1.5 megawatts of capacity.
"We plan to fill it up in two years," said Mr Patris.
The company is designing phase 4, which will add 1.5MW of capacity, he said.
Etix Everywhere has deployed more than 6,000 square metres of solar panels for this data centre. The solar power output accounts for 11% of the centre's total energy consumption.
The rooftop panels save the equivalent of 480 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions per year, said Mr Patris. Within three years, the company aims to quintuple the number of panels installed.
"This demand for carbon reduction is expected by our clients. They made carbon emission reduction commitments to their customers and the data centre is a large contributor to this vow," he said.
"Finding data centre suppliers able to help them with carbon reduction is key."
By 2025, 100% of the electricity used at the data centre is expected to be generated from renewable energy resources, either hydropower or solar power, said Mr Patris.
Thailand has strong business opportunities for data centres based on data demand in neighbouring countries and the recent surge in AI, he said.
The Malaysian data centre market is four times bigger than in Thailand, while the Indonesian market is twice the size of the Thai value.
"Thailand's data centre market has just started to take off, and it will take some time to structure it effectively to develop a solid market share in Southeast Asia," Mr Patris said.
The country's data centres are witnessing a notable diversification in their client base, marked by a significant influx of institutions such as banks, international over-the-top providers, and cloud service giants such as Amazon Web Services and Google, according to an Etix Everywhere study.
This underscores the growing reliance on robust data infrastructure by industries, aiming to bolster their digital operations and ensure seamless service delivery to their customers, noted the study.
Another trend in Thailand is the exponential rise in demand for AI capabilities. Businesses across diverse industries are increasingly harnessing AI technologies to uncover valuable insights, automate processes and improve decision-making, according to the study.
AI workload is surging at data centres, necessitating the adoption of high-performance computing infrastructure and specialised hardware accelerators.
To address this escalating demand, data centre operators are investing in AI-ready infrastructure, deploying graphics processing units and tensor processing units to efficiently support intensive AI workloads.
Furthermore, collaborations with AI solutions providers and the integration of AI-driven analytics tools are becoming commonplace, enabling businesses to derive actionable intelligence from vast datasets and drive innovation across their operations, noted the study.
"Thailand has some real advantages in this AI race. The Eastern Economic Corridor is particularly well developed to serve large power capacity with vast land parcels, required for building AI data centres," said Mr Patris.