True IDC, a local provider of data centre and cloud services, is forming a joint venture with Japan's biggest internet exchange service provider, BBIX Inc, to prepare for tremendous growth in artificial intelligence (AI), e-commerce and global internet.
"The company foresees Thailand becoming Asean's internet exchange hub, an alternative internet exchange for connectivity to Indochina and an integral part of digital infrastructure for Thailand 4.0," said Supparat Sivapetchranat Singhara Na Ayutthaya, general manager and chief technology officer of True IDC.
BBIX Thailand, a joint venture of True IDC and BBIX with holdings in the proportion of 51% and 49% respectively, will start service by the end of this year.
Thailand's international traffic is growing by 40-50% a year, with 3,000 Gbps of network consumption.
Thai users are the world's keenest by time spent on the internet, at more than nine hours a day, and some of the heaviest users of social media and e-commerce as well.
"Thailand becomes the first country to form a joint venture with BBIX, as True has the cloud and data centre infrastructure that can synergise perfectly and move faster to the market," said Keiichi Makizono, president and chief executive of BBIX, 100%-owned by SoftBank Corp.
The internet exchange point (IxP) business entails physical infrastructure that lets networks interconnect directly, via the exchange. The advantages of direct interconnection are cost, latency and bandwidth.
BBIX is the fastest-growing internet exchange service in Japan, with a 50% growth rate in the past five years.
BBIX has operations in Japan, the US, Hong Kong and Singapore, all of which are wholly owned by BBIX Japan.
The joint venture in Thailand will provide better network infrastructure to serve the rise of the Internet of Things, robotics, AI, internet service providers, mobile operators and content providers.
BBIX sees potentially 580 organisational customers in Thailand that consume a great deal of internet bandwidth and data, including banks and big corporations using AI technology.
In its first phase, BBIX will provide services in Bangkok, before expanding to provinces and the CLMV (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam).
Mr Supparat said there are two or three internet exchanges already in Thailand, but he touted the new joint venture as the first Layer 2 internet exchange offering faster connectivity for consumers.
"This service might indirectly attract more global internet content providers to expand their data centres here in Thailand, as there are already cloud and data centre services with the growth of data consumption in the country," he said.