The government is set to finish the final master plan for Digital Park Thailand's construction by March before starting roadshows abroad this year to attract foreign investment.
The Digital Park is a core part of Thailand's drive to become a digital infrastructure hub in Asean.
According to Sanpachai Huvanandana, president of CAT Telecom, the final master plan is being hammered out by the Digital Economy and Society (DE) Ministry, the Digital Economy Promotion Agency (Depa) and CAT.
The final master plan will be submitted to the National Digital Economy and Society Committee for official approval.
The master plan will present clear information for related parties such as infrastructure construction partners, investors and potential tenants.
Col Sanpachai said CAT and Depa plan to do roadshows in Japan, Taiwan, the US and China.
The Digital Park project is under a five-year roadmap (2018-22). The project spans an area of 709 rai at CAT's property in Sri Racha district, Chon Buri province.
A flagship project of the Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC), the Digital Park is divided into three zones: innovation space; university 4.0 and digital academy; and living space.
Col Sanpachai said the Digital Park project is being pushed through two phases of development in parallel.
Phase 1 focuses on construction of an Internet of Things (IoT) institute, and Phase 2 includes finalising the master plan, surveying and selecting partners for constructing infrastructure and utilities under public-private partnership.
For Phase 1, the IoT institute spans 30 rai of the Digital Park. The institute is being constructed under a government budget of 3.5 billion baht, handled mainly by the DE Ministry and Depa.
The government hopes that research institutes and universities will provide knowledge and information about the IoT ecosystem to serve enterprises in the Digital Park.
In addition, the IoT institute will be the outstanding part of the Digital Park to attract direct investment from foreign enterprises looking to establish offices and exchange know-how with Thai tech startups.
For the development of Phase 2, Col Sanpachai said CAT is in the process of hiring an adviser company to help select potential partners for building the infrastructure of the project.
"We [CAT] expect that the Digital Park project can name partners under the public-private partnership model by September this year, including partners related to infrastructure and utility development," he said.
Col Sanpachai said the company is mainly installing telecom infrastructure in the park and providing digital infrastructure such as fibre optics, cloud computing, data centres and internet gateway services.
The Industrial Estate Authority of Thailand will provide one-stop information service for investment incentives.
Yesterday, CAT signed a memorandum of understanding with Eastern Water Resources Development and Management Plc to plan water supply and management at Digital Park.
