Vertiv, a US-based maker of power and cooling systems for data centres, plans to invest in a factory to build advanced prefabricated modular systems for data centres in Thailand.
Mr Pichet says Thailand has the perfect supply chain ecosystem for data centre prefabrication.
The company is in the process of applying for tax privileges from the Board of Investment to open a factory in Rayong, said Pichet Ketruam, country manager for Indochina at Vertiv, formerly known as Emerson Network Power.
If Thailand becomes a new base for prefabricated modular data centre gear, it will be the second country outside the US, following Croatia.
"Thailand has strong engineering competency and the perfect supply chain ecosystem that can support the global market, in particular Australia and Southeast Asia," Mr Pichet said.
The company has 100 employees and plans to double that once the factory is in operation.
Vertiv has the ability to provide critical infrastructure in power and cooling systems in data centres, including design and build, as well as maintenance and monitoring services.
The private and government sectors need to invest in their own data centres, and use co-location services from data centre providers.
Digital transformation, e-payments, and all kinds of digital technology such as data analytics, machine learning and the Internet of Things, all are driving the market demand.
"The demand for edge data centre services has increased rapidly," Mr Pichet said.
The rise of edge data centres has been driven by banks moving toward e-payments and automation to reduce branch expansion and increase co-location and cloud computing services, he said.
It is estimated edge data centres globally will reach US$19.4 billion (605.7 billion baht) in 2023 and Asia-Pacific will see massive growth.
Telecom is a growing sector for data centres, especially because of the rise of mobile data usage and the coming 5G network.
5G in Asia-Pacific is forecast to reach $4.5 billion in 2022 with 280 million users.
"We are implementing the largest container-based data centre in Thailand," Mr Pichet said.
Container-based data centres are suitable for projects in areas where infrastructure networks are poor, he said.
The government's Eastern Economic Corridor is also a new opportunity for data centre business.
Vertiv's Thailand office is a hub for the Indochina market where investment in IT infrastructure is growing rapidly.
The company's main revenue is generated by the Thai market.
