Through his company Frasers Property, the company will invest 7.3 billion baht ($231.3 million) in a building a new data centre in in Bangkok with data centre provider ST Telemedia Global Data Centres (STT GDC).
The move comes as Sirivadhanabhakdi recognises an "robust demand" for online shopping, video conferencing and food delivery which will drive further demand for data storage services.
Under the terms of the deal, Frasers group will own a majority stake in the new data centre, while ST Telemedia Global Data Centres, indirectly wholly owned by Temasek Holdings, will own the rest.
According to Supparat Sivapetchranat, CEO of STT GDC, "The pandemic has accelerated digital transformation among companies and business enterprises in Thailand. This has boosted growth for data centre demand at much higher pace than we have expected."
Due to come into service in 2021, the new facility will also benefit from the rollout of Thailand’s 5G services as Sivapetchranat confirmed Thailand's government raised more than $3 billion from the 5G license auctions, in February.
In the first phase of the build phase will see the construction of 30,000 square metres of gross floor area and offer colocation services to banking and financial institutions, e-commerce players, global cloud operators, to name a few.
"There is a projection that the demand for data centres in Thailand will grow more than 20% a year," said Sivapetchranat. "This is a very strong growth. Every application at the end of the day is on the data centre."
