(Bloomberg) — Power billionaire Sarath Ratanavadi, Thailand’s second-richest individual, is accelerating his push into knowledge facilities to faucet a booming market fueled by rising demand for cloud computing and synthetic intelligence.
His power firm, Gulf Power Growth, and its companions plan to spend an extra 10 billion baht ($271 million) to double their outlay on a knowledge heart facility in suburban Bangkok.
The enlargement will enhance the middle’s power consumption to 50 megawatts from a beforehand introduced 25 megawatts, with completion anticipated in March, Gulf Power Chief Monetary Officer Yupapin Wangviwat informed reporters final week.
Sarath is increasing his empire into digital banking, cryptocurrency buying and selling, and different know-how companies as electrical energy technology in Southeast Asia’s second-biggest economic system has extra capability. Demand for knowledge facilities is rising within the area, with international tech firms spending billions of {dollars} to spur cloud computing and AI companies.
“We set the enlargement of the second part now as a result of we count on a surge in demand for our knowledge heart companies,” Sarath mentioned on the press convention in Bangkok. “A bounce in AI adoption and cloud computing will considerably enhance demand for our knowledge heart bandwidth.”
Know-how and different non-energy companies are anticipated to contribute a “vital proportion” of Gulf Power’s income within the close to future, mentioned Sarath, declining to elaborate. Earlier this week, Gulf Power and Alphabet, Inc. held a joint briefing about their cloud computing partnership in Thailand.
