The agency behind Thailand's spectacular data centre growth
Most parts of Thailand's FDI in 2025 came from data centres, driven by BOI incentives.
The Thailand data centre industry is booming, and credit must go to the influential Board of Investment (BOI) for opening the way.
In my panel discussion at the Thailand Cloud & Datacentre Convention - Global this morning, Pattaraphan Paiboon of Baker & McKenzie credited the BOI as having one of the biggest impacts on the growth of the data centre industry.
What does the BOI do?
The role of the BOI
Fortuitously, Tanita Sirisup of the BOI spoke in a separate session today. She explained that her agency is responsible for promoting and facilitating investments in Thailand. The BOI works to create an environment for innovation and investments, integrate help and support from relevant agencies, and ensure a conducive digital ecosystem in Thailand.
The BOI is empowered to offer substantial incentives to achieve its mission. This includes tax holidays of up to 13 years, permission for 100% foreign ownership, and permission to own land for BOI-approved projects.
The data centre boom
Photo Caption: (Left) Standing room only. (Middle) My afternoon panel with Attapol Sinchalong, Sharkrit Impat, Nanthasuth Leelayudth, CFA. (Right) Rhys Morgan moderating up a storm.
In her speech, she also shared a few nuggets that gave us a look into Thailand's spectacular data centre growth.
Here are some facts you probably don't know. There have been 57 data centre applications since 2022, adding to a combined value of US$25 billion. Most parts of Thailand's FDI in 2025 came from data centres. And the projected CAGR from 2025 to 2030 is 6.6% for data centres and 23.7% for public cloud.
Thailand is also strong in interconnectivity, with 13 cable landings and another two expected to be completed by 2027.
In a nutshell, its data centre growth today isn't something that happened by chance.
Photo Credit: Paul Mah.
Ensuring continued success
Back to my morning panel where the BOI was mentioned. There were too many great points mentioned to list all of them.
But what would it take for the continued success of digital infrastructure in Thailand? A few observations stood out: more industry collaboration and partnerships, continued support and dialogue with regulators, and connectivity and infrastructure planning.
I also shared some of the conversations I heard with data centre insiders in a post yesterday.
What do you think of Thailand? Is it set to be the next digital hub in ASEAN?
Photo Credit: Paul Mah.
