Google to invest 1 billion USD in developing data centre in Thailand

Bangkok - Alphabet Inc's Google announced on September 30 that it will invest 1 billion USD in Thailand to build a data centre and cloud region to meet growing cloud demand and support artificial intelligence (AI) adoption in Southeast Asia.

The investment will create an average of 14,000 jobs annually until 2029, Google said.

Google stressed that its cloud and data centre infrastructure in Bangkok and Chon Buri will help meet growing demand for Google Cloud capabilities and AI innovations, and the company’s popular digital services - such as Search, Maps, and Google Workspace.

The data centre will be located in an industrial estate in Chon Buri, while the Google cloud region, which consists of hardware and software dedicated to providing services to private and public sector entities, will be in the capital Bangkok.

Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra said Google's investment was "perfectly aligned" with the Southeast Asian nation's Cloud First Policy.

The same day, Paetongtarn met with Ruth Porat, President & Chief Investment Officer of Alphabet Inc. and Google, to discuss cooperation in technology. The discussion also touched on Google's investment plan for digital infrastructure development in the country.

Jeff Dean, recognised globally as "The God of engineering" at Google, will visit Vietnam in a landmark event this month.

Fulbright University Vietnam has received a $1.5 million grant from Google to advance AI research and education in Vietnam.

Google is mulling the construction of a large data centre in Vietnam, in what would be the first such investment by a big US tech company in the country.