CtrlS Datacenters Limited has entered into a strategic collaboration with Thailand-based National Telecom Public Company (NT) for its upcoming 150-MW data centre campus at the Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC) in Chonburi, Thailand. The greenfield data centre campus in Thailand marks CtrlS’ first international market expansion as well as its first hyperscale data centre campus in Thailand.
The digitalisation across Thailand, deployment of 5G, and improved connectivity with highly efficient submarine cables with countries such as the US, China, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan make the country an attractive hub for digital infrastructure. Additionally, the data centre development in the EEC will attract both international and domestic hyperscale and enterprise customers, including customers from heavy industries such as automotive, manufacturing and petrochemicals, food processing and other key industries.
CtrlS is building a hyperscale datacenter campus with design capacity up to 150 MW in Chonburi, Thailand, and NT will be one of the partners for network/connectivity. CtrlS and NT are entering into a collaboration of convergence of data center colocation services, cable landing station (CLS), network connectivity hub and various cloud-based services, known as convergence of data centre, CLS and terrestrial (DCT).
CtrlS’ data centre site at EEC offers proximity to submarine CLSs for existing Asia-America Gateway (AAG) cable system and upcoming Asia Direct Cable (ADC) cable system, to be launched in the first quarter of next year, making this data centre a nodal point of interconnection equipped with submarine and terrestrial cable networks to connect to other data centers & industrial estates. It is also close to the EEC startup incubator and is away from flood prone regions (with mean sea level >40m).
Commenting on the collaboration, Sridhar Pinnapureddy, chairman, CtrlS Datacenters, said, “Through this collaboration, we aim to serve customers’ needs for digital services, both domestic and international. The data centre is designed to serve hyperscaler needs in addition to serving high-end IT/compute needs of domestic enterprises. We see this data centre as a unique opportunity to contribute towards development of Thailand’s eastern region and offer a robust diverse option for international customers and partners for establishing their footprint in the country and region.”
Meanwhile, Ashish Ahuja, chief technology officer, CtrlS Datacenters, added, “We are delighted to have this strategic collaboration with NT extending their AAG, ADC and future submarine cable landing stations into this data centre and jointly develop a new teleport and point of interconnection in the facility enabling our data centre customers to have seamless connectivity within the country and to other markets in the region. This collaboration will help develop Chonburi as new international hub for regional and global content/cloud players to interconnect, providing additional diversity to serve the region in a much efficient manner.”
Further, Colonel Sanpachai Huvanandana, president and chief executive officer, NT, said “NT is very pleased to cooperate with CtrlS in building this data centre campus, which is the first hyperscale datacenter campus in the eastern region of Thailand. This memorandum of understanding (MoU) marks the commitment to upgrade the telecommunications network and support the use of digital technology for the industrial sector in the ECC through both parties’ strengths in resource, expertise, and infrastructure. This will in turn push Thailand to become an attractive economic centre for investors in various industrial sectors and support digital investors in Thailand and from abroad to invest in businesses related to various technologies such as 5G, artificial intelligence, cloud, internet of things, smart city, and big data, as well as being a business destination for global content operators.”
Additionally, Seikson Mitkasem, senior executive vice president, Marketing and Products, NT, said “For this collaboration, NT is ready to support telecommunication infrastructure, especially the information communication network that covers both domestically and internationally. Currently, NT’s communication network not only features more than 10 connection points to neighboring countries but also has a worldwide coverage. There are six submarine cable stations ready to connect via nine submarine cable systems, including AAE1, AAG, APG, FLAG, SJC, SMW-3, SMW-4, TIS, and ADC as well as points of presence (PoPs) in all regions of the world that serve as a connection point to transmit data.”
In July 2023, CtrlS signed a memorandum of agreement (MoA) with Eastern Economic Corridor Office (EECO) to lease a land parcel located at Chonburi Province for setting up the hyperscale data centre campus.
