B.Grimm Power Pcl plans to invest in a 250-megawatt data center project with a new overseas partner as the Thai power producer accelerates its expansion into the sector to capitalize on surging demand for AI services.
The project will increase B.Grimm’s data center capacity target to 500 megawatts by 2030, up from a 300-megawatt goal announced last month, Chairman Harald Link said, declining to name the partner. B.Grimm is also exploring data center projects in South Korea and Japan with a total capacity of about 200 megawatts, he said.
B.Grimm needs to “convince the customers that we would build a beautiful data center for them,” Link said in an interview at the Forbes Global CEO Conference in Singapore Wednesday.
The Thai utility joins peers such as Gulf Development Pcl and global tech giants including Amazon.com Inc., Alphabet Inc., ByteDance Ltd. and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. in adding data centers and cloud services in the Southeast Asian nation. Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul’s government is offering tax breaks and other incentives to lure investments as it seeks to establish the country as a hub for artificial intelligence infrastructure.
Shares of B.Grimm were little changed in early Bangkok trading. They’ve advanced about 35% this year.
Digital Edge B.Grimm, a venture of B.Grimm Power and Singapore’s Digital Edge, is developing a 96-megawatt data center project in Thailand. It is expected to start operations later this year, with plans to add further capacity.
B.Grimm plans to double its total power generation capacity to 10 gigawatts by the end of the decade, from about 4.8 gigawatts currently. The listed unit of Thailand’s oldest conglomerate — which is also involved in property development and healthcare — has been growing its renewable energy business with projects in the US, Italy, Greece and across Asia.