Dubai Billionaire Plans to Build Data Centers Across Asia

Damac Group, backed by billionaire developer Hussain Sajwani, plans to invest about $3 billion to build data centers across Southeast Asia as the region becomes a hub for AI and cloud services. 

Edgnex Data Centers, a unit of the Dubai-based conglomerate, envisions spending the capital in Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand over the next three to five years, said Danish Nayar, senior vice president of investments and acquisitions. The first of three Thai facilities, which will start operating March in Bangkok, will feature Nvidia Corp. chips.

Privately-held Damac, which focuses primarily on real estate in Dubai, has been diversifying into sectors such as technology and fashion. The Southeast Asian outlay is part of a plan to spend $5 billion to $7 billion on expanding Edgnex operations around the world, Nayar told Bloomberg News. 

It aims to build digital infrastructure that can house the high-end servers essential for storing data and providing artificial intelligence services. Founded in 2021, Edgnex already operates two data centers in Riyadh and Dammam, Nayar said. 

The company has acquired land for two more data centers in Malaysia and Indonesia each, with the majority of them set to employ Nvidia’s new Blackwell chips, Nayar said. Edgnex is also exploring similar facilities in Vietnam and the Philippines, aiming to announce those plans in 2025.

“Today we have over 550 megawatts of projected capacity towards Southeast Asia, which effectively means that this could be a $5 billion market for us,” Nayar said. “And we are on our way to increase further.” 

A longtime manufacturing powerhouse for automobiles and electronics, Thailand is playing catch-up with Malaysia and Singapore in boosting its high-tech industries. It has bagged multi-billion dollar investment commitments from Amazon.com Inc., Google and Microsoft Corp. in recent years.

Edgnex is now setting up a joint venture with security startup Siam AI, an official Nvidia cloud partner. The Dubai firm will allocate some of the capacity in the first Bangkok data center to the joint venture company, according to Nayar. It will also jointly acquire the Nvidia chips needed to power the operations.

Nvidia Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang is in Thailand this week — the latest stop on an Asian tour this year that’s already encompassed India and Japan. He met with Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra on Tuesday and offered to collaborate in AI education. 

“We are here to help Thailand build its own AI,” Huang said at an event in Bangkok Wednesday. Nvidia will look to “invest in Thai ecosystem” with its tools, infrastructure and knowhow, he said.

Thailand is “the next frontier” for the world’s data center boom, according to Macquarie Equity Research, which cited the country’s ample power supply and high grid stability as key selling points. But a shortage of skilled workers will prove a challenge, analyst Kaushal Ladha noted in a report last week. 

Siam AI signed agreements with units of Thai conglomerates Charoen Pokphand Group and Gulf Energy to develop AI infrastructure and solutions in their data centers.