Thailand has temporarily stopped approving and building data centres while it rewrites the rules for the industry. The pause covers projects already under way and those waiting for a decision.
Deputy Prime Minister Ekniti Nitithanprapas says projects already under way and those awaiting a decision are both on hold. Agencies have one month to set minimum standards.
The national data-centre policy committee agreed the measure at a meeting on September 4. Ekniti Nitithanprapas, who is deputy prime minister and finance minister, announced it afterwards.
Investors have until now dealt with each ministry and agency separately, he said. The country had never organised the industry as a whole.
Ekniti said Thailand was not trying to block or turn away foreign money. The change is from approving projects agency by agency to setting a single national strategy.
Agencies have a month to write minimum standards on economic, social and environmental grounds. Those will apply to sites already running, to sites being built, and to anything proposed later.
Operators already trading will be given time to bring their sites up to the new standards. The committee also wants one combined view of the industry, drawing together water and electricity applications and telecom regulator records.
A third strand covers clean energy towards the net-zero target and access to AI for Thai people and small firms. Future projects will go through a bidding system in which investors set out what the country gains.
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