(Bloomberg) — Damac Group, backed by billionaire developer Hussain Sajwani, plans to invest about $3 billion to build data centers in Southeast Asia as the region becomes a hub for AI and cloud services.
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Edgnex Data Centers, part of the Dubai-based conglomerate, is considering spending 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, set to open in Bangkok in March, will feature Nvidia Corp. chips.
Privately held Damac, which focuses mainly on real estate in Dubai, has diversified into sectors such as technology and fashion. The spending in Southeast Asia is part of a plan to spend between $5 billion and $7 billion to expand Edgnex’s operations around the world, Nayar told Bloomberg News.
It aims to build a digital infrastructure that can house the high-performance 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, the majority of which will use Nvidia’s new Blackwell chips, Nayar said. Edgnex is also exploring similar facilities in Vietnam and the Philippines, with the aim of announcing these plans in 2025.
“Today we have an expected capacity of more than 550 megawatts heading into Southeast Asia, which essentially means this could be a $5 billion market for us,” Nayar said. “And we are on our way to further growth.”
Long a manufacturing powerhouse for cars and electronics, Thailand is playing catch-up to Malaysia and Singapore in boosting its high-tech industries. It has secured multibillion-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 company will allocate part of the capacity in the first data center in Bangkok to the joint venture, according to Nayar. It will also jointly acquire the Nvidia chips needed to power the business.
Nvidia Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang is in Thailand this week – the final stop on an Asian tour this year that has already included India and Japan. He met with Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra on Tuesday and offered to cooperate on AI education.