TikTok is investing US$25 billion in data infrastructure projects in Thailand, the company’s biggest investment announced to date in Southeast Asia, as China’s technology giants continue expanding their footprint in the region.
The investment would be used to install additional servers and expand data storage and processing infrastructure across Bangkok, Samut Prakan and Chachoengsao provinces to support rising demand for digital services, according to an announcement by Thailand’s Board of Investment on Wednesday.
The company, owner of the short video platform of the same name, also committed to “developing digital literacy and e-commerce curricula to help create new business opportunities” for Thai entrepreneurs and the workforce, according to the statement.
TikTok’s investment marked a massive increase from its initial plan announced last year, allocating US$8.8 billion over the next five years to digital infrastructure.
It was also the largest of six projects totalling US$29 billion approved by the Thai government on Wednesday.
The other investments included two data centre projects, one each backed by companies from the United Arab Emirates and Singapore, and three covering renewable energy, circular economy and resource-based industries.
TikTok’s aggressive expansion mirrors a wider trend of Chinese tech giants deepening their roots in Southeast Asia, one of their largest overseas markets. As domestic markets reach saturation and global trade dynamics shift, companies like Alibaba Group Holding and Tencent Holdings are increasingly looking towards the region for growth.
Alibaba operates data centres in Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, while it plans to launch its fourth in Malaysia by the end of the year.
It has also pledged to provide training to some 800,000 professionals in Indonesia in cloud computing and artificial intelligence by 2033, doubling the current coverage. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.
Similarly, Tencent’s data centres in Singapore, Thailand and Indonesia cover cloud services across Southeast Asia. It has also committed to invest about US$500 million on infrastructure and resources in Indonesia by 2030 to boost the use of cutting-edge cloud and artificial intelligence technologies by local businesses.
Southeast Asia has become one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, representing high growth potential and relatively low geopolitical risks for China.
The region’s five major economies – Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand – were projected to grow 4.1 per cent this year despite the turmoil in the Middle East, outpacing the world average of 3.1 per cent, according to the International Monetary Fund’s latest forecast.