Thailand will require data centre developers to pitch for power under new rules.

Thailand's government has moved to establish minimum standards for data centre operators. Under the proposed rules, developers would have to compete for grid power and water in government-run pitching rounds, according to the committee that oversees the sector.

The government's data centre policy committee approved a draft regulatory framework for the sector on Tuesday. It will go to Cabinet for approval next week, the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society said in a statement. Applications for projects under the new rules are expected to open in early 2027, according to Danucha Pichayanan, secretary-general of the National Economic and Social Development Council, Thailand's state planning agency.

The shift follows an investment rush as Thailand positions itself as an alternative digital infrastructure hub alongside established markets including Singapore and Malaysia. The country's Board of Investment had approved 57 data centre projects valued at about THB 811.4 billion ($24 billion) as of 31 July. Backers include Google, AWS, NTT Data, STT GDC and Equinix, according to committee documents reported by Thai business newspaper Thansettakij.

"This change in the criteria represents an overhaul of the incentive system," Danucha said at Government House on Tuesday. "Instead of operators applying directly for electricity, water supplies or BOI incentives, projects would be assessed and selected based on their proposals and the returns they would deliver to the national economy."

**Code of Practice**

The draft sets minimum requirements for operators in four areas: location, connection to the electricity and water networks, environmental reporting under a code of practice, and economic and social benefits.

Under the proposed rules, data centres would be sorted into seven size bands by power use, ranging from under 0.5MW to 200MW and above. These bands are separate from the Uptime Institute reliability tiers commonly used in the industry.

Thailand's digital economy ministry will operate a centralised application service, backed by a national dashboard that tracks approvals across government agencies. The service will pre-screen proposals before passing them to a committee, which will recommend projects based on criteria still to be published by the policy committee.

Investment proposals will initially be accepted in rounds and selected through a pitching process. The committee, which is chaired by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Ekniti Nitithanprapas, also asked the ministry to speed up drafting a dedicated law for the sector.

Projects already under construction or recently completed will not be subject to the new rules retroactively. They will, however, get about a year to upgrade noise and temperature controls before inspections begin, according to a report in The Nation.

In September, the government paused development of 49 approved data centre projects that had not yet begun construction. It has yet to provide details on whether work on those projects may resume.

**Grid Squeeze**

Power has become the main constraint on growth in Thailand's data centre industry. NESDC figures prepared for the committee's first meeting in September counted 35 operating data centres using more than 2.5MW of power. About 50 more projects totalling more than 5.4GW were under construction, and 117 projects seeking more than 29.6GW were awaiting approval.

According to the same documents, Thailand's reserve electrical generating capacity was about 12.1GW as of mid-2026. However, the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand, the state-owned power utility, predicts that capacity will shrink to about 1.8GW between 2028 and 2034, as an estimated 13GW of generating capacity is retired.

The squeeze follows a flood of large approvals. In May, Thailand cleared $27 billion in data centre investments, led by a $25 billion TikTok expansion. Earlier in the year, approvals included SC Capital Partners' SC Zeus project as part of $3.1 billion in new investments.

The data centre committee will consider a separate rule requiring 80 percent reuse of cooling-tower wastewater on 27 November.

**Singapore's Model**

The pitching model envisaged by Thailand resembles Singapore's competitive allocation regime. That regime seeks to address the high energy and resource intensity of data centres while enabling continued capacity expansion without compromising sustainability.

In August, Singapore's Economic Development Board and Infocomm Media Development Authority awarded 50MW each to Digital Realty, Equinix, Keppel Data Centres and ST Telemedia Global Data Centres, selected from more than 20 proposals. Winners must power at least half their capacity from green sources and build on Jurong Island.

Malaysia has taken a different route. Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said in February that approvals for non-AI data centres had been limited because of power and water demands. Johor, the southern Malaysian state across the border from Singapore, still has a pipeline of 8,542MW against a colocation vacancy rate of 0.7 percent, according to Knight Frank.

Malaysia had 1,039MW of data centre capacity under construction, compared with Thailand's 859MW, according to Cushman & Wakefield data. Those two markets are absorbing much of the overflow from Singapore.