Energy billionaire Sarath Ratanavadi, Thailand’s second-richest person, is accelerating his push into data centres to tap a booming market fuelled by rising demand for cloud computing and artificial intelligence.

His energy company, Gulf Energy Development Pcl, and its partners plan to spend an additional 10 billion baht (US$271 million or RM1.27 billion) to double their outlay on a data center facility in suburban Bangkok. The expansion will increase the centre’s energy consumption to 50 megawatts from a previously announced 25 megawatts, with completion expected in March, Gulf Energy chief financial officer Yupapin Wangviwat told reporters Thursday

Sarath is expanding his empire into virtual banking, cryptocurrency trading and other technology businesses as electricity generation in Southeast Asia’s second-biggest economy has excess capacity. Demand for data centres is rising in the region, with global tech companies spending billions of dollars to spur cloud computing and AI services.

“We set the expansion of the second phase now because we expect a surge in demand for our data centre services,” Sarath said at the press conference in Bangkok. “A jump in AI adoption and cloud computing will substantially increase demand for our data centre bandwidth.”

Technology and other non-power businesses are expected to contribute a “significant proportion” of Gulf Energy’s revenue in the near future, said Sarath, declining to elaborate. Earlier this week, Gulf Energy and Alphabet Inc held a joint briefing about their cloud computing partnership in Thailand.

Sarath has a net worth of US$9.1 billion, making him Thailand’s richest person after property tycoon Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Shares of Gulf Energy have declined 8.5% this year, compared with a 7.5% drop in the benchmark SET Index.

  - Bloomberg