Government says US investors interested in Thailand, eyeing data centers and non-aligned policy

Nvidia and Aolani have agreed to deploy 22,000 GPUs across new AI factory sites in Southeast Asia, part of a buildout that will add over 100 megawatts of new AI factory capacity. The rollout includes major hubs in Malaysia and the Philippines and is intended to position Southeast Asia as a global node for AI compute and data center infrastructure. The 22,000 GPU deployment is one part of the broader Nvidia story, and the company is embedding its full stack into facilities that cloud providers and enterprises can rent as ready-made compute capacity rather than selling chips in isolation. The key marker ahead is whether Aolani meets its early 2027 target to bring those 22,000 GPUs online across Malaysia and the Philippines at the planned 100 megawatt plus capacity, with progress updates on site construction, GPU installation timing and initial customer occupancy indicating how quickly the commitment converts into live, billable compute.

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. is accelerating its data center expansion in Europe and the Middle East as part of a 20-gigawatt global infrastructure buildout. Alibaba executive Li Feifei said at the company's Apsara conference in Hangzhou on Wednesday that the Chinese e-commerce leader will set up its first cloud regions in Turkey, Finland and the Netherlands over the next 12 months. The company will also expand its data center footprint in Malaysia, Germany, the United Arab Emirates, France and Hong Kong, boosting its ability to provide localized cloud and AI services. The push puts Alibaba increasingly head-to-head with Western competitors such as Amazon.com Group Inc. and Alphabet Inc. beyond Asia. Alibaba has outlined a $53 billion, three-year AI investment plan and aims to build a 20-gigawatt global data center network by 2032, which Citigroup estimates could drive more than $160 billion in external cloud revenue.

Kasikorn Thai Securities said in a Thai equity strategy analysis for the fourth quarter of 2026 that Thailand is entering a new upward investment cycle, driven by data center investment and the new Power Development Plan, or PDP2026. It raised its target for the Stock Exchange of Thailand index to 1,680 points, shifting the calculation base to an end-2027 index target under the assumption of market earnings per share of 105 points in 2027 and a price-to-earnings ratio of 16 times, which is in line with the long-term average. Kasikorn Thai Securities expects electricity generating capacity serving data center demand in Thailand to rise to roughly 5 to 7 gigawatts by 2030, following the expansion of data center operators and investment in artificial intelligence infrastructure. For its fourth-quarter 2026 investment strategy, Kasikorn Thai Securities divided its approach into two main themes and selected five standout stocks: BBL, DELTA, BGRIM, SCGP and CPALL. The first theme covers stocks that benefit from the new investment cycle, namely BBL, DELTA and BGRIM, while the second focuses on stocks whose earnings are likely to recover and which can pass on costs, namely SCGP and CPALL.