The country aims to slash electricity costs by more than 25% by next year to emerge as a hub for data centres and artificial intelligence infrastructure, according to Thaksin Shinawatra, the de facto chief of the ruling Pheu Thai Party.
The government headed by his daughter Paetongtarn Shinawatra plans to bring down the electricity tariff to about US$0.08 (RM0.35) unit from about US$0.11 (RM0.48)now, Thaksin told a business seminar in Bangkok late on Friday.
He didn’t elaborate on how the government would slash the rate, which is currently subsidised by state utilities.
Thailand has secured billions of dollars in investment commitments from tech majors including Amazon.com Inc, Alphabet Inc’s Google and ByteDance Ltd’s TikTok to build projects for large data centers and cloud services.
Building on that success would depend on the country’s ability to offer clean and cheap energy, he said.
“We want to be competitive in data centres and AI,” Thaksin said, adding he’s been talking to many people who want to invest in Thailand in these areas.
“So we need to have more green energy that’s not too expensive.”
While Thaksin doesn’t hold any official position in his daughter’s administration, the two-time premier is viewed by many as shaping the government’s major policy initiatives.
Thaksin said Thailand’s ability to slash the electricity cost is limited by its reliance on fossil fuel and natural gas imports for power generation. Thailand currently charges 4.15 baht (RM0.54) per unit of electricity on both commercial and household users.
Thaksin said it was possible to bring it down to 2.50 baht (RM0.33) step by step.
He said his dream was to convert an area in Bangkok to house data centres of every country in the world, followed by an AI hub. — Bloomberg
