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AWS to open cloud region in Thailand
Amazon Web Services is planning to launch a Bangkok region, following the debut of CloudFront Edge locations and Outposts in the past two years
Amazon Web Services (AWS) will be opening a new cloud region in Bangkok, Thailand, expanding its footprint in a region that has seen rapid adoption of cloud services while meeting the data residency requirements of local customers.
Without disclosing a launch date, AWS said the Asia-Pacific (Bangkok) region will consist of three availability zones, adding to the existing 87 availability zones across 27 geographic regions.
AWS’s upcoming region in Thailand comes on the heels of the launch of 10 Amazon CloudFront edge locations in Bangkok over the past two years. In 2020, the cloud giant also launched AWS Outposts in Thailand to deliver AWS infrastructure and services to on-premise and edge locations.
Following the Bangkok region, AWS will open an AWS Local Zone in the Thai capital, enabling users to access AWS compute, storage and database resources sited closer to where they are to meet latency requirements. The company plans to invest $5bn in Thailand over 15 years.
The Stock Exchange of Thailand said the new cloud region will strengthen its ability to offer low-latency market data to ensure investors are equipped to make the best trading decisions. It’s using AWS to run its online trading platforms, which can scale to support more than 400,000 concurrent users.
Another AWS customer, PTT Oil and Retail, recently migrated its loyalty management system to AWS and developed an all-in-one lifestyle app. Its senior executive vice-president of corporate strategy and sustainability, Wison Suntharachan, said the Bangkok region will “help us keep up with the pace of technological change as we diversify our business and drive sustainable growth”.
Chaiwut Thanakamanusorn, Thailand’s minister of digital economy and society, said the Bangkok region will help Thai businesses and government agencies deliver better digital services that will benefit citizens for decades to come, noting that his ministry has been working with AWS to modernise the government’s legacy infrastructure and improve operations.
Read more about cloud in APAC
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- Amazon Web Services and Microsoft are working with local governments and supplying cloud technologies to support the region’s growing space industry.
- The Alibaba Cloud VMware Service is aimed at Chinese enterprises that are looking to move their VMware workloads to public cloud, perform disaster recovery and reduce their on-premise datacentre footprint.
According to IDC’s Asia-Pacific cloud survey 2021, 92% of organisations in Thailand indicated that they would increase their use of cloud services, higher than the regional average. Currently, Alibaba Cloud, Huawei Cloud and Tencent Cloud are the only hyperscalers that operate cloud regions in Thailand.
IDC expects the region’s public cloud services market to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 26.4%, from $51.2bn in 2021, to reach $165.2bn in 2026.
