Thailand’s Data Center Boom: Building for Resilience

Thailand’s data centre market is expanding rapidly. Sustaining long-term value will depend on whether assets are designed to remain bankable, insurable and resilient as they scale.

Key Takeaways

• Thailand’s data centre market is forecast to reach $4.9 billion by 2031. Reliable growth requires risk to be considered before critical design and capital decisions are locked in.
• Power, water, workforce, cyber and supply chain dependencies should be assessed across design, build, transition and operation.
• Early risk analysis can make trade-offs explicit, strengthen financing and insurance outcomes, and improve recovery under stress.

   

From Rapid Expansion to Resilient Growth

Thailand is emerging as a significant data centre market in Southeast Asia. Hyperscaler investment, Thailand 4.0 incentives, submarine cable development, enterprise cloud migration, AI adoption and edge growth in the Eastern Economic Corridor are supporting expansion.¹

The investment case is substantial. According to Mordor Intelligence, Thailand’s data centre market was valued at $1.89 billion in 2025. It is forecast to grow from $2.22 billion in 2026 to $4.9 billion by 2031, representing a compound annual growth rate of 17.21%.¹ In 2025, Thailand’s Board of Investment approved 36 data centre projects worth approximately 728 billion baht. The planned capacity pipeline now stands at approximately 2.87 gigawatts.²

Growth alone does not create long-term value. Data centres concentrate capital, equipment and contractual obligations, while relying on interconnected power, water, technology, people and supply chains. Decisions made during site selection, design and construction shape whether an asset can attract capital, remain insurable as it scales and recover predictably under stress.

A Reliable by Design approach brings risk, design and capital decisions together early. It helps organisations decide where to build, which resilience measures to fund, what risk to retain and how to structure risk transfer before options narrow.

Five Risks Shaping Data Centre Decisions

Thailand’s data centre opportunity brings interconnected risks across site selection, design, construction, transition and operation. Managing these risks as one system can improve project delivery, preserve insurability and support long-term performance.

These five risk areas show where leaders can apply Reliable by Design: assessing the likely severity of disruption, clarifying recovery pathways and making trade-offs before they become embedded.

Cyber Risk Extends Beyond IT

Data centre cyber exposure spans information technology, operational technology, building management systems, cooling controls, physical access and connected contractors. A disruption during construction or operation can affect schedules, service levels, costs and revenue. Aon’s global analysis also notes that traditional construction policies may leave cyber gaps, which makes early review of cyber risk and coverage important.³

Leaders should quantify plausible outage and data compromise scenarios, clarify recovery responsibilities and compare potential loss with available insurance limits. This links technical controls to recovery time, financial impact and capital decisions.

Construction Pressure Can Affect Bankability

Long-lead equipment, phased commissioning, contractor interfaces, skilled labour shortages and compressed delivery schedules can create delay and cost risk. These pressures may also trigger liquidated damages or service-level penalties.

Project leaders should address schedule resilience, contractual risk allocation, transition planning, lender insurance requirements and claims readiness before procurement and financing decisions are locked in. Early risk engineering can strengthen recovery assumptions and improve access to capital and insurance capacity.

Climate and Water Shape Site Viability

Flood, heat and water availability can affect site selection, design standards, operating costs and insurance capacity. These factors should be considered before financing is finalised or customer commitments are made. A lower-cost site may create higher long-term resilience costs if physical hazard or resource constraints are not understood early.

For Thailand, leaders should evaluate physical hazards alongside access to power, water, transport, fibre and specialist talent. The aim is not zero risk. It is to select sites and design assets that can recover predictably under stress, while trade-offs are still manageable.

Power Is a Strategic Dependency

Thailand’s data centre capacity is forecast to grow from 770 MW in 2025 to 2.93 GW by 2030.¹ High-density campuses require timely grid connections, reliable delivery infrastructure and a credible path to scalable power.

Aon’s global data centre research identifies power availability as a factor that shapes site selection, project timelines, financing and long-term resilience. Power strategy should therefore be assessed with cooling design, water access, workforce readiness and transition planning.⁴

Geographic Concentration Can Turn Local Events into Portfolio Losses

Facilities in the same region may depend on shared substations, fiber routes, water systems, contractors, equipment suppliers and talent pools. Physical separation alone does not guarantee resilience. A single disruption can affect multiple sites, policies and customer obligations when these dependencies overlap.

Operators, investors and insurers should test correlated outage, simultaneous claims and shared infrastructure exposure across the portfolio. Better visibility of these connections can support more resilient program structures and capital deployment.⁵

Decisions to Test Before Capital Is Committed

A Reliable by Design approach translates technical risk into decisions that owners, operators, investors and lenders can evaluate together across design, build, transition and operation.

Executive Decision	Evidence to Assess
Where should we build, buy or expand?	Compare physical hazard, power and water dependencies, construction complexity, talent availability and insurance market considerations.
How could delay or outage affect value?	Quantify plausible construction, cyber, operational technology and business interruption scenarios, including contractual and financing effects.
Is redundancy genuine under stress?	Map shared grid, cooling, fiber, supplier, contractor and workforce dependencies across facilities.
What should we mitigate, retain or transfer?	Use scenario analysis and risk engineering to align investment, insurance structure and risk tolerance across design, build, transition and operation.

 

Turning Risk Insight into Action

Capturing the value of Thailand’s data centre expansion requires leaders to consider risk, design and capital together. Early analysis makes trade-offs clearer and helps assets remain bankable, insurable and resilient as they scale.

Embedding risk insight across site selection, design, financing, construction, transition and operation supports better decisions throughout the asset lifecycle. The goal is not risk-free growth. It is reliable growth, designed to protect value and recover under stress.

How Aon Helps Make Digital Infrastructure Reliable by Design

Aon helps owners, operators, investors and developers connect risk, design and all forms of capital across the data centre lifecycle. We combine risk engineering, analytics and insurance and reinsurance market insight to support decisions from site selection and design through construction, transition and operation.

This gives stakeholders a clearer view of loss severity, recovery assumptions and capital needs. It can support stronger financing and insurance outcomes, more predictable renewal discussions and long-term performance.

To explore how a Reliable by Design approach can support data centre investment, insurability and resilience in Thailand, connect with Aon’s digital infrastructure specialists.

Aon Thought Leaders

Wittaya Chaiyasuk
Associate Director, Construction, Thailand

Nantima Krajokthong
Director, Aon Global Client Network, Thailand

Adam Ross
Head of Growth and Delivering Aon United, Thailand

References

1. “Thailand Data Centre Market Size and Share Analysis - Growth Trends and Forecast (2026-2031),” Mordor Intelligence.

2. “Thailand’s 2.87GW Data Centre Ambition Hinges on Power Grid Overhaul,” Nation Thailand.

3. Cyber Risk is the Weak Link in Data Center Construction, Aon

4. “People, Power and Water Are Defining Digital Infrastructure Operational Risks,” Aon.

5. “Managing Accumulation Risk in Data Centers,” Aon.