The datacentre arms race hits pause in south-east Asia

Power and water constraints are pressuring what seemed like a juggernaut of growth for the region just months ago In early 2026, Thailand’s datacentre industry was on a roll. The country’s board of investment had recently announced approval of datacentre projects from Tiktok, a U

Power and water constraints are pressuring what seemed like a juggernaut of growth for the region just months ago In early 2026, Thailand’s datacentre industry was on a roll. The country’s board of investment had recently announced approval of datacentre projects from Tiktok, a UAE-based Skyline datacentre and Singapore’s Bridge datacentres, totalling a planned investment of $27bn. As the year has passed, however, what once seemed like a new industrial juggernaut has ground to a halt.

Thailand paused construction on 49 projects and approval decisions on 117 more in September 2026, amidst growing concern about the lack of sufficient details for regulation and monitoring. It is not alone in reconsidering datacentre projects. In neighbouring Indonesia, the governor of the country’s most populous province of West Java halted construction on a datacentre due to lack of permits and an incomplete environmental assessment process.

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