Thailand’s Board of Investment approved nine investment projects worth a combined $2bn spanning artificial intelligence (AI), electronics, aviation, clean energy and food.
The largest single approval went to Nestlé (Thai), which secured $688m to build a smart factory and distribution centre in the Araya Industrial Estate, Samut Prakan province.
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The greenfield project will use AI and advanced automation, positioning Thailand as Nestlé’s production and logistics hub for Southeast Asia.
The facility is scheduled to begin operations in the fourth quarter of 2028, with an annual capacity of 170,000 metric tonnes of Nescafé soluble coffee, coffee mixes and ready-to-drink beverages, and is expected to create more than 520 jobs.
Nestlé will source $130m of local agricultural inputs annually and fund upstream farmer training and climate-resilient coffee variety research.
In advanced electronics, Datasection (Thailand), a unit of Japan’s Datasection, will invest $235.2m in GPU server infrastructure in Bangkok and Pathum Thani.
Doosan Electro-Materials (Thailand), part of South Korea’s Doosan, will invest $180.2m in Samut Prakan to manufacture copper-clad laminate and prepreg for printed circuit boards.
Taiwan Union Technology (Thailand) will invest $189.2m in Chonburi in the same materials, targeted at AI servers and data centres, while Fulltech Fiber Glass (Thailand) will invest $99.4m in Chachoengsao to produce glass fibre fabric for PCB manufacturing.
Thai Airways International PCL secured approvals for two projects totalling $430.2m to lease eight passenger aircraft for its international network.
Lomrak Green Energy will invest $168.7m across two wind power projects in Lopburi province, adding 120MW of combined capacity to the national grid.
BOI secretary general Narit Therdsteerasukdi said: “These investments by leading multinationals signal strong global confidence in our industrial capacity. By locating key parts of the AI and advanced electronics value chain here, we are connecting our economy directly to the core of next-generation global technology.”
The government has fast-tracked a seven-point energy action plan to accommodate hyper-scale projects, including a dedicated utility tariff rate for data centres, facilitation of clean power trading via direct power purchase agreements, and mapping of water and power availability to guide site selection.
