Google Cloud is teaming up with Gulf Edge Company Limited to develop a sovereign cloud offering in Thailand.
The sovereign cloud will enable customers to meet data residency, security and privacy requirements in Thailand, and will also provide access to artificial intelligence (AI) and analytics capabilities from Google.
Gulf Edge, a subsidiary of Gulf Energy Development Public Company Limited, will operate a Google Distributed Cloud (GDC) as a Managed GDC Provider.
Gulf Edge will be offering deployment options for GDC as either an air-gapped on-premises solution or from within a Gulf group data center. There will also be flexible hardware options, including CPUs and GPUs depending on customer workload requirements.
Sarath Ratanavadi, CEO of Gulf Energy Development Public Company Limited, said: “Our partnership with Google Cloud on Thailand's first sovereign cloud solution with built-in AI and analytics reinforces Gulf's commitment to technological leadership and sustainable development.
"We chose GDC based on its unique ability to isolate operations from the public internet while providing powerful AI capabilities. This will allow our mission-critical energy and utility systems to handle data-intensive tasks with enhanced security and resilience. The successful delivery of GDC in Thailand is a strategic imperative, as its adoption across regulated industries will not only boost our country's digital competitiveness but also create new revenue opportunities for our company."
In late 2023, Google made a "four-pillar agreement" with the Thai government that would see investment in digital infrastructure in the country, as well as initiatives to accelerate AI adoption in the public sector.
That agreement includes plans to establish an in-country Google data center. Google previously announced plans for a cloud region in Thailand in 2022, which will be located in Bangkok.
Karan Bajwa, VP of Asia Pacific, Google Cloud, added: "As part of our commitment to the Royal Thai Government to provide resilient and innovation-driven digital infrastructure for the country, we’re very pleased to bring on board Gulf Edge as our first MGP in Thailand to deliver GDC air-gapped for local organizations. This next-generation, AI-enabled sovereign cloud solution will enable the public sector and other regulated industries to accelerate digital transformation on their own terms, even when faced with stringent digital sovereignty requirements."
Announced in October 2021, Google’s Distributed Cloud Hosted solution provides on-premise options to public and private entities with strong data residency, security, and/or privacy requirements.
Cloud Hosted does not require connectivity to Google Cloud at any time to manage infrastructure, services, APIs, or tooling and uses a local control plane provided by Anthos for operations. Google has partnered with T-Systems in Germany, Thales in France, and Proximus and LuxConnect in Belgium and Luxembourg for similar initiatives.
A leaked report suggests Google views its trusted partner cloud initiative as its "most important program" and believes it can corner a $100 billion market in Europe and Asia via data sovereignty-compliant clouds.
Amazon, Microsoft, and Oracle have all announced similar sovereign cloud offerings.
