SINGTEL has signed a joint development agreement with energy supplier Gulf Energy and mobile phone operator Advanced Info Services (AIS) to build and operate data centres in Thailand.

 

This follows a memorandum of understanding inked between Singtel Singtel: Z74 +2.88% and Gulf Energy on Sep 30, 2021.

 

In a bourse filing on Thursday (Feb 3), the telecommunications company said the collaboration comes as part of its strategy to develop a regional data centre business with partners and capitalise on the strong growth potential of digital infrastructure.

 

Its inclusion of AIS in its partnership with Gulf Energy is in view of the mobile phone operator' s large local sales force with deep relationships with Thai enterprise as well as local data centre operations know-how, said Singtel, which will in turn be able to provide connectivity solutions for the data centre business.

 

Highlighting Gulf Energy and AIS as leaders in the energy and telecommunications industries respectively, Singtel believes they will be able to strengthen and accelerate plans for the data centres and capture both local enterprises and hyperscaler customers.

 

The 3 companies will " work closely and expeditiously" to establish their joint venture company, it added.

 

Site selection has already commenced and the data centres will begin developments in the coming months, according to Singtel.

Singtel has unveiled plans to launch the first Microsoft Azure Edge Zones in Asia, integrated with the provider&rsquo s 5G network to deliver multi-access edge compute (MEC) across the enterprise.

Built to combine the &ldquo speed, hyper-connectivity and high bandwidth&rdquo of Singtel&rsquo s 5G network with Microsoft Azure services, the offering is designed to enable developers to deploy and manage applications that require high throughput and low latency.

This is in addition to enhancing business capabilities in areas such as metaverse-based real-time simulations, alongside live video analytics in a multi-tenant environment.

With customers able to leverage existing Azure subscriptions, the solution will be publicly available in the second half of 2022 for Azure customers in Singapore via the Azure portal.

&ldquo This collaboration is a key milestone for edge computing in Asia,&rdquo said Bill Chang, CEO of Group Enterprise at Singtel. &ldquo We&rsquo re always looking for ways to support enterprises in leveraging the potential of 5G for digital transformation to drive innovation for the benefit of consumers, business users and entire industries.&rdquo

According to Chang -- inducted into the Channel Asia Hall of Fame in 2020 -- organisations will be able to &ldquo rapidly develop, test and deploy&rdquo 5G applications such as autonomous guided vehicles, drones, robotics and virtual, augmented or mixed reality, at the edge of Singtel&rsquo s 5G network.

In Singapore, Government agencies and enterprise customers continue to build business applications and operations on Microsoft Azure, allowing opportunity to now leverage 5G and MEC through Singtel.

&ldquo This solution enables enterprises to streamline the integration of 5G and MEC into business operations, facilitate the development of new solutions, and scale and transform their business,&rdquo he added.

As well as running low-latency applications at the edge using Singtel&rsquo s 5G network, the solution is also targeting key sectors such as public safety, urban planning, healthcare, banking, civil service, transportation and logistics.

&ldquo With Azure for Operators, Singtel empowers its customers to unlock business value at the network edge,&rdquo added Dr. Yousef Khalidi, corporate vice president of Azure for Operators at Microsoft. &ldquo The integration of Azure compute services with Singtel&rsquo s 5G network will enable enterprises and developers to provide low-latency applications across industries such as public sector and healthcare.&rdquo