TikTok will invest $8.8 billion in data centers in Thailand over the next five years.

As reported by Reuters, the company’s VP of public policy Helena Lersch announced the investment commitment at an event in Bangkok on February 28.

The investment shortly follows the January news that TikTok would be spending $3.8bn on “data hosting services” in Thailand, revealed by the Thai Board of Investment.

TikTok’s parent company ByteDance has confirmed to DCD that the $8.8bn is inclusive of the previously announced $3.8bn.

TikTok typically leases space in colocation providers’ facilities.

In June of last year the company revealed it was opening an AI hub in Malaysia at a cost of RM10 billion ($2.13bn) at Bridge Data Centres’ (BDC) MY06 hyperscale facility, and in July 2024 was also reportedly considering whether to set up a data center in Australia to support workloads across the Asia Pacific region. ByteDance’s Chinese operations also use Bridge Data Centres facilities (known as ChinData locally).

In Europe, TikTok’s operations are split between Green Mountain in Norway, and an Irish data center – likely in Echelon’s facility.

The company is currently awaiting a resolution to its dispute in the US which briefly saw the app banned. Upon entering the White House, President Donald Trump signed an executive order delaying the ban by 75 days, while TikTok negotiates a sale to a US company. Until then, TikTok’s US operations remain hosted by Oracle.