December 20, 2023, /developingtelecom/ - Recent reports indicate that Japan has agreed to provide grant aid worth up to 2.3 billion yen (about US$16 million) to Cambodia for its National Data Centre and government digitisation plan after a meeting between senior officials from both countries.
The data centre is intended to support the digitisation of the country's administrative services. The grant will go towards the equipment and construction required for the National Data Centre in Phnom Penh, on which ground was broken in July this year. The data centre is expected to launch in 2025. Its total cost is likely to be US$30 million.
in January 2022 Cambodia announced its Cambodia Digital Government Policy 2022-2035; this programme will see the government fully digitise its operations by 2035.
The lack of a national data centre for storing data and providing computing resources was at the time noted as a weakness, as was the fact that all ministries and institutions have almost no infrastructure and technical capacity for ensuring digital security.
As the Data Centre Dynamics website points out, Cambodia has a very small data centre market. In May 2023 ByteDC launched a 3MW facility in the capital, Phnom Penh.
The Khmer Times adds that the agreement with Japan also supports “the development and upgrading of the public telecommunications network thoroughly promoting investment and technical assistance by the Japanese private sector, based on the Cambodian government’s efforts to enhance mobile network coverage and connectivity", according to the Japanese Foreign Ministry.
