Summit Group Eyes Entry into Bangladesh's Data Center Market, Seeks Hyperscale Partner

Summit Group Eyes Entry into Bangladesh's Data Center Market, Seeks Hyperscale Partner January 13, 2026 Bangladesh's largest private power producer, Summit Group, is planning a strategic expansion into the country's nascent data center sector, aiming to leverage its significant energy and infrastructure assets to attract a major global technology partner. The move signals growing investor interest in South Asia's digital infrastructure, driven by increasing data consumption and cloud adoption. For Bangladesh, developing a robust local data center ecosystem is crucial for data sovereignty, latency reduction, and supporting its burgeoning digital economy. According to a report by Nikkei Asia, Summit Group Chairman Muhammed Aziz Khan revealed the conglomerate's plans, stating that the initiative represents the group's "next phase [of growth] focuses on integrating energy and data, leveraging our LNG and fiber-optic expertise." The proposed facility would be powered by Summit Power International, the group's energy arm, utilizing its existing natural gas-fired generation capacity. Summit currently operates ten gas plants and five oil-fired facilities, accounting for roughly seven percent of the nation's total installed power capacity. Khan indicated that the company is actively seeking an experienced partner to co-develop and market the facility and is in discussions with potential customers possessing global data center expertise. Notably, he said, "Some of the ‘Magnificent 7’ have shown interest," referring to tech giants like Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla. The group aims to secure an anchor tenant within the current year. The planned data center is expected to be situated near the capital, Dhaka, where Summit has concentrated its gas-fired plants. Khan emphasized a key competitive advantage: speed of deployment. "We have electricity, fiber, and land," he said, projecting that Summit could deliver data center capacity within approximately 18 months, a significantly shorter timeline than the industry standard of several years. This expansion push comes amid a period of political uncertainty in Bangladesh, following the removal of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, which has strained ties with India and delayed other Summit projects like a proposed 500MW offshore wind farm. Despite these challenges, Khan expressed confidence in the country's fundamentals for investment, highlighting the need for "rule of law, democracy, and policy predictability." If successful, Summit's entry would intensify competition in a market currently served by local operators like Felicity IDC and Red.Digital, alongside a government-operated Uptime Tier IV-certified facility in Dhaka. The project represents a significant test case for integrating large-scale private power generation with digital infrastructure development in an emerging Asian economy. Source: datacenterdynamics