Laos, a country in South-east Asia which so far has had poor IT infrastructure, recently opened its first state-run data center. The facility was funded by a Japanese program supporting environmentally sound technology and will cost about $850,000.
Boviengkham Vongdara, Science and Technology Minister said at a ceremony:
The facility marks “a big step” toward improving the nation’s IT environment.
Reports say that Laos’ IT infrastructure is among the weakest in Southeast Asia and state employees often use webmail for official business for want of government email accounts. The new data center will provide the required network capacity for government institutions.
A Japanese consortium involving Internet service provider, Internet Initiative Japan, trading company Toyota Tsusho and Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities supported the facility. All funding was provided by Japan under a program run by the government-backed New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization, or NEDO. The trial phase of the facility is expected to end in February 2018 and will then be handed over to the Laotian government.