The Electronic Government Agency (EGA) will submit its proposals for upgrading TOT Plc and CAT Telecom's existing data centres to national data centres to the Digital Economy and Social minister within this year.
The proposed upgrading is part of the agency's five-year roadmap to develop the national data centre project, said EGA president and chief executive Sak Segkhoonthod.
The government has assigned the EGA to conduct the roadmap.
Mr Sak said TOT and CAT have competency in providing data centre services, especially CAT, which has data centres in seven major provinces.
The government should allow both the public and private sectors to rent or lease access to TOT and CAT's data centres to serve surging demand for data storage in the digital age, he said.
Under the five-year roadmap, investment in the national data centre project will be made gradually starting from 2017, instead of the one-off investment previously planned, he said.
In addition, the number of data centres will be reduced to 200 instead of 300 as earlier planned, and scheduled for completion by 2021.
Mr Sak also said the government would need to improve the efficiency of existing state enterprise data centres in order to cut costs and bolster operations.
The EGA has classified state digital data into three categories: national security data, important data and general data. According to the EGA's classification, 8% of state digital data is sensitive information or national security data, 60% is important data and 32% is general data.
Under the roadmap, Mr Sak said the sensitive and important data of state agencies would be run by TOT and CAT under the EGA's supervision, while general data would be handled by data centres owned or operated by the private sector.