Selection of Consultants

CONSULTING SERVICES Expressions of Interest The Ministry of Post and Telecommunications (“MPTC”) will receive a financing from Agence Française de Développement ("AFD"), and intends to use part of the funds thereof for payments under the following project National AI and Data Science Research Centre. Project’s description: The project aims to strengthen national AI capacities and build a sustainable, inclusive, and gender-sensitive AI eco-system by developing access to a sovereign computing infrastructure, reinforcing local expertise and resources, and by promoting local innovation through the development of responsible and ethical AI solutions. - Component 1 – Construction of the National AI Center: building construction and deployment of AI infrastructure. - Component 2 – Operationalization of the National AI Center: Development of AI skills through the partnership between Grenoble Alpes University and the Cambodia Academy of Digital Technology (capacity building, scholar-ships, academic exchanges), and support for the development of AI solutions to serve the Sustainable Develop-ment Goals and the emergence of an innovation ecosystem around AI. - Component 3 – Project management: steering, monitoring, and coordination of all project activities. The global objective of the consulting services is to achieve the efficient and proper preparation and implementation of the Project through the following tasks (not exhaustive list): - Support to the Project Management Unit (PMU): general coordination and project management support, reporting and financial coordination, compliance and audit support, environmental and social compliance (ESMF / GESI), other cross-cutting expertises; - Procurement Support : procurement planning and strategy, tender documentation and process management, bid evaluation and negotiation; - Owner’s Technical Assistance for design, tender and works supervision of the building and provision of the AI infrastructure: preliminary and detailed design, preparation of tender document including evaluation and negotiation, supervision and pre-operational set-up, testing, commissioning, acceptance and warranty support - Communication support to PMU : project communication and visibility. The Ministry of Post and Telecommunications hereby invites Applicants to show their interest in delivering the Services described above. This Request for Expressions of Interest is open to Consulting firms. Eligibility criteria to AFD financing are specified in sub-clause 1.3 of the "Procurement Guidelines for AFD Financed Contracts in Foreign Countries", available online on AFD’s website: http://www.afd.fr. The Applicant shall submit only one application, either in its own name or as a member of a Joint Venture (JV). If an Applicant (including any of the JV members) submits or participates in more than one application, those applications shall be all rejected. However, the same Subconsultant may participate in several applications. If the Applicant is a JV, the expression of interest shall include: - a copy of the JV Agreement entered into by all members, or - a letter of intent to execute a JV Agreement, signed by all members together with a copy of the Agreement proposal, In the absence of this document, the other members will be considered as Subconsultants. Given the multi-disciplinary scope of services, Applicants are strongly encouraged to form Joint Ventures or consortium arrangements that combine complementary expertise. Experiences and qualifications of Subconsultants are not taken into account in the evaluation of the applications. Interested Applicants must provide information evidencing that they are qualified and experienced to perform those Services. For that purpose, documented evidence of recent and similar services shall be submitted. A maximum of 15 past experiences shall be presented by Applicants. Determination of the similarity of the experiences will be based on their respective relevance relative to the services to be performed, as described above. In particular, it is expected that Applicants present past experience for contracts whose characteristics are similar to one or more of the following criteria: • The contracts size. • The nature of Service: Consulting service, Owner’s technical assistance; • The technical area: o Design, engineering and Supervision of Data Centre Building (Tier III or equivalent, or higher) o Design and implementation of AI infrastructure, High Performance Computing (HPC) or GPU-based computing environments o Review and approval of contractor’s program of Works o Construction supervision, progress monitoring, site meetings, contract administration, and reporting • The similar location in the region : South-East Asia or comparable countries The Ministry of Post and Telecommunications will not analyse CVs of experts’ profiles at this stage. The Client will also take into account for the evaluation of the applications the following items: 1) Consulting Firm Profile a