Thailand can ride on the wave of the artificial intelligence (AI) global mega trend, with the aim to shift from being an AI user country to an AI application creator, according to the National Electronics and Computer Technology Center (Nectec).
It will achieve this goal by leveraging the country's strong ecosystem of high performance computing infrastructure, thriving data centres, and the continued development of skilled employees, research and development (R&D) and startups.
Organisations in the public and private sectors are also playing a part in driving the country's AI ecosystem in an effort to increase productivity and enable economic growth through their combined investment of around 1 billion baht to develop 30,000 people armed with AI skills within three years.
The country will also continue AI research and development for a Thai Large Language Model and AI-enabled applications.
Currently, there are about 300 AI startups that have raised a total of 1.5 billion baht in seed funding, with an AI workforce of roughly 1,000 people in the market.
"Thailand missed jumping on many bandwagons in the areas of e-commerce and social media but we're capable of jumping into this AI global mega trend by capitalising on the local ecosystem," said Chai Wutiwiwatchai, Nectec's executive director.
The country has the LANTA super computer, foreign investment in hyperscale data centres, talented engineers, and local R&D, plus strong private organisations and AI startups, he added.
Thailand also had a national AI strategy even before the arrival of OpenAI's ChatGPT, said Mr Chai. Currently, Thailand also has AI services on the cloud. It also has a ThaiGPT large language model.
Mr Chai said the second phase of the national AI strategy and action plan (2022-2027) is waiting for the prime minister to appoint a new national AI committee to steer it.
To avoid further delays in the plan's implementation, both the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation (MHESI) and the Digital Economy and Society (DE) Ministry will allocate their own budgets to roll out the second phase.
Nectec, which comes under the MHESI, will receive 1 billion baht to develop a 30,000-strong workforce with AI skills by 2027, before increasing the number to 50,000 within five years. Nectec is also collaborating with the Education Ministry to build related courseware for students.
Nectec has around 100 AI researchers and data engineers and will use AI to leverage Thailand's poverty map to analyse individual problems in greater depth. Nectec will have an AI testing centre to ensure standards and the governance of AI applications, he added.
"In the second phase of the plan, we will drive use cases of AI in eight sectors, expanding from the first phase, which covers only two," said Mr Chai.
Thepchai Supnithi, president of the Artificial Intelligence Association of Thailand (AIAT), added that Thailand can change its current role of being an active AI user country to become an AI creator. AIAT focuses on developing AI human resources as a key force in national development through the "Super AI Engineer" project.
Kobkrit Viriyayudhakorn, president of the Artificial Intelligence Entrepreneur Association of Thailand (AIEAT), said Thailand can ride the wave of the global mega trend in AI applications to serve demand among corporates and increase the country's GDP.
"The AI wave is still in its early stage and is a game changer. Thailand can transform the country if we can build sufficient people with useful AI skills to serve the demand. We can have short courses lasting six months as a jumpstart first," said Mr Kobkrit.
Currently, AIAT is able to develop 200 AI engineers per year versus the total current demand for 30,000 in the market. Meanwhile, the number of AI startups in Thailand is estimated at around 300, up from 100 earlier.
AIEAT is also collaborating with Nectec to continue to develop the ThaiGPT large language model at a cost of 100 million baht. The project is awaiting the relevant budget.
Mr Kobkrit said looking ahead five years, Thailand's AI investment should increase by about 10 times from the current 1.5 billion baht.
Kaweewut Temphuwapat, head of the R&D and Innovation Lab at SCB X Public Co Ltd (SCBX), said building a strong AI ecosystem is key to sustainable national development, requiring collaboration from all sectors. The company aims to be an "AI-first organisation" within three years.
Nectec, AIAT, AIEAT and SCBX will jointly hold the second AI Thailand Forum 2024 this year under theme "Sustainable Growth with AI" on Oct 25-26 at Samyan Mitrtown.