The government will introduce pilot services related to data analytics, with the output to benefit all Thai people, by next month before making them available nationwide in 2019.
The pilot services, based on big data analytics, will cover three categories: public health; tourism; and national resources and meteorology, said Pichet Durongkaveroj, the digital economy and society (DE) minister.
The plan is part of the state-led effort to centralise data with a big data management system as the government seeks to steer all 20 ministries through the digital transformation.
Previously, the ministries were assigned by the government to work on three main subjects: checking lists of their data sets, identifying data sets and defining focal points of usage for public benefit.
Mr Pichet said many sources of data will be selected and run through the big data analytics system. The general data will be from archives, documents, business applications, media, social networks, the public web, data storage and machine logs.
Data sets at the state agencies mostly are traditional and unstructured. The agencies will have to adapt them to the electronic format.
When fully implemented, big data analytics will provide fact-based and mathematics-based decision support, or "data-driven decisions".
Like many other countries, Thailand faces obstacles in developing its big data system.
The hindrances include an absence of data-gathering tools, poor data quality, a lack of data scientists and analysts, and spotty data-sharing among agencies.
Mr Pichet said the key issue is the shortage of data scientists, a breed of analytical experts who have the technical skills to solve complex problems.
"Today there are approximately 70 data scientists in the country, most of them students on scholarships from the Office of the Civil Service Commission and the National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSTDA)," he said.
The DE Ministry will urge the NSTDA and the Institute for the Promotion of Teaching Science and Technology to broaden the scope of scholarships for data scientist study.
In parallel, the ministry will seek a proper way to develop existing data engineers to cover data science.
"The government expects the big data analytics system to provide critical data resources to businesses and people by next year," Mr Pichet said.
The government recently set up a committee for big data, data centres and cloud computing as a means to collate all data sets into a centralised data management system.