Intel Corporation views artificial intelligence (AI) as a key driver for the burgeoning semiconductor industry, projected to be worth US$1 trillion by 2030, as the company plans to produce up to 100 million AI-enabled PCs by 2025.
The company is in the initial stage of unlocking the potential of AI for businesses in all sectors as well as individuals, said Jen Baile, vice-president for the sales and marketing group of Intel Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand.
According to IDC, a provider of global IT research and advice, Thailand's AI platforms software market is expected to achieve a compound annual growth rate of 43.1% during the period 2023 to 2027 with the value reaching $141.6 million.
This aligns with the rise of the digital economy, which will increase its contribution to global GDP from 15% to 25% within 2030.
Largely driven by AI, the value of the global semiconductor market is projected to reach $1 trillion in 2030.
"We coined the term 'Siliconomy' to reflect the era in which semiconductors will become a critical part in driving economic expansion," Ms Baile said on Tuesday at the Intel AI Summit in Bangkok.
She said AI is the fundamental transforming tool that would help reshape the PC experience for 20 years.
According to Boston Consulting Group, AI PCs will account for 80% of the market by 2028, while Intel aims to produce more than 100 million AI-enabled PCs within 2025.
Vorachai Rouy-aree, head of retail at Intel Microelectronics (Thailand), said AI-enabled PCs will unlock a wide array of new capabilities including collaboration, productivity, security, accessibility, music creation, video editing and text-to-image conversion.
Roger Ling, associate vice-president of IDC Asia/Pacific, said the biggest spender on AI software in the Thai market was financial services, accounting for 27.1% of total spending on AI software, as banks rapidly adopted the new technology to enhance their services through features such as chatbots, product recommendations and fraud detection.
Manufacturers made up 19.7% of all spending on AI software as they used AI for predictive maintenance, quality control, supply chain optimisation, and carbon footprint reduction in the factory environment. The public sector and their e-government services accounted for 14.7% of all spending on AI software.
With the government's policy of rolling out a national AI strategy and action plan (2022–2027) to develop the country's AI infrastructure as well as its Cloud First strategy, these commitments have become a strength of the country, including a 1.29-billion-baht state budget for AI research and development, said Mr Ling.
The enhancement of Thailand's digital infrastructure, including 5G and high-speed broadband, along with the establishment of a national platform for advanced data analytics, were also noted as being pivotal developments.
However, the country still faces challenges in terms of lacking clear regulatory frameworks and skills, along with data quality and data readiness issues as well as growing concerns regarding data privacy and security.
Intel offers a full range of AI convergence products, such as data centres, cloud, PCs and edge.
The Intel Core Ultra processor integrates three AI engines -- the central processing unit, graphics processing unit and neural processing unit in a single package, while Intel Gaudi3 AI Accelerator improves performance in the area of AI training, Ms Baile said.
