Seminar highlights country’s AI progress

Thailand’s public and private organisations are adopting artificial intelligence (AI) technology and regulations in many areas in line with the global trend, according to a recent seminar.
An AI-ready workforce is key to preparing Thailand to join the race in the global AI-driven economy.
By 2030, the next turning point, a global economic overhaul will be driven by AI, according to tech experts and researchers who took part in the AI Thailand Forum 2024 seminar.
The seminar was co-hosted by the Artificial Intelligence Association of Thailand, Artificial Intelligence Entrepreneur Association of Thailand, the National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSTDA), SCB X and Kasikorn Business-Technology Group (KBTG).
Thailand is implementing the national AI strategy and action plan for 2022–2027, said NSTDA president Sukit Limpijumnong. He was speaking in his capacity of the secretary of the National AI Action Plan Steering Committee.
The country also has ethical and governance guidelines for AI applications in the business sector.
In terms of AI infrastructure, the national AI service platform has been developed with the support of the Government Data Centre and Cloud Service.
The NSTDA also has LANTA, a supercomputer with the highest computational efficiency in Asean, available to support AI research carried out by both the public and private sectors.
Mr Sukit said last year efforts were made to enhance the AI skills of workers via various platforms, benefiting over 100,000 participants.
In the area of education, the Education Ministry promotes AI in teaching to maximise the potential of learners and encourage startups to develop over 50 prototypes of AI-based products.
In the research and innovation domain, AI has been harnessed to improve the analysis of data of large populations for the strategic planning carried out by the National Economic and Social Development Council.
The initiative has benefited over 600,000 people, with 220 government agencies utilising such data across 17 provinces.
A medical AI consortium was also established to gather and share large datasets related to medicine and public health, comprising over 1.6 million medical images.
According to the AI Government Readiness Index for 2023, Thailand remains in the top 40 nations worldwide, ranking 37th out of 193 countries, despite a drop of six places from 31st out of 181 countries in 2022.
Thailand excelled in the public sector with a score of 77.21 and in infrastructure with a score of 70.55, indicating strong government mechanisms and infrastructure to support AI development.
The country’s technology score is 41.33, improving from 2022 but this still highlights that it is an area in which Thailand needs to focus on further development to improve its overall AI capabilities in the future.
Chai Wutiwiwatchai, executive director of the National Electronics and Computer Technology Center (Nectec), said the Thai-language national AI service platform has a total of 53 million accumulated usages.
Nectec and its partners are jointly developing “OpenThaiGPT”, a large Thai language model.
Currently, major agencies are testing AI applications. Among them are the House of Representatives, the National Research Council of Thailand and the Revenue Department.
One of the AI applications they have tested is Pathumma LLM, a generative AI app that can process Thai language data in various forms, including images, audio and text.
It can engage in natural conversation, making image captions, transcribe and narrate audio, and conduct audio analysis.
Rungroj Poonpol, group chairman of KTBG, said Thailand can focus on four main areas in the field of AI apps — finance, tourism, agriculture and healthcare — in order to achieve sustainable economic growth.
The country also has to produce AI talent to drive innovation, research and impactful use cases across all industries.
He added that 2030 would be a turning point, when the global economy will be overhauled and driven by AI. AI is estimated to contribute US$15.7 trillion to global GDP by then, he noted.