Situation

Thailand’s digital economy has expanded rapidly over the past decade, driven by high internet penetration, mobile adoption, and growth in e-commerce and fintech platforms. However, the current digital landscape remains largely consumption-driven rather than production-driven. Most value creation is concentrated in platform usage rather than platform ownership, and data generated within the country is underutilized for strategic economic value.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) adoption remains fragmented and limited to large corporations, with SMEs and public sector institutions lagging behind. Data infrastructure is still siloed across government agencies and private entities, lacking interoperability, standardization, and governance frameworks necessary for a scalable data economy.

At the infrastructure level, while Thailand has made progress in broadband and 5G deployment, critical components such as hyperscale data centers, cloud sovereignty frameworks, and national data platforms are still underdeveloped compared to leading digital economies. This constrains the country’s ability to fully leverage AI, big data, and digital services at scale.

Shift

The global economy is rapidly transitioning into an AI-first and data-centric paradigm, where data is a strategic asset and AI is a core productivity engine.

Key structural shifts include:

• From Digital Consumption → Digital Production: Nations are moving from being users of digital platforms to creators of digital value, including AI models, software ecosystems, and data-driven services.

• From Siloed Data → Integrated Data Ecosystems: Economic value increasingly depends on the ability to aggregate, standardize, and analyze cross-sectoral data.

• From Cloud Adoption → Sovereign Digital Infrastructure: Countries are investing in domestic cloud, data centers, and AI compute capacity to ensure strategic autonomy.

• From Automation → Intelligent Systems: AI is evolving from task automation to decision-making augmentation across industries (manufacturing, healthcare, logistics, finance).

• From Platform Dependency → Platform Ownership: Control over digital platforms and ecosystems determines long-term value capture.

In this context, AI and data infrastructure are no longer supporting elements but foundational pillars of national competitiveness.

Advantage

Thailand holds several enabling advantages for accelerating AI and data economy development:

• High Digital Adoption Rate: Strong usage of mobile internet, social platforms, and digital payments provides a large and active data-generating population.

• Established Digital Economy Base: Growth in e-commerce, fintech, and logistics platforms offers a foundation for scaling data-driven services.

• Emerging 5G Infrastructure: Nationwide 5G rollout enables real-time data applications and supports Industry 4.0 transformation.

• Regional Positioning: Thailand can serve as a digital hub within ASEAN, connecting data flows across regional markets.

• Government Digital Initiatives: Ongoing efforts in e-government and digital ID systems provide a base for national data integration.

Additional Structural Advantage

• Sectoral Data Diversity: Thailand’s economy spans multiple sectors (agriculture, tourism, manufacturing, healthcare), generating diverse datasets that can be leveraged for AI development.

• Strong Private Sector Participation: Telecom operators, banks, and large conglomerates already possess significant data assets and digital capabilities.

• Cost Competitiveness for Infrastructure: Relative cost advantages in land, energy, and operations support development of data centers and cloud infrastructure.

• Tourism & Services Data Volume: High volume of international and domestic movement generates valuable mobility and behavioral datasets.

• ASEAN Data Gateway Potential: Geographic and network positioning enables Thailand to act as a regional data exchange hub.

Implication

Failure to build a robust AI and data economy ecosystem will result in Thailand becoming a data consumer rather than a data owner, leading to:

• Loss of economic value to foreign digital platforms

• Reduced competitiveness in AI-driven industries

• Increased dependency on external cloud and AI infrastructure

• Limited productivity gains across key sectors

Conversely, successful acceleration will:

• Unlock exponential productivity growth across industries

• Enable development of new digital-native industries

• Position Thailand as a regional AI and data hub

• Strengthen national digital sovereignty and security

• Enhance innovation capacity and long-term economic resilience

Action Layer