What To Know
- Thailand is preparing for a major surge in artificial intelligence investment, but a shortage of skilled workers could threaten its ambition to become a serious regional AI player.
- Data analysis and decision-making ranked as the leading application at 66%, followed by customer service and chatbots at 64%, marketing and content creation at 58%, product development and coding at 55%, and human resources at 38%.
Thailand is preparing for a major surge in artificial intelligence investment, but a shortage of skilled workers could threaten its ambition to become a serious regional AI player. Businesses are planning substantial increases in spending as the government pushes ahead with a national strategy covering talent, infrastructure, local technology and regulation. Yet Thailand remains stronger at using AI than developing it, creating a widening gap between investment enthusiasm and domestic technological capability.
Image Credit: Thailand AI News
The scale of that enthusiasm is highlighted by the AI Business Application Readiness and Accessibility Survey, commissioned by Alibaba Cloud and conducted by NielsenIQ across eight Asian markets. It found that 79% of Thai enterprises plan to increase AI investment by at least 50%, the highest proportion among the markets surveyed.
Thailand Leads Asia’s AI Investment Push
AI adoption is accelerating across Asia. The survey found that 90% of companies are optimistic about the technology, while 95% plan to increase spending on AI products and services.
More than half expect budgets to rise by over 20% during the coming year across cloud infrastructure, development platforms and AI models.
Around 75% of Asian enterprises already consider AI indispensable to their operations, while nearly 90% have adopted AI development platforms and models. Only 1% said AI was not a business priority.
Thailand stands out because 79% of enterprises surveyed intend to increase investment by at least 50%. That could generate significant demand for cloud computing, AI platforms, data infrastructure, cybersecurity and specialised services.
Companies increasingly view AI as a growth engine rather than simply a cost-cutting tool. Some 64% of respondents cited new business opportunities and innovation as key reasons for adoption, while 63% pointed to operational efficiency.
Data analysis and decision-making ranked as the leading application at 66%, followed by customer service and chatbots at 64%, marketing and content creation at 58%, product development and coding at 55%, and human resources at 38%.
As businesses race to adopt AI technology, this Thailand AI News report highlights the central challenge: Thailand must rapidly expand its talent pool if its spending boom is to generate sustainable economic value.
Talent Shortage Raises Alarm
Thailand’s biggest weakness may be the availability of skilled workers.
Some 63% of Thai respondents identified AI skills as their most urgent support requirement, while 53% cited implementation costs as a major barrier.
The talent concern is considerably higher than across Asia overall, where 37% cited shortages of AI expertise. Regionally, data privacy and security ranked as the biggest obstacle at 48%, followed by implementation costs at 42%.
Thailand will increasingly need engineers, developers, data scientists, cybersecurity specialists and employees capable of incorporating AI into existing operations. Without enough skilled people, rising investment may fail to deliver comparable gains in productivity and innovation.
Thailand Remains an AI User, not a Developer
The warning is reinforced by Dr Chai Wutiwiwatchai, director of Thailand’s National Electronics and Computer Technology Centre, or NECTEC.
Speaking at the AI for Public Sector: AI-Driven Government Services seminar on August 6, Chai said Thailand remains constrained by weak domestic technology development, limited access to data and a persistent skills shortage.
https://www.dga.or.th/document-sharing/dga-news/138223
“We are users, but rarely developers,” he said.
The distinction is critical. Thailand can rapidly adopt AI through foreign cloud services, models and software, but becoming a technology producer requires domestic researchers, engineers, intellectual property, accessible datasets and companies capable of creating competitive products.
Thailand’s international position has improved. Chai said the country ranked around 60th in an Oxford Insights index in 2020 before climbing to approximately 30th following Cabinet endorsement of the national AI plan. However, Thailand ranked 34th in 2025, indicating that momentum has slowed.
Valuable Data Remains Difficult to Use
Thailand has improved its data and infrastructure, but organizations still struggle to access information and use it productively.
A survey of nearly 600 organizations, around 20% from the public sector and 80% private companies, found that fewer than 20% had adopted AI at an organizational level in 2024.
Chai believes organizational integration remains at an early stage in 2026, although individual use is likely to be considerably higher.
Progress also differs by industry. Finance and logistics are moving quickly and require less government intervention, while industry, healthcare and education remain at earlier stages but could become important growth engines.
Agriculture and tourism need greater support. Agriculture lacks sufficient participation from younger people comfortable with digital technology, while inadequate tourism data limits opportunities to develop practical AI applications.
Thailand Takes the Talent Fight to Schools
Workforce development has become a central pillar of the national AI strategy.
AI content has already been introduced at upper-primary, lower-secondary and upper-secondary levels. The courses remain optional, although authorities ultimately want them to become compulsory.
The Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation is also encouraging the use of AI in teaching and learning while supporting training for lecturers.
Large-scale boot camps accept around 10,000 participants annually, with more than 2,000 completing programmes each year.
Thailand needs talent at multiple levels, from ordinary employees with AI literacy to developers and specialist researchers capable of creating original technology. With corporate spending expected to rise rapidly, expanding that pipeline has become increasingly urgent.
Thai-Language AI Gains Strategic Importance
Language is another challenge. Thailand needs high-quality models capable of understanding Thai terminology, cultural context and specialized information.
For government agencies, there is also concern about sensitive information being processed through overseas cloud infrastructure. Thailand is therefore supporting domestic cloud systems and Thai-developed open-source large language models.
The country released its first major open-source Thai-language LLM in 2022. NECTEC has also developed Pathumma LLM for government agencies.
Pathumma supports an agentic chatbot for the Office of the Public Sector Development Commission, designed to provide a one-stop enquiry service by retrieving information from chatbots operated by different government agencies.
Medical AI Reveals the Data Challenge
Healthcare demonstrates both Thailand’s potential and its limitations.
The country has invested substantially in medical AI, but many projects have yet to reach widespread clinical deployment. Developers need diverse datasets to demonstrate that models perform reliably across different hospitals and patient populations.
A medical AI consortium involving major hospitals has been pooling data, training specialists and accelerating development. More than 10 models have been developed, with at least two securing Thai Food and Drug Administration approval over the past two years.
Thailand is also strengthening AI governance through ethical guidelines, technical standards and future legislation. NECTEC has established an ISO 17025-accredited laboratory to test AIoT, healthcare AI and biometric systems, while trustworthy large language model testing has become a priority in 2026.
Talent Will Decide Thailand’s AI Future
Thailand has investment momentum, growing demand and a national strategy capable of accelerating AI adoption. But money alone cannot create experienced engineers, researchers, reliable datasets or competitive intellectual property. The country’s ability to transform enormous investment into lasting economic value will depend heavily on whether its talent pipeline can expand quickly enough.
Thailand must also improve data access, strengthen Thai-language models, commercialize more domestic research and focus resources on sectors where AI can produce measurable benefits. If it succeeds, the current spending surge could provide the foundations for a competitive domestic AI industry. If talent development falls behind, Thailand risks becoming a major buyer of foreign technology rather than an important creator of its own. Its billion-baht AI ambitions are growing rapidly, but ultimately the people capable of building and deploying the technology will determine whether those ambitions become reality.
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