Thailand Must Build AI Operating System Within Two Years to Escape Low-Growth Trap, Leaders Warn

 

 

Industry leaders at Thailand Economic Outlook 2027 urge immediate action on AI, data centres, and regulatory reforms to secure 5% annual GDP growth.

 

Thailand stands at a pivotal junction where it must rapidly modernize its infrastructure, expand artificial intelligence adoption, and bridge a widening digital skills gap to avoid being left behind in the new global economy.

 

Speaking at the Thailand Economic Outlook 2027: New Horizon Beyond the Trap conference, organised by Krungthep Turakij, top leaders from industrial real estate, telecommunications, and global technology offered a unified blueprint: Thailand must overhaul its economic foundation within a tight two-year window or risk missing out on high-value foreign investments.

 

The call to action comes as the Southeast Asian nation aims to escape the middle-income trap by accelerating annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth from its current subdued pace to 5%.

 

Achieving this ambitious target requires transitioning away from traditional, labour-intensive manufacturing toward a digital economy anchored by artificial intelligence, green energy, and advanced infrastructure.

 

 

Overhauling the Industrial Core and Regulatory Hurdles

Jareeporn Jarukornsakul, chairman and Group CEO of WHA Corporation PCL, warned that Thailand’s manufacturing sector—traditionally the engine of national output—has seen its share of GDP fall from 27% to 24.3%. The decline comes amid heightened geopolitical friction, the US-China technology trade war, and an ageing domestic population.

 

 

 

Despite these headwinds, Thailand remains a foreign direct investment (FDI) magnet. Total Board of Investment (BOI) applications recently hit a record 1.8 trillion baht ($52.9 billion), driven by 1.36 trillion baht ($40 billion) in FDI.

 

In the first half of the year alone, foreign investment expanded by more than 80%. Notably, 1.1 trillion baht ($32.4 billion) of these inflows were concentrated in digital infrastructure and data centres, attracting tech giants such as Google and Amazon Web Services (AWS).

 

"Thailand is currently in a transition period," Jareeporn said. "If we fail to seize this opportunity within the next two years, everyone will be left to fend for themselves. This is Thailand's new horizon. Whether our horizon is bright or dark depends entirely on the work we do right now."

 

To capture this momentum, Jareeporn outlined ten strategic future industries—spanning AI processing, circular economy models, food tech, and small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs).

 

She urged the Thai government to implement a "regulatory guillotine" to slash bureaucratic red tape, offer targeted investment incentives, and replace populist cash handouts with targeted skills training, SME loan access, and debt restructuring.

 

 

Bringing Small Businesses Into the AI Ecosystem

While big-tech investments and data centre capacity are surging, the practical rollout of AI among domestic businesses faces significant operational barriers.

 

Sigve Brekke, chief executive officer of True Group, highlighted that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) form the backbone of the Thai economy, accounting for 70% of total employment and generating 35% of GDP. However, 85% of these enterprises operate on annual revenues under 1.8 million baht ($52,900).

 

 

 

Although a True Group survey revealed that 70% of Thai SMEs have experimented with basic AI tools like web searches, only 9% have integrated AI directly into their core business processes or revenue models.

 

"The primary obstacle to digital transformation is not the technology itself, but a legacy mindset," Brekke explained. "The real threat is not that AI will take people's jobs, but that individuals who do not know how to use AI will be replaced by those who do."

 

Brekke advocated for a three-point strategy to support small enterprises: simplifying AI tools for micro-merchants, accelerating workforce upskilling, and establishing a flexible "Responsible AI" regulatory framework that allows startups to safely test innovations.

 

 

Scaling Sovereign Infrastructure, Data, and Youth Talent

The demand for underlying computing power is expanding at an exponential rate. David Li, CEO of Huawei Technologies (Thailand), noted that global AI foundation models have expanded from 175 billion parameters in 2020 toward an estimated 100 trillion parameters by 2030.

 

This computational boom is mirrored locally. On Huawei Cloud Thailand, monthly token processing volume expanded 185-fold between April and September 2026, while nationwide token consumption grew 30-fold.

 

However, only 12.4% of Thailand's working-age population currently utilises AI tools—lagging regional peers such as Singapore and Vietnam.

 

 

Li stressed that Thailand possesses the foundational assets to elevate itself from a regional digital hub into a regional AI hub, supported by a 2.87-gigawatt data centre pipeline, 5G-Advanced connectivity, and a 2,000-megawatt direct power purchase agreement (PPA) pilot for green energy.

 

To secure long-term competitiveness, Huawei proposed building a sovereign Thai AI ecosystem anchored on three key pillars: open infrastructure utilising neutral hardware and open-source models to prevent vendor lock-in; robust data governance that protects local data while unlocking its value; and a youth talent engine focused on practical experience.

 

"Data is the economic infrastructure that will serve as the core foundation of a nation's competitiveness," Li emphasised. "Protect, govern, and then create value."

 

Li also pointed out that AI innovation is increasingly driven by younger creators, with the average age of global AI unicorn founders dropping from 40 in 2020 to 29 today. Cultivating Thailand's domestic AI workforce, he noted, requires providing hands-on environments where young developers can build, deploy, and scale real-world systems.