Thailand plans to accelerate its digital competitiveness through policies for the cloud first scheme, tablets for students and artificial intelligence (AI) regulations.
Officials want to achieve a top 30 spot by 2026 in the IMD World Digital Competitiveness Ranking.
The country's ranking this year dipped two spots to 37th out of 67 economies.
Wisit Wisitsora-At, the digital economy and society (DES) permanent secretary, said he believes the ranking will improve next year as the government improves its digital ecosystem.
The cloud first policy was allocated more projects in the fiscal budget, focusing on digitalising state agencies' back offices, said Mr Wisit.
There are 40 million digital ID users in Thailand, thanks to the Tang Rat app, which continues to add new e-government services to its platform, he said.
Around 200,000 state officials out of nearly 1 million already work on a paperless basis, said Mr Wisit.
He said when e-government can seamlessly integrate with the private sector's finance and commerce sectors, the country's digital services will be fully leveraged.
Thailand's e-payment transactions total 8 trillion baht and the value of e-commerce is estimated at 6 trillion baht.
The cabinet approved in February the Education Ministry using tablets in schools under phase 2 of the "Anywhere, Anytime Learning Promotion" project, covering 29,312 schools nationwide.
The project runs from 2025 to 2029, with a total budget of 22.1 billion baht.
In the AI arena, the country wants to make AI policy more sustainable, said Mr Wisit.
The DES Ministry plans to promote investment in AI application development in certain sectors.
The ministry also wants to push the use of Thai large language models.
"We must build a skilled workforce to ensure sustainable competitiveness," he said.
Mr Wisit said the ministry is developing the "Learn to Earn" platform to support the enhancement of people's digital skills.
The platform is designed to support more than 20 million users, aiming to make learning accessible and easy for lifelong learners, while creating a record of their progress.
According to the Thailand Management Association, one reason the country's digital competitiveness ranking dipped this year is its technology factor declined by eight spots to 23rd.
Thailand also has low competitiveness in some new indicators the IMD added to its ranking.
The new indicators include computer science education, number of AI policies passed into law, and secure internet servers.
The number of AI policies passed into law is in the regulatory framework, where Thailand dropped five spots to 36th. For AI policies passed into law, the nation was ranked 39th.
Secure internet servers is in the technological framework, where Thailand fell by six spots to 21st. For secure internet servers, the country was ranked 48th.
The country's knowledge and future readiness indicators each improved by one spot to 40th and 41st, respectively.