Thailand is on course to attract more artificial intelligence (AI) investments in manufacturing supply chains after it became the third country in Southeast Asia to form a partnership with Nvidia through Siam.AI Cloud.
Siam.AI Cloud is the country's first Thai-owned Nvidia Cloud Partner (NCP).
Jensen Huang, chief executive and founder of AI chip maker Nvidia, is scheduled to give a speech on sovereign AI strategy and the partnership with Siam.AI Cloud on Dec 4 in Thailand.
A sovereign cloud is a cloud environment that helps an organisation meet its digital sovereignty requirements.
The presence of Siam.AI Cloud is expected to intensify competition in the sovereign cloud business.
In a bid to tap the sovereign cloud market, Gulf Edge recently joined forces with Google Cloud, while Advanced Info Service is collaborating with Oracle.
Siam.AI Cloud is one of the first firms to focus on Thailand's AI landscape by combining world-class technology with local expertise.
This focus can pave the way for an AI-driven future in Thailand, the company said.
Ratanaphon Wongnapachant, chief executive of Siam.AI Cloud, is the son of Yaowaret Shinawatra, a younger sister of Thaksin Shinawatra.
"The visit of Nvidia's chief executive marks a good opportunity for Thailand to compete with Indonesia and Malaysia, as the country becomes the third NCP in Southeast Asia," Supparat Singhara Na Ayutthaya, general manager of Dubai-based Edgnex Data Centres by DAMAC, told the Bangkok Post.
Mr Supparat said when Thailand has a graphics processing unit farm in the country, it should be able to attract AI-related supply chain manufacturing here, such as the production of server racks and storage for AI cloud data centres.
He said he believes the NCP scheme will generate new AI use cases in Thailand, such as the real-time processing of massive data, utilised by banks in credit scoring, and the use of sovereign cloud to offer wealth management services to the masses.
Mr Supparat said the Board of Investment should consider better incentives to leverage these opportunities.
He said computer server imports currently pay a 7% tax, which can be claimed later, which makes Thailand less attractive compared with other countries.
Moreover, policymakers need to lower the prices of internet protocol transit and electricity, said Mr Supparat.
A data centre industry source who requested anonymity said ByteDance's arm, Byte Plus, is in talks to use the Siam.AI Cloud service for customers in Thailand.
Panutat Tejasen, a pioneer AI developer, said the rise of cloud and AI-based data centres in Thailand has not had much of an impact on the local ecosystem, as cloud service prices have not declined.
The AI ecosystem comprises semiconductors, the cloud, AI models and AI-based applications.
These investments will raise Thai GDP and electricity demand, but will not affect the local ecosystem, in contrast to automotive investments, which led to the development of vast supply chains in Thailand, said Mr Panutat.
Djitt Laowattana, founder of the Institute of Field Robotics at King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi, said Thailand can benefit from multi-level AI-based data centres.
The data centres can be used to offer software as a service to serve sectors where Thailand is strong, such as healthcare, genetic biodiversity and food.
"For semiconductors, which are upstream in the supply chain, we don't have enough talent to tap into this segment. Thailand can capitalise on the middle to lower streams of the supply chain, such as devices or sensors that help diagnose diabetes," said Mr Djitt.
"Policymakers must consider offering incentives to encourage global tech companies to form joint ventures or collaborate with local Thai companies in supporting AI-based applications."