Huawei signs deal to empower country as regional hub, aiding digital economy

Chinese technology giant Huawei has joined hands with a Thai ministry to establish the country as a regional artificial intelligence hub, following a memorandum of understanding signed on Monday.

The memorandum was signed by Huawei and the ministry during the Huawei Cloud AI Summit Thailand 2023, which kicked off in Bangkok. The memorandum aims to assist in AI development, industry applications, ecosystem building and talent cultivation.

This partnership is expected to help Thailand establish itself as a regional AI hub through digital transformation and smart city strategies.

Thailand's Digital Economy and Society Minister Prasert Chanthararuangthong said the ministry will prioritize cloud technology, which is seen as a new growth engine for the country.

"Huawei is taking the leading role in setting up this important event and bringing its global advanced experience to Thailand. This will help to foster the country's digital ecosystem for cloud and AI technology," Prasert said at the opening ceremony of the summit.

"The Ministry of Digital Economy and Society will fully support Thailand to accelerate digital transformation and cultivate talent, achieve economic sustainability, and enhance the overall quality of life for the Thai people.

"Through cooperation with private sectors like Huawei, we will continue to promote Thailand as an AI hub of the region."

Thailand's Office of the National Digital Economy and Society Commission predicted that the country's digital industry will contribute as much as 30 percent of GDP by 2027.It added that it intends to focus on promoting cloud-based infrastructure next year to ensure the achievement of this target.

Under the "Go Cloud First" policy proposed by the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society, Thailand will focus on allowing private cloud providers, both domestic and international, to establish cloud infrastructure in Thailand. Providers include INET, AWS, Microsoft and Huawei.

At the summit, Huawei demonstrated a wide range of cutting-edge AI solutions and models specifically tailored to Thailand's needs, including models for the Thai language, meteorology and the government, and AI solutions for the finance and retail sectors.

The Thai language model is trained on the Thai corpus converged with Huawei's experiences accumulated over three decades. It continuously optimizes by learning massive amounts of Thai data and removes language barriers to accessing foundation models, allowing Thailand to transition from an AI user to a creator.

In meteorology, Huawei collaborated with the Thai Meteorological Department to develop a Pangu weather model for deepening the digitization of its agriculture and tourism. The model can predict the trajectory of a typhoon 10 days in advance, cutting the time needed from five hours to only 10 seconds.

Huawei has been practicing its "Grow in Thailand, Contribute to Thailand" mission by building a robust digital foundation for the country and constructing AI infrastructure for the government and enterprises, Huawei Thailand CEO Li Xiongwei said at the summit.

Transformative power

"Huawei will empower the nation to harness the transformative power of AI. This will lead to the proliferation of AI applications across industries, ultimately benefiting the Thai people and driving the country's digital progress," he said.

Li added that Huawei would serve as a bridge between Chinese and Thai enterprises to empower Thailand with advanced cutting-edge technologies and solutions from China.

Huawei also announced that it will train 10,000 digital power engineers and 20,000 cloud developers in the next three years to fulfill its vision to empower Thailand to become a fully intelligent, connected and sustainable digital economy.