The Electronic Transactions Development Agency (Etda) has set a goal to push Thailand to become regional hub for artificial intelligence (AI) by strengthening trust in digital infrastructure, promoting advanced AI tech operations, and expanding collaborative regulatory mechanisms for platform services.
According to Chaichana Mitrpant, executive director of Etda, the target is part of the agency's high-impact priorities in 2026.
He said on Tuesday next year Etda wants to foster digital trust and enhance Thailand's competitiveness in the digital economy, paving the way for the sustainability through three major strategic imperatives.
First, the agency plans to accelerate confidence in the digital infrastructure and ecosystem across four areas: digital ID, e-documents, AI and data sharing, and cloud systems.
Digital ID is expected to connect 1,464 public sector e-services through a national digital identity system, noted Etda.
This effort includes expanding usage across the private sector, particularly in the tourism industry and digital platforms, and widening access for legal entities, foreign nationals and vulnerable groups, said Mr Chaichana.
The agency is also promoting adoption of digital verification credentials and document wallets to support the nationwide implementation of Phase 2 of the digital ID framework.
The public and private sectors are expected to share data by developing standards, ethical guidelines and governance mechanisms, he said. Pilot use cases are being explored in the healthcare, finance and insurance sectors.
Etda also plans to support the digital government transformation by promoting the migration of public digital services and systems to cloud platforms, said Mr Chaichana.
Second, the agency wants to accelerate AI to empower Thailand as a regional AI hub.
Etda is accelerating the establishment of the AI Governance Practice Center to serve as a national hub for governance and international collaboration.
Another key initiative involves the AI ethics testing and sandbox programme, which seeks to create rigorous frameworks for testing AI models and assessing their ethical impact.
Moreover, he said Etda is empowering Thai small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and communities to generate local digital economic value, aiming to support at least 1,000 SMEs in adopting digital technology to enhance their operations with a projected economic impact of more than 500 million baht.
The initiative is expected to raise community income while simultaneously improving AI and digital literacy for more than 10,000 people nationwide, said Mr Chaichana.
The agency also expanded its Etda Digital Citizen Trainer Network to more than 2,000 trainers, covering 878 districts across the country. Through this network, more than 60,000 people have been trained, ensuring wide-ranging outreach and inclusion, he said.
Finally, Etda is intensifying efforts to strengthen shared governance mechanisms for digital platform services to foster public confidence in online interactions.
Mr Chaichana said the agency is expanding its domestic and international partnerships to enable more effective coordination in tackling digital platform challenges.