Reforming Thailand's economic model toward Thailand 4.0 will stimulate active adoption of cloud computing services to drive innovation and creativity, according to the world's largest cloud service provider, Amazon Web Services Inc (AWS).
"Thailand, Philippines and Malaysia are three countries in Southeast Asia that AWS opened local offices in the first half of this year," said Nick Walton, head of Asean at AWS.
"We're determined to continue our expansion in the region next year," he added.
Asean's large population and high mobile penetration rates give AWS opportunities to accelerate the adoption the adoption of cloud computing services, and the company plans to continue to make the region a foremost investment destination.
Cloud computing is the on-demand delivery of computer power, database storage, applications, and other IT resources through a cloud services platform via the internet with pay-as-you-go pricing.
Mr Walton said Thailand is also one of biggest potential markets for cloud service, thanks to the government's Thailand 4.0 policies that encourage public and private organisations to move towards a value-based economy driven by digital technologies.
"Cloud computing is a key foundation to enable businesses to create new innovation and business models," he said.
Healthcare, automotive, agriculture, financial and public sectors are prime targets of enterprises that can embrace cloud services.
Financial technology and startup companies are also going to be focal points of the company.
Mr Walton said Thailand has large number of small and medium-sized companies as well as startup companies.
AWS provides affordable virtual private server services, priced at US$5 per month.
AWS has 2,000 people in its Thailand user group, the largest customer base in the Southeast Asia market.
The company also provide cloud-based coursework free of charge to universities in Thailand for learning in a drive to increase the size of the cloud-skilled workforce, as well as tapping into the on-demand infrastructure.
Mr Walton said Thailand has the potential to become a cloud computing hub for Indochina in a near future, but the country needs to stimulate cloud adoption among the private and public sectors in order to achieve this.