The caretaker Digital Economy and Society (DES) Ministry has confirmed Thailand's cloud-first policy will continue, with the selection of a new prime minister resulting in minor changes to the government's policies.
The fiscal 2025 budget for state agencies' procurement of cloud services has been set at 1 billion baht, up from 200 million baht in 2024, said the ministry.
On Wednesday, the Constitutional Court dismissed Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin for an ethics violation.
"We expect the government transition to cause minor changes and be resolved quickly, as our key policies will continue," caretaker DES Minister Prasert Jantararungtong told the Bangkok Post yesterday after delivering a keynote speech at the Huawei Cloud Summit Thailand 2024 event.
Mr Prasert said the ministry will continue to oversee the cloud-first policy committee.
He said the fiscal 2025 budget would not be affected as it already passed the first round of the House of Representatives' vetting and awaits the second and third rounds of discussion.
The cloud-first policy is one of seven pillars of Thailand's "Ignite Vision", aiming to make Thailand a regional digital economy hub.
Wisit Wisitsora-At, permanent DES secretary, said the ministry will amend the cloud procurement regulations to support cloud services based on a utility-based model. The amendment is expected to be completed next year.
In addition, he said the ministry will establish a cloud management platform for connecting cloud providers and government agencies so they can see related data, cloud service types and service pricing.
"By this year, we will see some government agencies moving to the cloud system. At least 10% of government e-services, including paperless services related to 50,000 government officers, and all government websites will be on the cloud," said Mr Wisit.
He said the cloud-first policy not only serves domestic cloud usage in the public sector, but should also serve neighbouring countries.
Thailand set a standard for cloud service to ensure security, availability and data classifications as guidelines for agencies to procure cloud services, said Mr Wisit.
Also speaking at the summit, Jacqueline Shi, president of global marketing and sales service at Huawei Cloud, said Thailand is a strategically important market for the company. The country is among the firm's top five global markets in terms of revenue, she said.
Huawei Cloud chose Thailand as the first country outside of mainland China to set up a data centre region, with three data centres available to support the local market. Huawei has invested 5.5 billion baht since 2018 to build cloud infrastructure in Thailand.
David Li, chief executive of Huawei Technologies Thailand, said the company will continue investing in Thailand to serve its business growth.
"We are the fastest growing cloud service provider and are ranked No.1 in terms of hybrid cloud market share as of December 2023 in Thailand," said Mr Li.
The company also invested to support cloud startups and local partners, while cultivating 20,000 local talents at leading universities and in government.
Huawei Cloud has more than 300 local software service providers.
He said Huawei has considered investing in Thailand for the long term, despite the recent political change.
Ms Shi said Huawei offers its AI solutions and Pangu large language model (LLM) in Thailand.
"We bring industry knowledge solutions from China to assist in increasing Thailand's competitiveness in digital government, retail, logistics, finance and media, as innovations flourish here," she said.
Huawei has its own ecosystem ranging from chips and hardware to software to support cloud services, and can integrate them with other technologies.
