Huawei has geared up its contribution to promote Thailand’s digital transformation and enhance the country’s digital competitiveness and foster economic recovery.
The omnipresence of digital technology and its significant impact on people life and work has been highlighted more than ever, said Abel Deng, CEO of Huawei Technologies (Thailand) Co Ltd.
According to the latest Global Connectivity Index, countries better positioned in their digital transformation process experience less impact from the pandemic and will achieve faster recovery. In Thailand, the strong investment in ICT infrastructure has shown tremendous value during the pandemic, providing resilience, opportunities for growth and offering businesses a strategic advantage.
Due to its strong strategy in investing in digital technologies, Thailand has gradually emerged as the digital hub for Asean from several aspects, including its development of the Digital Economy and Society Development Plan, aiming to drive digital economy growth and achieve the visionary Thailand 4.0, its no.1 ranking among 176 countries in terms of fixed broadband Internet speed, as well as 5G infrastructure forerunner and leader in integrating 5G technology in key industries, he said.
“With open collaboration and innovation, Huawei has been serving Thai customers and carriers as a leading ICT company. While helping our customers succeed, we have contributed to accelerate Thailand’s digital transformation and enhance the country’s digital competitiveness in order to create greater social values,” said Mr Abel.
“This is also the reason why Huawei continues its strong support for promoting Thailand's digital transformation through business expansion with its first Digital Power business in Thailand, continued investment in 5G, cloud and local digital talent development.”
Mr. Abel Deng, CEO, of Huawei Technologies (Thailand) Co., Ltd
Huawei believes key to Thailand’s digital transformation is the country’s efforts towards carbon neutrality. Huawei’s Digital Power business aims to support Thailand towards becoming Asean’s carbon neutral leader, with leading technology, such as the Smart PV for clean energy generation and global practice to reduce carbon emissions.
Maintaining a strong commitment
“As a key growth market for Huawei in the region, I would like to reiterate Huawei’s support for Thailand, through our long-term mission in social value contributions to Thai people and businesses,” said Mr Abel, adding that the contributions span over three areas, namely, Huawei’s support to fight against Covid-19, digital talents ecosystem cultivation and SMEs and Startups ecosystem support.
Over the past year, the economic and social disruption caused by the pandemic is challenging for all fields, with significant impact on individual, industry and national economy across the world. In this fight against pandemic, Huawei has been standing firmly with Thailand and transform the ongoing crisis into new opportunity by applying digital technology including to 5G, Cloud and AI to tackle challenges in the public health and other sectors. Huawei’s support to fight against Covid-19 has been reflected in our numerous collaborations with Thai hospitals and partners, such as Ramathibodi and Siriraj Hospitals, the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) or the Digital Council of Thailand (DCT), to elevate the healthcare system and support Thai doctors and nurses to provide safer, quicker and stronger health services.
“We can see a stronger need to invest in digital upskilling and reskilling of the ICT workforce. As the key to driving digital development lies in an upskilled talent foundation, we have been proactively enabling Thailand 4.0 through digital talent cultivation, with approximately 180 million baht invested and 16,500 people trained in Huawei Asean Academy. As the path to a digitalized future never ends, Huawei will continuously work the public and private sector to enable the digital talent ecosystem.”
Furthermore, the company highly appreciate and recognise the key role of SMEs and Startups in a strong economy.
According to the World Bank, SMEs represent about 90% of businesses and more than 50% of employment worldwide. Formal SMEs contribute up to 40% of GDP in emerging economies. An estimated 600 million jobs will be needed by 2030 to absorb the growing digital industries, which makes SME development and a skilled talent foundation a high priority for Thailand.
Therefore, Huawei Technologies (Thailand) have been collaborating with industry key stakeholders, such as the New Economy Academy under the Ministry of Commerce, the Digital Economy Promotion Agency (DEPA), the National Innovation Agency (NIA), as well as local customers and partners to provide new technology, global knowledge and training programs from Huawei Asean Academy (Thailand).
Digital technology supports Thailand to become Asean’s digital hub and carbon neutrality leader
In order to empower Thailand to become the Asean Digital Hub and achieve the country’s goal of leading Asean in carbon neutrality, Huawei will continuously invest in four domains: 5G, data centre and cloud, digital power, and talent development.
“Looking ahead, we are confident and excited about the future. We believe Thailand can become the Asean digital hub not only with its digital technology implementation but also as a Carbon Neutrality Leader,” said Mr Abel.
Since becoming a separate business unit within Huawei, the Digital Power business has expanded rapidly, and has been utilised in over 170 countries and regions, with industry-leading output and market share. In Prefabricated Modular Data Center, Smart PV and Site Power Facility business, Huawei has gained a leadership position within the sector with the largest global market share. For mPower business, Huawei was the world’s first company to innovate new technology called X-in-1 ePowertrain, to raise the energy efficiency of electric vehicles. Moreover, for Modular Power, Huawei has supplied over 300 million high-efficiency Modular Power units globally. In 2020, Huawei’s sale revenue from the digital power business globally reached $5.5 billion and served one third of the world's population.
This year, Huawei has established its new Digital Power business in Thailand, and the company is now continuously serving more than 50 local partners with services, integration, and solutions, creating over 1,000 local indirect job opportunities. With highly efficient local team and partners, Huawei expects that leading-technology and global practice adoption will be able to support Thailand toward becoming the Asean carbon neutral leader.
Huawei also continues supporting Thailand through ongoing investment in 5G innovation and local ecosystem. While Thailand has had a leading rollout progress compared to other countries in the region, it is important to continue with a fast adoption rate, to remain in the lead and help create new economy value including new job opportunities as well as increase the digital economy’ share of GDP. Huawei Thailand has invested 475 million baht for 5G EIC to help develop and innovate 5G use case for various industries, create new business models, and upskill for startups and SMEs. The company is also working together with partners to arrange the first 5G Summit in Thailand this year to support the 5G industry and ecosystem in the country. With support of DEPA, we will work with ecosystem partners in leading industry sector to initiate 5G alliance to build a healthy 5G industry application & innovation ecosystem in Thailand.
Huawei will continue to boost the ecosystem to build leading 5G City with high standard 5G network infrastructure to strengthen 5G applications and innovation that will bring new business services and value. This will also push Thailand to become an Asean 5G country, also aligning with Thailand’s role as a host for the APEC 2022 Summit, to be held in Bangkok, Pattaya and Chiang Mai.
Moreover, our 700 million baht investment for the third local data centre in Thailand makes Huawei Cloud the first and currently the only global cloud service provider with three data centres in Thailand, creating more than 200 direct job opportunities with 200 local partners.
As a proactive digital transformation enabler, Huawei not only brings ICT technologies to Thailand but also continues to invest to help the industries adopt these technologies in their business scenarios.
As a leading ICT partner for digital transformation, as well as continuous social value contributor in Thailand for more than 22 years, we will continuously push forward digital transformation in Thailand, and bring digital technology to every person, home, and organisation for a fully connected, intelligent Thailand so that the country can recover quickly. With the mission of 'Grow in Thailand, Contribute to Thailand’, Huawei will reinforce its commitment to helping the country move toward becoming Asean’s digital hub and a carbon neutral leader.
