AI in Thailand

Health

ASCRIBE: Atomic and Significance-Based Reasoning for Thai Clinical SOAP Note Generation

Shows that having an AI rank how clinically important each fact in a Thai doctor-patient conversation is before writing the visit note makes the notes more complete, and lets a small model trained on synthetic data match a leading commercial one.

Preprint · October 1, 2026 · arXiv 2610.01234

Language and models

Reference-Grounded Data Curation for Instruction-Following Thai-English Machine Translation

Releases small open Thai-English translation models trained on carefully filtered examples that follow instructions on terminology and formatting without losing accuracy, matching or beating same-size rivals.

Preprint · September 28, 2026 · arXiv 2609.34770

Schools and universities

Not human, still social: Thai EFL learners' willingness to communicate with ChatGPT

Finds that Thai learners of English stayed willing to speak with ChatGPT because it felt socially present yet clearly not human, understood them and never judged their mistakes.

Journal article · September 28, 2026 · Technology in Language Teaching & Learning

Schools and universities

Factors Influencing the Acceptance and Application of Artificial Intelligence Technologies among University Lecturers in Thailand

Finds that Thai lecturers plan to use AI when they expect it to help, enjoy it, see colleagues using it and have made it a habit, while ease of use and cost make little difference.

Journal article · September 24, 2026 · Human Behavior, Development and Society

Language and models

ThaiTrees: Thai Syntactic Dependency Trees Across Domains

Releases a 342-million-word Thai corpus from news, Wikipedia, speech transcripts and social media, machine-parsed for grammar so researchers and language tools can study how Thai sentences are built.

Preprint · September 23, 2026 · arXiv 2609.27558

Government and rules

Governing for Adoption: The Role of Legal and Regulatory Frameworks in Shaping AI Uptake in Southeast Asia

Compares four ASEAN legal regimes to show how sandboxes, data-sharing rules and AI assurance mechanisms, not tax incentives, drive AI commercialisation and adoption.

Journal article · July 31, 2026 · IntechOpen (perspective chapter)

Health

From Classification to Localization and Clinical Validation: Large-Scale Development of a Deep Learning System for Thoracic Disease Detection on Chest Radiographs in Thailand

Documents the multi-year build of a Thai chest X-ray AI (Inspectra CXR) that generalizes across hospitals with AUROC near 0.97 and is rated highly usable by radiologists.

Preprint · July 10, 2026 · arXiv 2607.09305

Jobs and the economy

Generative AI and labour markets in ASEAN: Significant exposure, limited disruption, uneven preparedness

Puts nearly 80 million ASEAN workers (22.9 percent of employment) in GenAI-exposed occupations yet finds no sign of broad displacement so far, with women overrepresented in the most exposed jobs and a gap between exposure and institutional readiness.

Report · July 8, 2026 · ILO Brief

Language and models

ThaiSafetyBench: Assessing Language Model Safety in Thai Cultural Contexts

ThaiSafetyBench introduces culturally grounded Thai jailbreak and harm prompts, including Thai legal and social taboos, to evaluate LLM safety.

Journal article · March 5, 2026 · arXiv 2603.04992

Government and rules

The Evolution of Tech Governance in Southeast Asia-6, Third Edition

Tracks how SEA-6 digital governance shifted from AI ethics principles toward binding rules, sovereign compute investment and safety-testing regimes during 2025.

Report · March 4, 2026 · TFGI annual report

Government and rules

The Annual Report: Digital Rights in Southeast Asia 2025

Regional digital-rights review that includes AI-enabled surveillance (notably Myanmar's PSMS) and platform accountability across eight countries.

Report · February 16, 2026 · DigitalReach annual report

Health

Study of the Effectiveness of Artificial Intelligence in Diagnosing Pulmonary Tuberculosis from Chest Radiographs at Samrongthap Hospital, Surin Province

Evaluates the real-world diagnostic performance of an AI chest X-ray reader for pulmonary TB in a Thai district hospital.

Journal article · January 1, 2026 · Journal of Health Science of Thailand (thaidj.org)

Government and rules

Policy Brief: Promoting Regional Cooperation for Responsible Artificial Intelligence (AI) Deployment

Sorts the SEA-6 into principle-led, hard-law and ecosystem-building approaches to AI governance and proposes four regional coordination priorities.

Report · November 1, 2025 · TFGI Policy Brief

Health

Efficacy of tuberculosis screening using the AI Chest 4All (DMS-TU) for Thai People innovation at Udonthani Cancer Hospital

Reports how the Thai Department of Medical Services' home-grown AI Chest 4All tool performs at TB screening in a provincial cancer hospital.

Journal article · October 25, 2025 · The Thai Journal of Radiological Technology (ThaiJO)

Language and models

JAI-1: A Thai-Centric Large Language Model

JAI-1 is a 75B-parameter Thai-centric LLM that grows the architecture during Thai adaptation rather than overwriting existing knowledge.

Preprint · October 8, 2025 · arXiv 2510.08620

Government and rules

AI Safety Governance, the Southeast Asian Way

Surveys AI safety and governance moves in every Southeast Asian country, including Timor-Leste, and argues the region is converging on a pragmatic, development-first model distinct from EU or US approaches.

Report · August 25, 2025 · Brookings Governance Studies report

Language and models

WangchanThaiInstruct: An instruction-following Dataset for Culture-Aware, Multitask, and Multi-domain Evaluation in Thai

WangchanThaiInstruct is a native-written Thai instruction dataset spanning four domains that reveals gaps between translated and native Thai evaluation.

Journal article · August 21, 2025 · arXiv 2508.15239 / Accepted to EMNLP 2025 (Main)

Government and rules

Thailand: Artificial Intelligence Readiness Assessment Report 2025

Finds Thailand has a national AI strategy but no AI-specific law or risk-based regulator, a shortfall of about 80,000 AI professionals, and persistent digital access gaps for rural, minority and elderly groups.

Report · June 26, 2025 · UNESCO AI Readiness Assessment Methodology country report

Health

Insights Into the Current and Future State of AI Adoption Within Health Systems in Southeast Asia: Cross-Sectional Qualitative Study

Stakeholders across seven SEA health systems say AI uptake hinges on basic digital infrastructure and data/technology governance, with a sharp readiness gap between high-income and lower-middle-income members.

Journal article · June 16, 2025 · Journal of Medical Internet Research 27:e71591 (doi 10.2196/71591)

Jobs and the economy

Future Jobs: Robots, Artificial Intelligence, and Digital Platforms in East Asia and Pacific

Argues that robots have so far created more jobs than they destroyed in East Asia and Pacific, that AI exposure is lower in the region's developing economies but rising, and that digital platforms are reshaping informal work.

Report · June 1, 2025 · World Bank East Asia and Pacific Development Studies

Schools and universities

Integrating Emerging Technologies in Virtual Learning Environments: A Comparative Study of Perceived Needs among Open Universities in Five Southeast Asian Countries

Compares what students at open universities in Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia want from emerging technologies including AI in virtual learning.

Journal article · June 1, 2025 · arXiv 2506.00922

Society and elections

AI and Forbidden Knowledge in the Context of Thailand

Tests how ChatGPT, Copilot and Gemini handle Thai taboo and legally sensitive topics (e.g., lese majeste, religion) and whether their refusals align with Thai social norms.

Journal article · May 27, 2025 · Journal of Integrative and Innovative Humanities 5(1)

Health

Artificial intelligence utilization in cancer screening program across ASEAN: a scoping review

Maps the thin but growing evidence base on AI-assisted cancer screening in ASEAN, finding most studies concentrated in a few countries and only half reaching prospective clinical evaluation.

Journal article · April 15, 2025 · BMC Cancer (PMC12001681)

Government and rules

NitiBench: A Comprehensive Study of LLM Framework Capabilities for Thai Legal Question Answering

NitiBench benchmarks retrieval-augmented and long-context LLM setups on Thai legal question answering, showing retrieval and legal structure both limit accuracy.

Preprint · February 15, 2025 · arXiv 2502.10868

Health

Challenges and Opportunities for Data Sharing Related to Artificial Intelligence Tools in Health Care in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: Systematic Review and Case Study From Thailand

Thai health stakeholders confirm that infrastructure, policy and organizational barriers identified in the LMIC literature block the data sharing needed for clinical AI, and call for unified platforms and standards.

Journal article · February 4, 2025 · Journal of Medical Internet Research (PMC11836587)

Jobs and the economy

Exploring the Thai Job Market Through the Lens of Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning

Builds an algorithm that standardises Thai online job-posting data into occupation codes so that vacancy and skills trends can be tracked in near real time, filling a gap in Thai labour statistics.

Working paper · January 13, 2025 · PIER Discussion Paper No. 228

Language and models

Typhoon 2: A Family of Open Text and Multimodal Thai Large Language Models

Typhoon 2 extends the Thai LLM family to text, vision and audio models with safety tuning, reporting strong Thai performance at small parameter counts.

Preprint · December 18, 2024 · arXiv 2412.13702

Health

Attitudes and perceptions of Thai medical students regarding artificial intelligence in radiology and medicine

Only about a third of Thai medical students had a basic grasp of AI, yet almost all wanted it in the curriculum and those who understood it better were more upbeat about AI in radiology.

Journal article · October 22, 2024 · BMC Medical Education (PMC11515691)

Government and rules

Policy State of Play: Artificial Intelligence in Southeast Asia

Maps national AI policies across six ASEAN economies and characterises the region's light-touch regulatory stance against its capacity gaps.

Report · August 21, 2024 · SEAPPI report

Government and rules

The Plight of Platform Workers Under Algorithmic Management in Southeast Asia

Shows how Grab and GoTo's algorithmic management isolates ride-hailing and delivery workers, blurs employer responsibility and concentrates platform power across the region.

Report · April 30, 2024 · Carnegie Endowment research

Farms, climate, and disasters

Chatbot Application to Support Smart Agriculture in Thailand

Builds a LINE-based chatbot that delivers crop cultivation recommendations to Thai farmers as a complement to IoT sensor-based smart farming.

Journal article · July 31, 2023 · arXiv 2308.02524 / 2022 Joint International Conference on Digital Arts, Media and Technology with ECTI Northern Section Conference on Electrical, Electronics, Computer and Telecommunications Engineering (ECTI DAMT and NCON), Chiang Rai university, Jan 2022, Chiang Rai, Thailand. pp.364-367

FulcrumAnalysis

Southeast Asia's Mixed AI Stacks: Pragmatic but Not Risk-Free

Zenobia Chan · September 30, 2026

Shows that regional projects such as SEA-LION, Sahabat-AI, Typhoon and FPT's AI Factory combine American chips, American and Chinese open-weight models and local data rather than picking one bloc. Argues these mixed stacks bring real gains in local relevance and testing capacity, but warns that labels like sovereign can overstate control when every model still runs on the same foreign cloud or chips.

Adapted from her ISEAS Trends in Southeast Asia paper, and written as Washington signals that partners may have to choose between US and Chinese AI coalitions.

The DiplomatAnalysis

The Global Data Center Boom Has Arrived in Southeast Asia

James Guild · September 29, 2026

Surveys the capital pouring into regional data centres, with Malaysia and the Johor-Singapore zone in front, and asks whether local demand for AI services will ever justify the land, power and water being committed. Frames the boom as a bet whose downside the host countries would carry.

Connects to Malaysian FDI data and the wider debate over whether Southeast Asia is host or beneficiary of the AI build-out.

FulcrumOpinion

Thailand's Passport to AI Controversy

Mathis Lohatepanont · September 28, 2026

Examines the Thai government's TH-AI Passport scheme, which promises free AI tool access to five million citizens, and argues its goals are muddled, its usage quotas too tight, and its procurement opaque. It matters because a flagship AI-adoption programme risks becoming a subsidy without measurable productivity gains.

Responds to the budget and procurement controversy around the TH-AI Passport rollout and the prime minister's AI pitch at the Shanghai World AI Conference.

The Southeast Asia Desk (Substack)Analysis

The cost of the cloud: Inside Southeast Asia's $30B data centre trilemma

Fredrick Samuel Haryanto and Alvin Qobulsyah · September 28, 2026

Frames the region's AI data-centre rush as a trilemma of power grids, water depletion and community consent, using the Johor protests as the warning case. The explainer argues the build-out will not stop, so the region must decide who bears its costs.

Published as the Jakarta-based newsletter's weekly 'Regional Line' feature.

Carnegie Endowment for International PeaceAnalysis

The Disruptive Politics of AI

Steven Feldstein and Shreya Joshi (editors) · September 22, 2026

Edited collection arguing that AI gives governments scale, speed and efficiency for repression while also handing activists new tools, documenting digital repression in 91 countries. Southeast Asian chapters cover how Thailand's domestic surveillance enables transnational repression of regional dissidents and how Myanmar's junta coerces internet providers to control information.

Compiles Carnegie's 2026 digital-repression series, including Janjira Sombatpoonsiri's June essay on Thailand's 'swap mart'.

Bangkok PostOpinion

When are policy decisions actually made?

Vanich Kittichai · September 19, 2026

Contrasting Bangkok's stalled electric garbage-truck plan with the 1.6-billion-baht TH-AI Passport that raced through procurement, the columnist asks why some policies are treated as foregone conclusions and others as unthinkable. The AI scheme becomes a case study in opaque decision-making and misplaced priorities.

Follows the Democrat Party's request for a State Audit Office probe into the TH-AI Passport contract.

The DiplomatAnalysis

Will Southeast Asia Actually Benefit From Its AI Boom?

Gerald Mako · September 16, 2026

Notes that Southeast Asia accounts for roughly half of Asia-Pacific data-centre capacity under construction, with a division of labour forming between Singapore and its neighbours, then argues that hosting compute is not the same as building an AI economy. Asks what would turn separate national build-outs into a regional AI market.

Draws on first-half 2026 pipeline figures and the Singapore-Malaysia-Thailand capacity race.

The Coffee Parliament (Substack)Opinion

Thailand's AI Passport: A Walkthrough

Ken (Mathis) Lohatepanont · September 7, 2026

A hands-on tour of the TH-AI Passport platform a week after its 31 August launch, noting that sign-ups lagged far behind the five-million target and that the default free model is a low-end one with unlimited use while frontier models are rationed. He asks whether the 1.6 billion baht outlay buys much beyond what free consumer chatbots already offer.

Follows the June political row over the DES ministry's TH-AI Passport procurement and the scheme's slow uptake at launch.

Bangkok PostOpinion

So the goal is control?

Vanich Kittichai · September 5, 2026

The columnist bristles at an Ipsos report that framed Thais' reluctance to hand AI complete control as a business challenge to overcome, noting that Thais are already more optimistic about AI than most countries. He argues that wanting humans to keep decision-making authority is sound judgment, not a barrier.

Responds to the Ipsos Global Insights 2026 survey release in Bangkok.

FulcrumOpinion

Southeast Asia and AI Adoption: The Return of Cold War Strategies

Tobias Burgers and Tran Nguyen · August 31, 2026

Reads Vietnam's AI law and Singapore's local models as Cold War-style hedging between US and Chinese AI ecosystems, then argues that national efforts are too small to matter. Proposes collaborative hedging through a regional public-private consortium modelled on Airbus.

Connects to Malaysia's ILMU model, Vietnam's December 2025 AI Law and the region's sovereign AI turn.

Tech for Good InstituteOpinion

How AI Levels the Playing Field for Small Businesses

Kirti Pathania · August 28, 2026

Notes that only about 3 percent of ASEAN enterprises have embedded AI into daily workflows and warns that early-adopter advantages could entrench large incumbents, as happened with online travel agents. Recommends SME-technology partnership ecosystems, leadership training and adoption grants so the 97 percent of firms that are SMEs are not left behind.

Aligns with the Philippines' push, as ASEAN chair, for a Leaders' Declaration on AI-powered MSMEs at the November summit.

South China Morning PostOpinion, paywalled

As the US and China compete over AI, Asean must secure strategic autonomy

AbdulWahed Jalal Nori · August 27, 2026

Argues that ASEAN is fast becoming the physical centre of the AI economy through data centres while depending on outsiders for chips, models, cloud and standards, and that the real choice is between dependence and agency rather than dominance and isolation. Calls for control over the infrastructure and knowledge behind AI.

Connects to the Pax Silica versus WAICO pressure on the region in August 2026.

Bangkok PostOpinion

Rethinking how to teach about AI

Worsak Kanok-Nukulchai · August 19, 2026

A veteran Thai engineering educator argues that earlier technologies gave universities decades to adapt while AI gives them years, so degrees lose relevance before graduates reach mid-career. He calls for teaching judgment and continual renewal of skills rather than fixed AI knowledge.

Written as Thai universities revise curricula and the TH-AI Passport scheme rolled out to students.

Tech for Good InstituteOpinion

The Architecture of Inclusion: Balancing Southeast Asia's AI Infrastructure Boom

Shammi Thakur · August 12, 2026

Frames AI readiness as three layers (compute, physical utilities such as data centres and power, and a facilitator layer of governance, data flows and talent) and argues the region's advantage will depend on equitable access rather than raw build-out. Warns that uneven access for small firms, grid strain and fragmented rules could concentrate gains in large corporations, and calls for shared compute treated as a public good.

Responds to the ASEAN-Korea HPC facility in Indonesia, new cloud regions in Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur data-centre investment.

Thailand Development Research Institute (TDRI)Analysis

AI in Thai Classrooms: New Technology in an Old Teaching World, or a Turning Point for Learning? (AI ในห้องเรียนไทย: เทคโนโลยีใหม่ในโลกการสอนเก่า หรือจุดเปลี่ยนการเรียนรู้?)

Supanutt Sasiwuttiwat and Pongtat Vanichanan · August 11, 2026

Evaluates the Craft AI programme across 68 schools and 8,500 students and finds only modest gains in reading and critical thinking, with schools using both teacher training and the KapiBarian app doing slightly worse than comparison schools. Concludes AI works as a time-and-knowledge shortcut for teachers already committed to improving pedagogy, and that administrative burden and personnel systems, not technology, are the binding constraint.

Follow-up to the July piece; tempers enthusiasm about AI edtech with evaluation data.

FulcrumOpinion

Southeast Asia Cannot Fight Online Sexual Abuse One Takedown at a Time

Nuurrianti Jalli · July 31, 2026

Argues that takedown-and-prosecute approaches cannot keep up with generative AI tools that mass-produce non-consensual sexual imagery, and that regulators should impose systemic duties on platforms to assess risk and design in safeguards. Matters because the Grok episode showed how quickly synthetic abuse scales across the region.

Follows the early-2026 Grok bans in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines and draws on Australian and EU online-safety models.

Foreign PolicyAnalysis, paywalled

China Pitches Its AI Leadership to the World

Joseph Rachman · July 22, 2026

Reports from the Shanghai AI conference that five Southeast Asian states joined China's new World AI Cooperation Organisation as founders while Singapore and Thailand stayed out, and reads this split as the region hedging rather than aligning. China's open-source pitch lands well with governments that cannot afford proprietary Western stacks.

Frames the WAICO launch as Beijing's answer to Washington's more transactional AI posture.

The Coffee Parliament (Substack)Analysis

Anutin's First Official Visit to China

Ken (Mathis) Lohatepanont · July 20, 2026

Reads Prime Minister Anutin's appearance at Shanghai's World AI Conference as deliberately non-committal: Thailand offered a bland 'protection, potential, prosperity' formula and did not sign on to China's new AI cooperation body. He treats the trip as a case study in Thai hedging on AI between Washington and Beijing.

Responds to the July 2026 WAIC in Shanghai and the launch of China's World AI Cooperation Organisation.

Asia TimesAnalysis

ASEAN's AI race is officially underway

Chris Taylor · July 17, 2026

Argues the regional contest to host AI data centres will be decided by reliable power and water, not headline investment figures, with Singapore's capacity rationing pushing demand into Johor, Thailand and Indonesia. Governments must also manage community backlash and the tension between US chip access and Chinese capital.

Written as Malaysia and Thailand posted record data-centre pipelines in the first half of 2026.

Thailand Development Research Institute (TDRI)Analysis

Gen AI: A New Hope for Thai Education? (Gen AI ความหวังใหม่ของการศึกษาไทย?)

Supanutt Sasiwuttiwat and Pongtat Vanichanan · July 11, 2026

Drawing on a survey of more than 13,000 secondary students and 330 teachers in three provinces, finds roughly 63 percent of students use generative AI to learn, with frequent users scoring slightly higher on reading and critical thinking, but about 15 percent let AI do most of their homework and adoption tracks existing achievement, risking wider gaps. Argues the benefits require deliberate system design because teachers lack skills and students learn AI from social media.

First public write-up of TDRI's Craft AI classroom research, feeding Thailand's AI-in-education policy debate.

Asia Society Policy Institute (Asia Policy Substack)Analysis

ASEAN Hedges With Pax Silica

Faye Simanjuntak · July 8, 2026

Examines why only Singapore and the Philippines have joined the US-led Pax Silica initiative to secure AI and semiconductor supply chains, while other ASEAN states prefer bilateral trade and critical-minerals deals with Washington. Argues the pattern reflects doubts about US commitment and a belief that bilateral arrangements deliver similar benefits without formal geopolitical alignment, with US restrictions on advanced AI models undercutting trust.

Responds to the Trump administration's Pax Silica push and its AI export package for allies.

Tech for Good InstituteOpinion

The Balancing Act: Harmonising AI Development and Governance in Southeast Asia

Bryan Yeoh Quan Jin and Calvin Woo · July 6, 2026

Argues that with nearly half of regional firms scaling AI beyond pilots, Southeast Asia needs governance that combines ASEAN-level coordination with national rules suited to a multilingual, multicultural region. Surveys the spectrum from Vietnam's binding law to Singapore, Thailand and Indonesia's soft-law approaches and Malaysia's proposed bill.

Written by Malaysia's Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution as Malaysia drafts its AI Governance Bill and ASEAN finalises DEFA.

FulcrumAnalysis

The US-China AI Chip War: Southeast Asia's Compliance Dilemma

Gerald Mako · July 2, 2026

Explains how regional governments are squeezed between courting AI data-centre investment and policing the diversion of export-controlled Nvidia hardware to China, as Washington shifts to enforcement based on ultimate ownership. Argues the region must build export-control capacity or risk sanctions and investor flight.

Prompted by US allegations in May 2026 against a Bangkok firm linked to Thailand's national AI push; compares Malaysia's strategic trade permits and Singapore's controls.