Emerging Insight: Thailand – Riding the AI wave, but not capturing it

Research evidence excerpt

Emerging Insight: Thailand – Riding the AI wave, but not capturing it

Thailand− Riding the AI wave, but not

capturing it

In the July 2026 World Economic Outlook, the IMF identified Thailand as one of the top

four AI hardware exporters—alongside Korea, Taiwan, and Malaysia. While Thailand is

not a major producer of frontier AI chips, it occupies a prominent position across five

segments of the AI hardware supply chain: data storage (enterprise hard-disk drives or

HDDs and storage systems where Thailand remains one of the world's dominant

production bases), optical communication and photonics (transceivers and optical

assemblies critical to data center interconnects), server and networking equipment

(computer hardware and electronics manufacturing services), power electronics (power

supplies and thermal management infrastructure for data centers), and semiconductor

assembly, testing, and packaging (OSAT).

This places Thailand in the path of the largest technology capex cycle in modern history.

The problem is that the export boom is showing up more clearly in customs data than in

domestic production, income, or GDP, which have remained stagnant. Thailand is riding

the AI wave, but capturing only a thin slice of its value added.

Thailand’s exports in the first five months of 2026 expanded +17.0% YoY to

US$162.1bn. Exports to the US surged +40.3% YoY, lifting the US share of total Thai

exports to over 24% from about 10% a few years ago. Electronics exports, the most

direct beneficiary, grew +50.6% YoY year-to-date. FDI and investments in these sectors

started to pour in. These are boom-time numbers. Its regional peers, including Taiwan,

Korea, and Malaysia, have seen substantial growth uplift. Thailand is expected to grow at

around 2-2.5%.