Thailand NBTC partners with Huawei to develop ‘Giga Thailand’ digital infrastructure.
Thailand’s Office of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) has partnered with Huawei Technologies to accelerate fibre infrastructure development in the country.
The agreement was inked at the Giga Thailand: Broadband Forum with the goal of boosting fibre based infrastructure in Thailand and raising the country’s connectivity standards to the ‘next level’.
“Fibre-based broadband infrastructure is critical for the development of Thailand's digital infrastructure in order to drive digital economy,” said Trairat Viriyasirikul, NBTC deputy secretary general and acting secretary general.
“Broadband infrastructure coverage must be accelerated and upgraded to the gigabits-speed standard.
“The partnership today marks the start of our joint efforts to develop Thailand's broadband infrastructure, which will in turn drive the country to becoming an ASEAN digital hub and help close the digital-divide gap in the country,” he added.
From the perspective of Abel Deng, CEO of Huawei Technologies Thailand, fibre broadband technology is an essential element in the evolving business landscape.
"The convergence of connectivity and computing will change all industries, whether it is a transportation, finance, or energy industry and create new value for society,” Deng said. “Fibre broadband has become a part of core infrastructure of digital economy, similar to water and electricity, and it will be a new driver for social development and economic growth,” he added.
Against this backdrop, Simon Lin, president of Huawei Asia Pacific, reckons the coming year will see the Chinese telco equipment vendor help Thailand to accomplish its fibre broadband goals.
"Digital infrastructure is benefiting individual lives,” Lin said. “Technologies, such as broadband, 5G, cloud and AI [artificial intelligence], keep our society together. 2022 will open a new chapter for digital infrastructure. I believe that with our joint efforts, we can create a fully connected and inclusive Giga Thailand."
The deal comes just months after Huawei moved to develop new startup hubs in Indonesia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Vietnam as part of its plan to invest US$100 million in startup support across the Asia Pacific region.
The vendor already had a stake in startup hubs across Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Thailand.
However, with the fresh investment pledge, announced at the company's Huawei Cloud Spark Founders Summit, the company is driving its Asia Pacific startup engagement ambitions further, with the funding going towards its Spark Program in the region, which aims to build a sustainable startup ecosystem for the region over the next three years.
The four new startup hubs are part of the initiative, as is an overarching aim of recruiting a total of 1,000 startups into the Spark accelerator program and shaping 100 of them into scaleups.
