Huawei to help boost Thai ICT talent

Chinese tech giant Huawei has announced new strategic partnerships with the Thai government to cultivate digital talents and create more value-added job opportunities to help Thailand achieve its aim of building itself into Southeast Asia's digital economy hub.

Together with the Thai Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research, and Innovation, as well as the Ministry of Labor, Huawei aims to train 10,000 information and communication technologies (ICT) professionals, 5,000 Cloud AI developers, and 2,000 green engineers by 2025.

"Under the plan, we will have more than 20 universities in Thailand that can offer Huawei digital and cloud developer courses," Li Xiongwei, CEO of Huawei Technologies (Thailand) said on May 31.

Li was speaking at the Thailand Digital Talent Summit in Bangkok, a job fair matching students with Huawei training and certification to opportunities in various fields, including site installation, business, and software development.

Li said the partnership will also boost knowledge sharing between top universities in China and Thailand.

"Huawei is strongly committed to Thailand's digital strategy in line with its mission of 'Grow in Thailand, Contribute to Thailand'. We will continue to power a digital, intelligent, and green Thailand," he said.

In February, Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin announced the government's strategic move to support the development of technological innovation and artificial intelligence (AI), aiming to build the country into a digital hub for Southeast Asia.

Statistics from the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society showed that Thailand requires about 100,000 experts for AI-related jobs. However, it currently has only 21,000 such AI experts.

The predicted industry demand for digital talents means Thailand will face a shortage of about 600,000 highly skilled digital experts by 2027.

The new partnership between Huawei and the Thai government will foster more digital talents, said Minister of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation Supamas Isarabhakdi.

She said that digital technology has now become the heart and foundation of all development in every dimension.

"The cooperation will largely enhance skills of digital talents in Thailand. We are ready to join hands with Huawei to drive digital innovation and research policies that specifically designed for incubating qualified personnel," Supamas said.

"In addition, we will keep support polices on promoting production and human resource development in future," she added.

"The partnership between Thailand and Huawei is a good start," she added.

On May 31, Huawei also announced the ICT Competition Scholarship for 2023-24, awarding nine winning teams from three tracks (network, cloud, and computing) with total rewards exceeding 1.4 million baht ($38,015).

So far, Huawei has signed cooperation agreements with 42 leading universities in Thailand for its Huawei ICT Academy, the firm's global training and talent development program. In recent years, Huawei has collaborated with its Thai partners to train more than 96,000 digital talents.

In 2019, the firm set up its Huawei ASEAN Academy in Thailand, the company's first digital talent training organization in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and wider Asia-Pacific region. It is estimated that the academy will have cultivated a total of 100,000 digital talents by 2025.

"We are experiencing the tremendous change of labor force structure due to the digitization process. Industrial innovation and the digital trends boost the demand for high-quality professionals with knowledge in various fields," said Deputy Director-General of the Department of Skill Development Jirawan Sudsoonthorn.

However, she said universities cannot meet this demand alone. Jirawan called for joint efforts from all sectors — the government, enterprises, and research organizations — to create a comprehensive enhancement of digital skills to meet society's changing needs.