Thailand has emerged as one of the world’s fastest‑advancing countries in workplace AI adoption, recording the second‑highest growth rate globally, according to new data released at the Microsoft AI Tour Bangkok 2026.

The country’s AI adoption among workers grew 36.4% year‑on‑year, trailing only South Korea and far outpacing the global average of 17.8%

Microsoft Thailand Managing Director Dhanawat Suthumpun said the nation’s overall AI adoption rate has now reached 12.4%, reflecting rising readiness among Thai workers to integrate AI into daily tasks and business processes.

Data Workers and Executives Lead the Shift

AI usage among Thai data workers has climbed to 32%, double the global average, while 51% of Thai executives now demonstrate a clear strategic direction for AI deployment—again nearly twice the global benchmark.

Microsoft’s Global AI Diffusion report shows that serious AI adoption in Thailand rose from 9.1% in early 2025 to 12.4% in Q1 2026, placing the country second globally for growth in the share of AI users, behind South Korea (43.2%) and ahead of Japan (34.1%) .

The Work Trend Index 2026 further highlights that 32% of Thai employees qualify as “Frontier Professionals”—advanced AI users—double the global average of 16%.

Strong Momentum but Significant Untapped Potential

Despite rapid progress, Microsoft notes that 87.6% of the Thai population—particularly in manufacturing, agriculture, healthcare, and education—has yet to adopt AI in daily life or work, leaving substantial room for expansion.

The company believes Thailand is now moving beyond experimentation and into a phase of real business impact, with AI increasingly used to drive productivity, innovation, and new economic opportunities.

US$1 Billion Investment to Accelerate Thailand’s AI Future

The AI Tour follows Microsoft’s announcement of a US$1 billion (≈35 billion baht) investment in Thailand’s cloud and AI infrastructure between 2026 and 2028, following a meeting between Microsoft President Brad Smith and Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul in March 2026.

The investment will support the development of clean‑energy data centres and efficient water‑management systems, strengthening Thailand’s digital backbone and enabling faster, more secure access to cloud and AI services for both SMEs and large enterprises.

Microsoft says the initiative will help accelerate Thailand’s digital economy and enhance its competitiveness across the region.

Human Capital Development at the Core

Beyond infrastructure, Microsoft plans to train over 150,000 Thai workers in digital and AI skills, a substantial workforce development initiative designed to equip local talent with the technical competencies needed to thrive in an increasingly AI-driven economy. This training effort is expected to span a range of skill levels, from foundational digital literacy to more advanced AI and cloud computing capabilities, ensuring that both entry-level workers and experienced professionals can benefit.

The initiative directly supports the Thai government’s broader ambition to position Thailand as a leading AI hub in ASEAN, a goal that requires not only cutting-edge infrastructure but also a deep and capable domestic talent pool. By investing in human capital alongside physical and technological infrastructure, Microsoft is helping to lay the groundwork for a self-sustaining digital ecosystem that could attract further foreign investment and drive long-term economic growth across the region.

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Ipek Ozkaya

Hello, and welcome to today’s Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute’s webcast, Rethinking and Maturing AI Adoption. My name is Ipek Ozkaya, and I’m the Technical Director of AI Native Software Engineering at the SEI. And I’ve had the incredible pleasure of leading this project focused on AI adoption maturity with our team at the SEI and the incredible team at Accenture.

We want to make today’s conversation as interactive as possible. So please feel free to put your questions into the YouTube chat area. And we’ve already received close to 200 questions. There is no way we’ll be able to get through any of them in completeness, but we’ll try to get to them as much as possible afterwards.

It is no surprise today that businesses are — across all sectors are redefining themselves and going through a structural shift through AI solutions. And they are trying to redefine their operational relevance, their operational workflows as well as get ahead of the businesses through ROI. Software-driven organizations are also going through the same challenge. In fact, the software as a discipline is being redefined through AI, looking into efficiency, productivity and of course, some of the risks that come with it.

And clearly, all the organizations that deliver us the frontier models, OpenAI, Google, Microsoft and Anthropic are developing improved capabilities around the clock, and we’re receiving these capabilities around a lot faster. If we look into 2 years ago, the early generative AI models could barely solve some of the cybersecurity tasks. But today, we know the Mythos and GPT 5.5 could actually

Bank Nifty rose 2.1% to 55,194.50; and closed above 55,000 levels after two weeks while benchmark Nifty moved 0.5% higher on Tuesday. All 14 constituents of Bank Nifty moved higher on Tuesday. .

Bank of Baroda jumped 5.5% while Canara Bank climbed 4.5%. Punjab National Bank and Federal Bank advanced around 3.5%.

“The measures by RBI are likely to drive a healthy deposit base for banks and lead to cheaper cost of funds since the hedging cost on FCNRB is borne by the Central Bank while the hedging costs on ECB’s is subsidised,” said Dharmesh Kant, head of research, Cholamandalam Securities.

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Last week, the RBI announced measures to boost foreign currency inflows and to support the rupee. The Central Bank offered concessional dollar-rupee swap facility to absorb the entire forex hedging costs for three-to-five-year Foreign Currency Non-Resident (FCNR[B]) deposits until October 16, 2026. In addition, it offered a concessional swap facility for eligible External Commercial Borrowings (ECBs) raised by public sector entities, fixing the hedging cost at 1.5% per annum.

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This policy allows Indian banks to access low-cost global capital and alleviate domestic deposit crunches without bearing currency risk, said analysts. “The sudden fundamental clarity triggered massive technical short covering, catching derivative traders by surprise and sparking a rapid short squeeze since the Put-Call Ratio (PCR) had dropped into an oversold zone below 0.80 ahead of the news,” said Nishchal Jain, Quant Researcher, Share. Market by Phone Pe.
The high-volume breakout past 55,100 and decisive price action, shifts the market regime from “sell on rallies” to “buy on dips”, establishing 55,000 as a strong psychological support base- forming a high-conviction bullish view, he said.

IGO says spodumene production remains on track after reporting that a fire broke out at its new chemical-grade processing plant at the Greenbushes lithium operation.

Shares in the critical minerals miner slid in morning trade after reporting a fire had occurred at its $880 million Chemical Grade Plant 3 (CGP3) plant at the Greenbushes mine site yesterday.

IGO said the fire was extinguished and no injuries were sustained, and that its first and second chemical crushing and processing plants on site were unaffected by the blaze. 

The third chemical plant at the hard-rock lithium operation in the state’s South West falls under the ownership of Talison Lithium, in which IGO owns an indirect 25 per cent stake, alongside China’s Tianqi Lithium (26 per cent) and US major Albemarle Corporation (49 per cent).

CGP3 is the third chemical grade plant built at the Greenbushes operation, which is still ramping up after processing first ore in December last year.

It has a processing capacity of 2.4 million tonnes per annum to produce up to 500,000 tonnes per annum of lithium mineral concentrate. 

The market was told Talison Lithium had commenced a full investigation into the cause and damage from the incident on Tuesday.

IGO said Greenbushes production remained on track to meet its FY26 guidance of between 1,375 million and 1,425 million tonnes of spodumene concentrate.

The fire at the new plant represents another setback for the critical minerals miner, which has been grappling with challenges at its co-owned Kwinana lithium hydroxide plant.

That downstream processing plant is operating at about 50 per cent nameplate capacity, which was an improvement when reported in the March quarter.

IGO and joint venture partner in the plant, Tianqi Lithium, have been increasingly at odds over the future of the plant, after the ASX-listed miner wrote down its value to zero.

Shares in IGO are trading down 6 per cent to $8.48 apiece at 11AM AWST.