BANGKOK, Sept. 24 (Xinhua) -- Thailand unveiled its first national semiconductor strategy on Thursday, aiming to attract about 80 billion U.S. dollars in cumulative investment by 2050 as it seeks to move beyond chip assembly into design and front-end manufacturing.
The plan, approved by the National Semiconductor and Advanced Electronics Policy Board, targets annual industry revenue of about 150 billion dollars and more than 230,000 new jobs over 25 years under the "Made in Thailand" chip initiative.
Through a three-phase roadmap, Thailand will strengthen and upgrade its assembly and testing base by 2030, draw major investors in chip design and wafer fabrication by 2040, and build a fully integrated supply chain with homegrown "local champions" by 2050.
According to the Thailand Board of Investment (BOI), five mechanisms will support implementation: financial incentives, high-skilled workforce training, upgraded chip-design research and foreign-Thai partnerships, investment-ready infrastructure, as well as regulatory reforms and business facilitation.
The board also approved a workforce program, coordinated by the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation, alongside universities, research institutes, industry, and global partners.
Targeting the training of 86,600 individuals by 2030, the program seeks to develop 84,900 high-skilled professionals and around 1,700 senior researchers via tailored coursework, corporate internships, overseas training, and specialized development for academic and technical staff.
From 2023 to June 2026, the BOI received investment-promotion applications for 879 projects in semiconductors and advanced electronics worth about 909 billion baht (about 27.2 billion dollars), encompassing multi-stage chip manufacturing, printed circuit boards, hard disk drives, and artificial intelligence servers, among others.
The strategy is a key step in laying a comprehensive foundation for the Southeast Asian country's semiconductor industry, from chip research and design, upstream to downstream manufacturing, and assembly and testing, to bringing Thai businesses into global supply chains, said BOI Secretary General Narit Therdsteerasukdi. ■