This reflection opens a new chapter of the Thailand Forward category — moving from preparing people and reforming institutions to building strategic national capability for the intelligent age.
Most countries are discussing how to regulate artificial intelligence. Thailand should also ask a different question: could trustworthy AI itself become an economic capability?
As intelligent systems influence employment, healthcare, finance, insurance, public services and consumer decisions, organisations will need more than software developers. They will need people and institutions capable of testing whether systems are accurate, secure, explainable, culturally appropriate and safe to deploy.
The OECD's updated AI Principles emphasise human rights, transparency, robustness and accountability. Its catalogue of trustworthy-AI tools already includes methods for evaluating fairness, explainability, safety and reliability. The European Union's AI Act is also turning risk management, documentation and system evaluation into practical requirements for organisations operating across international markets.
Thailand could treat this not only as compliance, but as an emerging service industry. Universities could establish independent AI evaluation laboratories. Professional firms could develop assurance and audit services. Industry associations could define sector-specific standards for healthcare, tourism, finance, manufacturing and public administration.
Thai companies exporting AI-enabled products may eventually need to demonstrate how their systems were trained, tested and monitored. Building these capabilities domestically would reduce dependency on foreign certification and improve the credibility of Thai technology in global markets.
Cultural evaluation should form part of this system. A model may function technically while misunderstanding Thai communication, social relationships or local operating conditions. Assurance should therefore ask not only whether an AI performs well in a laboratory, but whether it performs responsibly among the people who will actually use it.
My research showed that technological environments cannot be assumed to be culturally neutral. This insight can become a Thai advantage. Thailand may not build the world's largest foundation model. But it could become recognised for something equally valuable — the ability to determine whether intelligent systems deserve to be trusted.
In the intelligent economy, trust will not be a soft value. It will become a capability that countries can build, certify and export.