Thailand’s Higher Education, Science, Research, and Innovation Ministry collaborates with Amazon Web Services to boost innovation and upskill public servants

(From left to right) Asst. Prof. Dr. Prama Sastraruji, Director of UniNet; Dr. Junpen Mekaapiruk Inspector General, MHESI; Prof. Dr. Supachai Pathumnakul, Deputy Permanent Secretary, MHESI; Professor Dr. Sirirurg Songsivilai, Permanent Secretary, MHESI; Julian Lau, Head of ASEAN, Worldwide Public Sector, Amazon Web Services (Amazon Web Services); Adit Harinasuta, County Manager, Public Sector, Amazon Web Services, Thailand; Sirinuch Sararuch, Principal Partner Business Development Public Sector, Amazon Web Services, Thailand; Tassaluck Kaewzaikird, Business Lead for Education and Nonprofit Organization, Amazon Web Services, Thailand at the MOU signing ceremony at The Sukosol Hotel, Bangkok.

Amazon Web Services (Amazon Web Services) today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Thailand’s Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research, and Innovation (MHESI) to boost innovation using cloud technology. Through this collaboration, Amazon Web Services will support MHESI to identify pilot workloads for the ministry to start migrating to the Amazon Web Services Cloud. MHESI will also use Amazon Web Services training programs to upskill employees on Amazon Web Services Cloud skills across over 200 education institutions and over 20 MHESI-managed research and education agencies across Thailand by early 2026.

“MHESI and Amazon Web Services share a common goal to address the digital skills shortage in Thailand and accelerate nationwide cloud adoption for the Thai government agencies. We are excited to work with Amazon Web Services to improve our nation’s digital competency and capacity,” said Professor Dr. Sirirurg Songsivilai, Permanent Secretary, MHESI. “Leveraging Amazon Web Services’s breadth and depth of cloud services will support our ministry to become more agile, efficient, secure, and cost-effective, and scale our diverse information systems. Amazon Web Services will support us in delivering on MHESI’s mission of equipping public servants with the necessary cloud skills to better serve changing citizen needs, and drive quality education and research innovation across Thailand.”

Professor Dr. Sirirurg Songsivilai, Permanent Secretary, MHESI (left) and Julian Lau, Head of ASEAN, Worldwide Public Sector, Amazon Web Services (right) presenting the signed Memorandum of Understanding to enhance Thai higher education and research with cloud technology, at The Sukosol Hotel, Bangkok.

Powering innovation in education and research

As part of the MOU, MHESI has selected Amazon Web Services as its preferred cloud provider to modernize its cloud infrastructure that supports public universities and research institutes in Thailand. Amazon Web Services will support MHESI’s digitization by experimenting with proof-of-concepts and migrating pilot workloads, such as e-learning platforms and student services applications to Amazon Web Services Cloud.

UniNet is the inter-university network managed by MHESI to provide education e-services for all universities and agencies and make tertiary education accessible for all. “We welcome this collaboration between Amazon Web Services and MHESI,” said Asst. Prof. Dr. Prama Sastraruji, Director of UniNet. “With Amazon Web Services’s resilient cloud infrastructure, we can run our complex workloads swiftly and securely, enabling us to provide quality learning and teaching experience to students and educators, and further our mission to create a strong foundation of a knowledge-based society.”

Amazon Web Services will provide cloud credits to education institutions like King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang (KMITL) and Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University (STOU), and research agencies, including the Office of Information Technology Administration for Educational Development (UniNet) and National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSTDA). By using Amazon Web Services’s latest cloud capabilities, including artificial intelligence and machine learning, internet of things (IoT), and high-performance computing, MHESI aims to improve the Thai Government Cloud’s efficiency, reliability, and security at lower cost.

“We are delighted with this collaboration between Amazon Web Services and MHESI,” said Mr. Raweeroj Thongdee, Research Assistant, Research Infrastructure and High-Performance Computing, CMKL University [1] . “Amazon Web Services provides the broadest and deepest set of cloud technologies that will support the University to accelerate experimentations in the cloud to scale our e-learning platforms, improve teaching and learning, and provide a more engaging experience for our students.”

Addressing the digital skills gap

As Thailand’s digitization gathers pace, demand for workers with digital skills will continue to be strong. The MOU will help the Thai government address the digital skills shortage and accelerate upskilling, starting with building cloud competency in educators and research agency staff. Amazon Web Services will provide virtual training events such as workshops, immersion days, and cloud-related competitions, and on-demand digital courses to equip employees with the skills and knowledge to harness the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform. The training will cover topics including cloud fundamentals, how a cloud strategy can help to meet organizational objectives, as well as compliance and security concepts to help deploy workloads on Amazon Web Services’s world-leading cloud infrastructure.

MHESI is working with education institutions like King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang (KMITL) and innovation agencies like the Digital Economy Promotion Agency (DEPA) to build a robust cloud program that incorporates Amazon Web Services Cloud computing coursework into the national education curricula, to develop Thailand’s future digital workforce. To give Thailand’s young learners an early start, this initiative will introduce cloud computing at the primary school level  and will continue through to tertiary education.

Long-term commitment to Thailand’s digital future

The MOU with MHESI is part of Amazon Web Services’s ongoing commitment to support the country’s “ Thailand 4.0 ” digital initiatives, bringing digital transformation to government and state-owned enterprises to provide more efficient citizen services, drive local economic growth, and solve some of the biggest challenges Thailand faces. Across Thailand, government, public and private sector organizations are seizing opportunities to transform the way they deliver citizen services. Amazon Web Services has been helping Thai organizations, like the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society of Thailand, National Telecom, NSTDA,  STOU, AMPOS, CP All, Siam Cement Group, and more, to innovate, succeed, and grow globally for the past eight years.

“We are honoured to support MHESI in its digital transformation journey, to deploy innovative new services in a cost-effective and secure way, and upskill their employees to advance education and research innovation in Thailand,” said Julian Lau, Head of ASEAN, worldwide public sector at Amazon Web Services. “MHESI’s bold vision to harness the power of the cloud and incorporate its use in every classroom, office, and agency, will help drive innovation and grow Thailand’s digital economy.”

This follows other significant investments in Thailand’s digital future. Last October, Amazon Web Services announced plans to launch a new infrastructure region in Bangkok and to invest more than 190 billion baht in Thailand over 15 years. The upcoming Amazon Web Services Region in Thailand will unlock even more opportunities for Thailand’s public sector and government customers to digitalize citizen services, modernize infrastructure, enhance security, improve operational productivity, and strengthen the country’s competitiveness in the global digital economy. An Amazon Web Services Local Zone in Bangkok also went live in December 2022, giving customers the ability to more simply deploy applications closer to end users in the metro area.

As Thailand continues its digitalization on the cloud, workers and students will have more opportunities to learn new skills and seize new opportunities.

[1] CMKL University is established as a collaboration between Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang (KMITL).

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