DES Ministry and Huawei sign MoU to deepen ongoing cloud collaboration

The Digital Economy and Society (DES) Ministry and Huawei Technologies (Thailand) on Friday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to deepen cooperation in Government Cloud.

The move aims to improve the operational effectiveness of digital governance to strengthen the country’s digital competitiveness, as well as utilise the Huawei Talent development programme to support professional digital skills training for Thai government experts within three years. The aim is to jointly build a thriving cloud ecosystem as the foundation of Thailand’s digital economy and society.

“On behalf of the DES Ministry, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to everyone whose dedication and efforts have contributed towards the finalisation of this MoU, especially the Office of the National Digital Economy and Society Commission and Huawei Technologies Thailand," DES Minister Chaiwut Thanakamanusorn said.

He said the Thai government has been working on transforming towards a digital government with cloud-first policy as one of its top priorities.

He added that the DES Ministry and Huawei Technologies (Thailand) have been working together to drive cloud technology, innovative research, Big Data management as well as develop the digital workforce.

"Through the establishment of the Joint Software Innovation Centre, our government officers will upskill and expand their knowledge on cloud technologies," he said.

He said Thailand has become a leader of 5G technology in the Asean region, adding that the cloud is the key factor in enabling Thailand to become a digital hub.

"In the near future, I expect to see Thai people being able to access government services through all devices,” he added.

Aims of the MoU

The first MoU was signed in November 2017, but the purpose of the recent MoU between the DES and Huawei is to continuously deepen cloud cooperation and cooperate on initiatives surrounding research and innovation, as well as talent development.

The collaboration aims to accelerate cloud-based deployment and migration of government services, and continuously reduce costs, as well as enhance efficiency of public services by improving and transforming public services

"I’d like to thank Huawei for its continuous and professional support during this process," Chaiwut said.

"We will support government cloud to further evolve to ‘data-centric’ and promote the inter-department data flow.

"Additionally, we will collaborate on the development of Government Cloud infrastructure – using Huawei’s advanced cloud technologies, including Big Data, AI and IoT [Internet of Things] to offer greater breadth and depth of services to Thai government agencies and society.”

Key ideas in the MoU

The DES minister highlighted that the MoU would include a three-year training pillar to enhance digital talents for cloud, Big Data, artificial intelligence and Internet of Things competency, and upskill up to 2,000 Thai government personnel in critical technology areas that can be utilised to drive the economy and society.

"The collaboration will also extend into public cloud infrastructure to support the more comprehensive demands of users in Thai government, leveraging advanced cloud services and building public services applications in Government Cloud," Chaiwut said.

Finally, both parties will aim to foster the ecosystem beyond government agencies, including with industry partners, startups, small and medium-sized enterprises, and universities, to integrate vertical industry solutions.

"With Huawei Cloud’s 20,000 global partners, the DES and Huawei will cooperate with all of these partners to build an open, collaborative, and development-leading digital ecosystem," Chaiwut added.

Huawei’s growth goal

Huawei Technologies (Thailand) CEO Abel Deng said: “We are highly grateful and inspired by the Thai government’s continuous support and trust in Huawei. As a technology-leading and trusted ICT partner, Huawei Cloud has been providing services for more than three years in Thailand, empowering more than 300 local partners for over 15 industries.

"We are proud to be the first global cloud provider to build AZ in Thailand and the only company with three local AZs here," he said.

As a continuous social value contributor, he said Huawei has continuously strengthened its commitment to the country’s talent and startup ecosystem through various initiatives, including Huawei Spark Ignite competition, Huawei Asean Academy, and Seeds for Future.

"We believe that with today’s milestone, we can jointly accelerate Thailand’s cloud-based deployment and digital economy, driving the country to become the Asean digital hub and in a fully connected and intelligent world,” he said.

Huawei Cloud’s major strengths

Abel reiterated Huawei Cloud’s major strengths in the market, particularly as the only global public cloud provider with three data centres in Thailand, meaning businesses in Thailand can operate on Huawei Cloud with higher service availability and lower latency, as well as safeguarding and storing sensitive data within the country under Thailand law.

Further, he emphasised that Huawei’s secured public cloud services have been accepted worldwide and validated by more than 90 global certificates, including ISO27701, ISO29151, ISO27018 and Cloud Security Alliance - Security, Trust & Assurance Registry, which relate to Thailand’s Personal Data Protection Act, and highlighted the strength of Huawei Cloud’s local team that works seamlessly with global resources.