Thailand Hosts International Big Data Conference in Surat Thani

The Big Data Institute (BDI), a public organization under the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society, is organizing the 7th International Conference on Big Data Analytics and Practices (IBDAP 2026) from August 7–9, 2026, in Surat Thani province. The conference serves as a forum for researchers, academics, experts, and professionals from diverse countries to share knowledge, technological advances, research, and practical experiences in applying big data and artificial intelligence to address challenges and develop the nation.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Theerani Achlakaul, director of BDI, welcomed participants and explained that IBDAP aims to build understanding of big data and AI potential through real-world use cases and technological progress, while creating a platform for Thailand and other nations to exchange experiences and knowledge. This year, 57 research papers from 13 countries have been selected for presentation, reflecting growing interest in big data and AI technologies at the international level.

BDI operates under the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society with a mission to integrate and link data from various government agencies to develop high-value datasets that support policy design in both the public and private sectors. The institute also provides data analytics and intelligence services to help organizations use big data effectively for decision-making and policymaking.

A key BDI initiative this year is the Data Integration and Intelligence (D2) platform, designed to handle sectoral, geographic, and central data systems to address data silos. BDI aims to develop D2 into a national data backbone supporting future policy design, currently integrating data across multiple sectors including health, tourism, environment, agriculture, and commerce.

Simultaneously, BDI is advancing its Sovereign AI Program to build AI capabilities that Thailand can develop and control through collaboration between government, private sector, and educational institutions. A major output is Thai LLM (Large Language Model), which aggregates data from media, television stations, the National Library, and government agencies to prepare a large language model for the Thai language.

BDI also plans to expand its Sovereign AI initiative to cover regional dialects and accents, images, videos, and OCR-derived data to create both sovereign data and sovereign models. These will serve as critical infrastructure enabling the private sector and startups to develop and deploy AI products and services at reduced cost.

IBDAP 2026 presents advances in big data analytics and smart computing, covering key topics including big data, machine learning, data analytics, data governance, AI applications, big data infrastructure, and data security, with practical applications across various sectors.