BANGKOK, Aug. 28 — Thai and Chinese research groups on Wednesday released a study titled Digital Silk Road in Thailand at a Bangkok forum marking the 50th anniversary of China–Thailand diplomatic relations, highlighting how mobile payments, e-commerce, cloud services and AI are accelerating digital integration between the two countries.
The forum was co-hosted by the BRI Institute of Research Development on Economic and Education, the Thai-China One Belt One Road Investment Trade Association, and the Thai-Chinese Strategic Research Centre under Thailand’s National Research Institute. Thai government and industry representatives attended alongside academics and business leaders.
According to the report, Chinese-origin digital services have become embedded in Thai consumer and enterprise usage. In Bangkok’s core shopping districts, Chinese mobile payments are accepted by 61% of surveyed merchants, and WeChat Pay has integrated with the BTS Skytrain system to simplify transit purchases for visitors. Thai retail chain BIG-C’s WeChat Mini Program allows Chinese consumers to buy Thai products remotely, the study noted.
E-commerce links are widening: 45.4% of surveyed Thai consumers cite “cost-effectiveness” as the top reason for choosing Chinese platforms, while 34.5% of Thai merchants frequently source goods via Taobao, the report said. Chinese travel and mobility apps such as DiDi, Ctrip and Fliggy are gaining traction across Thailand and Southeast Asia.
On culture and media, the study identifies online series, web fiction and games as the “new digital products” of cross-border exchange. Usage among Thai youth is high for TikTok (90.7%) and Chinese anime (91.6%), while titles such as Genshin Impact and Honor of Kings continue to draw large audiences. Tencent Video’s international service WeTV recorded nearly 80 million downloads and around 5 billion views in 2024, according to the report.
Enterprise adoption of infrastructure and AI is also expanding. Alibaba’s Qwen and Tencent’s Hunyuan models rank among the global top 15 on the AI-Arena benchmark, the study said, while 66.7% of surveyed Thai enterprises described Chinese AI products—exemplified by DeepSeek—as “very convenient.” Chinese cloud providers including Huawei, Tencent and Alibaba have established multiple data centers in Thailand; 74% of surveyed companies reported using related services, and 59.6% rated them “very convenient.”
One case cited in the report is Tencent Cloud’s collaboration with CP AXTRA, part of Thailand’s Charoen Pokphand Group, which deployed inventory management, promotion strategy and elastic-scaling systems to support digital upgrades across retail operations. “Digital cooperation is translating into jobs, products and higher-quality content, and it opens doors for broader collaboration,” said Dr. Chularat Tanprasert, Executive Vice President at Thailand’s National Science and Technology Development Agency.
The report’s public-opinion data suggest broad acceptance: 76.7% of Thai respondents believe Chinese digital enterprises have created significant local employment, and 79.7% expressed satisfaction with the expansion of China-linked digital services in Thailand.
Organizers said the “Digital Silk Road” has evolved beyond infrastructure to encompass commerce, daily services, cultural exchange and industrial upgrading, underpinned by 5G, AI and cloud computing. Panel discussions emphasized practical connectivity—payments at point-of-use, cross-border e-commerce and localized cloud capacity—alongside content flows in web literature, streaming series and online games.
About the report: Digital Silk Road in Thailand was compiled by the BRI Institute of Research Development on Economic and Education, the Thai-China One Belt One Road Investment Trade Association, and the Thai-Chinese Strategic Research Centre under the National Research Institute of Thailand. The study draws on consumer and enterprise surveys, case studies and sector data to assess adoption of digital services and infrastructure across Thailand.
