After returning to Bangkok from a trip to the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Thailand's new Prime Minister Seta Thavit, who took office just a month ago, said on Sunday that  US tech giants such as Tesla, Microsoft and Google will invest "at least $5 billion" in Thailand.
Because the Thai prime minister didn't say exactly how the $5 billion was calculated, it wasn't clear whether he meant a series of investments that added up to $5 billion, or $5 billion from each giant. " oSLA's investment will focus on electric vehicle production facilities, while Microsoft and Google will focus on data centers," he said. ”
According to the Thai prime minister's social media accounts, he met this week with executives from  jpmorgan Chase, BlackRock, Microsoft, Google, Estee Lauder and other US companies, and went to the New York Stock Exchange on Friday to ring the opening bell.
He also mentioned on Thursday that he spoke with Tesla CEO Elon Musk during his trip to New York. The Thai government said in a statement that it informed Musk that the Thai government was prepared to support Tesla's investment under the existing incentive framework for the electric vehicle industry, and Musk "praised Thailand's suitable human resources for investment." In response, Musk also publicly replied that it was an honor to meet with him, and Thailand has a very exciting future.
According to the finance ministry's latest forecast in September, Thailand's GDP growth this year will be about 2.8%, due to weak exports and other factors. Thailand's economy grew 2.6 per cent and 1.8 per cent in the first two quarters of this year, according to official statistics. During the election campaign, he also said his government wanted to boost annual economic growth in Southeast Asia's second-largest economy to 5 per cent.
Thailand, which is also Asia's fourth-largest automobile producer, is also offering subsidies to automakers, battery manufacturers and consumers to maintain its position in the chain during the current wave of tram transformation. As the world's most valuable car company, Tesla's expansion plan has also attracted attention from the capital market.  Including Thailand, the recent rumors of "Tesla factory construction" in Asia alone include Indonesia, India, Saudi Arabia and other countries.
US tech giants are making more moves in Southeast Asia
The Thai prime minister's statement comes against the backdrop of the recent active performance of US capital, especially technology giants, in Asia. At the time when this round of AI wave is close to commercialization, AI leaders such as Microsoft and Nvidia also frequently appear on the list.
For example, in a series of agreements between the United States and Vietnam on September 10,  Microsoft and Vietnamese fintech company Trusting Social jointly built "AIGC solutions tailored for Vietnam and emerging markets" . On the other hand,  local companies such as Nvidia Vietnam Software Group FPT and VinGroup, the parent company of "Vietnam Tesla" Vinfast, have cooperated  to deploy AI in various fields. Meta, as well as semiconductor industry companies Anrely Technology and Synovate Technology, will also deploy in Vietnam.
At the beginning of this month, Nvidia President and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang also personally went to India, and was met by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Prime Minister's residence.
A few days after Huang's visit,  Nvidia struck a strategic partnership with Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries  to supply Indian industry leaders with chips such as the GH200 and help them build a large language model for the Indian market. Very coincidentally,  Nvidia also this week with India's second largest IT company Infosys  (the British Prime minister's father-in-law is a co-founder of the company) to deepen strategic cooperation in the field of AI.
According to the latest news before going to press, local media PTI reported on Sunday evening, citing government sources, that  mobile phone maker Apple  is ready to quintuple the company's production value in India to $40 billion in the next 4-5 years, from $7 billion in the last fiscal year.
Statistics show that of the 12 million smartphones exported by India in the second quarter of this year, nearly half (49 percent) were Apple phones, beating Samsung (45 percent). What's more, the numbers change so fast that Apple accounted for only 9% of the 8m smartphones shipped to India in the second quarter of last year.