....The government this year began embracing multiple innovative digital technologies to turn major Tier 2 cities into smart cities by enhancing the use and management of their assets, including transportation systems, water supply networks, waste management and other community services.

The government this year began embracing multiple innovative digital technologies to turn major Tier 2 cities into smart cities by enhancing the use and management of their assets, including transportation systems, water supply networks, waste management and other community services.

Phuket and Chiang Mai have been designated as investment centres for high-technology -- the so-called digital superclusters.

Phuket this year was designated as the first smart city in a pilot project, aligning closely with the government's policy of building a digital economy and a digital society.

The development of the Phuket Smart City project will cover areas such as tourism, security, the environment, health care and education.

Even though there are only 300,000 people living in Phuket, the island serves up to 12 million tourists a year, mostly foreign, says Pracha Asawateera, manager for the Phuket office of the Software Industry Promotion Agency (Sipa).

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The government is also rolling out a raft of incentives to attract both local and foreign technology companies to invest in the provinces. The incentives include an eight-year corporate income tax exemption and an additional five-year, 50% reduction of import duties on machinery.

The state is on course to embrace sensor technology and the IoT to reduce levels of pollution and other factors affecting the local environment.

Mr Pracha says the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Ministry has allocated 240 million baht to build a public WiFi network in Phuket, operating at a speed of 125 megabits per second.

The National Science and Technology Development Agency has allocated 7 million baht to install 5,000 closed circuit televisions (CCTV) cameras in Phuket by 2020 in order to increase safety and security.

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There are eight universities in Chiang Mai producing 2,000 IT graduates per year. The province also has eight co-working space facilities and two development facilities for IoT.

"Chiang Mai has an advantage over Bangkok in that the province's cost of living is 20-25% lower than that of Bangkok," says Mr Pongsak.

He says Chiang Mai aims to become a development centre for enterprise software, digital content and animation, the IoT, embedded systems for automation and connected vehicles and tech startup businesses.

The use of technology to build a strong medical tourism sector is part of the Smart City programme supported by global group IBM.