Thailand has overhauled its factory production gauge to capture high-growth industries tied to artificial intelligence and data centers, addressing a long-standing disconnect between the index and export figures that had become a sticking point in trade talks with the United States.

The Office of Industrial Economics said on Wednesday that the revamped Manufacturing Production Index now includes notebook computers, optical modules, and backup power equipment used in data-processing systems, while also broadening coverage of integrated circuits and other electronics, bringing factories that began operating in the past two to three years into the tally.

The adjustment offers a more complete picture of how the global AI investment boom is reshaping Thailand's industrial base. In 2024, Thailand began contract-manufacturing notebooks for major global brands, and output of optical modules and backup power systems grew in tandem with expanding data-center investment.

Supakit Boonsiri, director-general of the Office of Industrial Economics, said at a briefing that these three newly added product categories generated about 802.3 billion baht (US$24 billion) in export value in 2025, accounting for roughly 7.2% of Thailand's total exports.

The revision pushed up the latest industrial readings. After a revised 3.97% year-on-year gain in July, manufacturing output rose 4.44% year on year in August. The Office of Industrial Economics also raised its 2026 factory output growth forecast to 2.75%-3.75% from 0%-0.5%.

Previously, Thailand's exports kept surging while official industrial output data remained weak, and the widening gap drew attention from Washington. The U.S. government has been examining whether goods originating in third countries, especially China, are being transshipped through Thailand to evade steep American tariffs.

Thai officials deny that transshipment is the main cause of the data gap, saying the old production index was weighted too heavily toward traditional industries and failed to count new electronics plants serving the AI and data-center supply chain. The Thai government says the scale of falsely declared cargo is very small.

Customs data show that goods found to have improperly claimed Thai origin and shipped to the United States were worth just over 1 billion baht, about 0.04% of Thailand's 2.7 trillion baht in total exports to the U.S.

This year the statistical discrepancy has been especially pronounced: exports posted double-digit growth for six consecutive months, while the old manufacturing index either contracted or grew by less than 2%. That made it difficult for Thailand to prove its export boom stemmed from genuine domestic production.

The Office of Industrial Economics is also testing a chain-linked month-on-month methodology that updates industry weights annually, allowing the index to adjust more quickly to shifts in the country's manufacturing structure. The current gauge uses fixed weights based on 2021 and typically rebases only once every five years.