Duong Duy Hung, assistant to the head of the Party’s Central Economics Committee, cited a report on the government AI readiness index released by Oxford and Canadian International Development Research Center as saying that Vietnam received a 51.82 out of 100 score, a jump of 14 grades compared with the previous report and higher than the average global level (47.72). 

Hung said that the indicator shows positive signs about Vietnam’s capability of approaching and developing AI in Vietnam.

In 2022, Vietnam ranked 48th out of 132 countries in the GII (Global Innovation Index) of the WIPO (The World Intellectual Property Organization). It was in the second position among lower average income countries.

Deputy Minister of Science and Technology Bui The Duy agreed that Vietnam has approached the AI trend early and quickly. In addition to the 4.0 industry summit, the Party’s Central Economics Committee, together with ministries, branches and agencies, gave advice to the Politburo to issue a resolution on approaching the 4.0 industry revolution.

The government has also released a national digital transformation strategy, and strategy on researching and developing the application of AI.

Tran Anh Tu, deputy director of the High Technology Department of the Ministry of Science and Technology (MST), pointed out that Vietnam has developed policies on prioritizing the development of high technologies, including AI. 

Ministries and agencies have designed AI development plans, while MST has supported the implementation of 100 AI-related tasks in 2016-2023.

Slow deployment

According to Hung, AI is recognized as the most important core technology that leads digital transformation activities in different fields, spheres, institutions and enterprises. 

PricewaterhouseCoopers predicted that by 2030, AI will make up another $15.7 trillion to the global economy, and it would create new industries and new jobs.

Duong Le Minh Duc, deputy director of AI – FPT Smart Cloud Center, said that AI is the core capability of enterprises in the digital era. In Vietnam, the resolution of the Party Central Committee stipulates that the digital technology industry (with priority given to developing AI, Big Data, cloud computing, Internet of Things, electronics and telecommunications, design and production of semiconductor chips) is one of the six fundamental industries.

According to Duy, the deployment of the 4.0 industry revolution in Vietnam has been going more slowly than in the rest of the world, especially in AI. He cited a series of pillars that need to be deployed, including human resources, computing infrastructure, data and regulations, and ethical institutions.

Of these, high-performance computing infrastructure is not available as there is not a large computing center; and the data ready for AI is still limited.

Tools such as ChatGPT can make effective contributions to productivity, but also have consequences, such as less creativity and self-motivation among students and workers, or creation of fake news, including fake images and videos.

Meanwhile, according to Tran Anh Tu, deputy director of the High Technology Department, there are many problems in the process of accelerating the AI application: Vietnam still doesn’t have in-depth training units and national AI research facilities, while the specific regimes to attract AI talents are not attractive.

Besides, there are also problems in creating an open database, while big data infrastructure is not concentrated, and there is not enough power to ensure demand for AI development.

Le Thai Hung, strategic director of VNPT AI Ecology, said the unit is facing many challenges. The AI Engine needs to be optimized on many phones, so his workers have to go to shops to optimize. When providing new experiences to customers, they also have to give instructions to users, which takes much time.

Moreover, as Vietnam is behind the world in AI, when launching a product, technology firms have to compete fiercely with many foreign firms.

Ministries and branches have designed strategies to accelerate the development of new technology, and tech firms are paying attention to human resources development.

MST has teamed up with FPT to build a database of Vietnamese experts all over the world, preparing for the building of a platform connecting technological needs. It will be deployed on FPT’s Smart Cloud to help universities and small enterprises experiment with their own AI.

Du Lam