AI is rapidly becoming a new growth driver of the global economy. Technology powers are not only investing in models and infrastructure but also pursuing sovereign AI strategies to safeguard national interests and long-term competitiveness.

Strategic cooperation to bring AI into practice

According to the World AI Index Survey 2025, Vietnam ranks 6th out of 40 countries for AI readiness and application, placing it among the global top 10. The national AI strategy aims to establish five regional-level AI brands by 2030.

To achieve this, Vietnam is simultaneously strengthening domestic legal frameworks and expanding international cooperation. Recently, several strategic policies have been introduced.

At the upcoming 10th session of the National Assembly, the Government plans to present a specialized AI law, creating a legal corridor for a new phase of development.

Parallel initiatives include training digital talent, building a skilled workforce of engineers and experts, and promoting a “digital literacy campaign” to popularize digital and AI skills nationwide.

On the international front, Vietnam prioritizes partnerships with leading global tech giants such as NVIDIA to advance AI infrastructure and applications.

In June 2024, NVIDIA collaborated with GreenNode, a member of VNG Group, to launch an AI Cloud infrastructure in Bangkok, one of Southeast Asia’s first large-scale AI Cloud hubs. This milestone is seen as crucial for the region, including Vietnam, to prepare for an AI application boom.

The Ministry of Finance also tasked the National Innovation Center (NIC) to coordinate with NVIDIA in developing research infrastructure, an AI startup ecosystem, and scholarships for Vietnamese students, engineers, and scientists through the Jensen Huang Scholarship Fund.

These efforts, from legal frameworks to infrastructure and talent development, highlight Vietnam’s determination to turn AI into a real growth engine.

Sovereign AI in Vietnam’s digital transformation

Alongside infrastructure and global cooperation, sovereign AI remains a core strategic goal.

During a meeting with NVIDIA on September 23 in Ho Chi Minh City, Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Chi Dung requested support for Vietnam’s sovereign AI development and collaboration with local partners to apply AI across industries and build national-scale solutions.

Experts emphasize that sovereign AI is vital for protecting sensitive data, ensuring cybersecurity, and tailoring technology to local language, culture, and needs. It also reduces reliance on external resources while empowering domestic enterprises to compete globally.

However, Vietnam still lacks large language models (LLMs) built specifically for Vietnamese and developed by Vietnamese researchers.

Many local tech firms are refining open-source LLMs to balance cost efficiency with system control.

At NVIDIA AI Day Ho Chi Minh City (September 23), GreenNode introduced GreenMind, the first open-source Vietnamese-focused reasoning LLM.

This premier NVIDIA event gathered over 1,000 AI experts and major tech companies to promote AI research, development, and adoption.

Within just six months of refinement and testing, GreenMind was integrated into NVIDIA NIM, a trusted platform of enterprise-ready AI models meeting international standards.

Vu Thanh Tung, GreenNode’s Product Director, said: “NVIDIA NIM is a globally respected platform with rigorous standards. GreenMind’s presence on NIM is both a technological validation and a declaration that Vietnam’s AI is strong enough to join the global ecosystem.”

He added that with Vietnam’s talent pool, more groundbreaking “Made in Vietnam” AI models will soon emerge and gain regional recognition.

Vo Trong Thu, Head of GreenNode AI Lab, noted that GreenMind underwent a strict evaluation process, from architecture and dataset reports to international performance trials and NVIDIA’s independent reviews.

Technically, GreenMind was built with 14 billion parameters, multi-step reasoning ability, and a dataset of over 55,000 Vietnamese samples, showing that domestic innovations can meet global benchmarks.

Its self-improving data feedback loop, combined with human input, enables step-by-step reasoning and better outcomes.

These features make GreenMind suitable for AI assistants, context-based chatbots, knowledge retrieval systems, and complex Vietnamese reasoning tasks such as logic, mathematics, and scenario analysis.

GreenNode was named “Outstanding AI Enterprise” at the AI Awards 2025. Meanwhile, VNG Cloud’s AI Stack received “Outstanding AI Solution” for enabling Vietnamese businesses to leverage AI without heavy investment in infrastructure or specialized teams.

“Vietnam’s AI prospects lie in sovereign AI. Investing in world-class infrastructure is critical to keeping pace with global technology trends. With GreenMind, the focus is on sustainable AI development through R&D, including the first Vietnamese LLM on NVIDIA NIM, and data management solutions that help businesses overcome fragmentation and handle large-scale processing in full compliance with domestic regulations,” Tung stressed.

Thai Khang