Ho Chi Minh City’s investment in science, expertise, innovation, and digital transformation has risen sharply, growing from VND5.373 trillion (US$204 million) in 2025 to VND12.705 trillion (US$483 million) in 2026, a rise of greater than 2.3 instances. This expanded investment offers a crucial monetary basis for town to develop digital infrastructure, strategic applied sciences, innovation, and digital transformation.
According to a report by the Ho Chi Minh City Steering Committee for Science and Technology Development, Innovation, and Digital Transformation, town has shifted from implementing standalone initiatives to adopting a complete method that positions science and expertise, innovation, and digital transformation as key drivers of improvement.
The statment was launched at the nationwide convention held in Hanoi on July 1 by the Politburo to evaluate the implementation over the previous 18 months of Resolution No. 57-NQ/TW, which outlines breakthrough insurance policies for the event of science and expertise, innovation, and nationwide digital transformation.
Ho Chi Minh City has developed a digital transformation plan for companies, selling the adoption of digital platforms in company governance, manufacturing, enterprise operations, e-commerce, and digital providers.
All 164 hospitals in Ho Chi Minh City have carried out digital medical information, reaching one hundred pc protection. The metropolis’s digital transformation efforts have additionally delivered important progress in the healthcare, training, and social welfare sectors.
Ho Chi Minh City has stepped up efforts to draw home and worldwide assets, significantly for high-tech tasks, knowledge facilities, semiconductor improvement, and analysis and improvement (R&D). In 2025, town attracted US$8.5 billion in investment, with an estimated 40 % directed towards high-tech industries and the digital economic system. During the primary six months of 2026, investment in high-tech and digital economic system tasks exceeded US$1.23 billion, accounting for about 32 % of town’s whole international direct investment (FDI).
The upgraded Technology Exchange Platform serves as a market connecting expertise provide with market demand whereas supporting the commercialization of analysis outcomes. To date, it has facilitated connections involving almost 25,000 applied sciences and items of apparatus and greater than 1,100 specialists, attracting over 191,000 visits. In the primary six months of 2026 alone, Ho Chi Minh City recorded 30 expertise switch and gear procurement contracts with a complete worth of VND26.7 billion.
The Ho Chi Minh City Venture Capital Fund has been established beneath a joint-stock firm mannequin with an preliminary constitution capital of VND500 billion, with a long-term goal of VND5 trillion. The fund is designed to catalyze personal investment, assist startups, and speed up the commercialization of technological improvements.
In 2026, Ho Chi Minh City goals to disburse one hundred pc of its public investment capital, with roughly VND12 trillion earmarked for innovation and digital transformation. The metropolis will leverage public investment to catalyze private-sector investment, focusing on whole social investment equal to round 30 % of GRDP.
Despite the notable achievements, a number of bottlenecks stay, together with an incomplete institutional framework, uneven knowledge high quality, a scarcity of extremely expert human assets, challenges in financing and public investment disbursement, and the shortage of an efficient mechanism for commercializing mental property.
Ho Chi Minh City has proposed that the central authorities expedite the deployment of the National Science, Technology, and Innovation Data Platform; subject steerage on the mixing and utilization of knowledge whereas addressing overlaps amongst present databases; and promptly full the Administrative Procedures Coordination System along with synchronized sector-specific programs nationwide.
The metropolis additionally really useful that the central authorities speed up the launch of a centralized nationwide digital one-stop portal to supply a unified platform for dealing with administrative procedures whereas integrating synthetic intelligence (AI) to higher assist residents, companies, and public officers.
Ho Chi Minh City has achieved various notable milestones, together with the event of a Science and Technology Urban Area Project in northern Ho Chi Minh City and the implementation of 9 strategic expertise teams encompassing 26 precedence merchandise. The metropolis’s startup ecosystem now ranks 98th globally, up 12 locations from 2025, with an estimated worth of US$7–7.5 billion.
The metropolis’s digital transformation has additionally delivered tangible outcomes. The common processing time for administrative procedures has been decreased by 39.18 %, whereas 80.1 % of administrative procedures are actually absolutely obtainable on-line. The on-time processing price has reached 95.99 %. Ho Chi Minh City has deployed 8,523 5G base stations, offering roughly 95 % protection, and has rolled out its digital authorities platform throughout 168 wards, communes, and particular zones.
During the primary six months of 2026, town supplied coaching to greater than 10,400 public officers and civil servants. By mid-June, almost 3,500 contributors had accomplished town’s digital abilities coaching program. Ho Chi Minh City at the moment has almost 5,200 Community Digital Technology Teams with a mixed membership of 29,000 and has organized on-line coaching packages for greater than 6,170 delegates.
Ho Chi Minh City has organized 24 specialised coaching packages throughout its 168 wards, communes, and particular zones, attracting greater than 32,000 contributors. The metropolis has additionally assigned 408 personnel to assist science and expertise, innovation, and digital transformation initiatives on the grassroots degree.
The Office of the Ho Chi Minh City Party Committee, in coordination with the Ho Chi Minh City Cadre Academy, has launched a complicated digital abilities coaching program for 687 officers accountable for advising on digital transformation inside Party companies and the Vietnam Fatherland Front system. The program contains 409 officers from Party companies and 278 officers from Fatherland Front organizations at numerous ranges.
By Van Minh – Translated by Kim Khanh