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| Juhern Kim, nation consultant to Vietnam Global Green Growth Institute |
Let me start by recalling an encounter that happened in October in Seoul – my hometown. Sam Altman, co-founder and CEO of Open AI, met with President Lee Jae Myung of South Korea. During that assembly, the South Korean president remarked that AI has opened up a complete new world – one that would lead humanity in direction of a happier life, or one fraught with hazard – and urged Altman to assist information us in direction of the happier world.
If I’ll humbly add, a happier world should even be a greener world. This conviction echoes the message of Vietnam’s Party General Secretary To Lam, who emphasised the significance of linking innovation straight with sustainable improvement and emission discount at National Innovation Day 2025 ceremony in Hanoi, the place he showcased the nation’s rising ambition in science, know-how, innovation, and digital transformation.
Vietnam’s Resolution No.57-NQ/TW, issued on the finish of 2024, is a landmark reflection of this imaginative and prescient. It identifies science, know-how, and innovation, along with digital transformation – as strategic breakthroughs for realising the nation’s aspiration to turn into a high-income nation by 2045. The international digital revolution unfolding at this time brings extraordinary alternatives but in addition formidable challenges.
AI and associated applied sciences are increasing at unprecedented velocity. According to the International Energy Agency, information centres already devour roughly 1.5 per cent of world electrical energy demand in 2024 and this might rise to practically 3 per cent of projected international electrical energy use. These amenities, which energy AI and cloud computing, now sit on the coronary heart of each digital progress and local weather duty.
At the identical time, these applied sciences can themselves turn into highly effective drivers of decarbonisation. The International Energy Agency estimates that renewable sources reminiscent of wind, photo voltaic, and hydro already provide roughly 27 per cent of whole information centre electrical energy consumption worldwide, and that share is rising quickly. If international locations speed up insurance policies enabling direct renewable sourcing, the digital economic system might turn into a catalyst – not a burden – for local weather motion.
Across the economic system, AI-driven applied sciences are reshaping the pathways to net-zero. In transport, AI-based route optimisation and autonomous logistics – reminiscent of drone supply programs – assist scale back pointless mileage, gasoline use, and emissions. In agriculture, robotics and precision tools can enhance productiveness whereas minimising environmental footprints.
One can think about a close to future the place unmanned tractors within the Mekong Delta acquire rice straw and residues – at present a significant supply of methane – for reuse in biochar or circular-economy functions. In the waste sector, past satellite-based detection of methane leaks from liquefied pure fuel pipelines, AI-powered sorting and robotics at the moment are reworking municipal stable waste administration, with some startup firms now reaching restoration charges of up to 90 per cent.
Even within the energy-intensive information centre trade, innovation is advancing quickly: liquid-immersion cooling, reflective floor coatings, and closed-loop water programs are bettering effectivity. Yet the decisive issue stays the carbon depth of the electrical energy grid.
Hence, speedy enlargement of renewable vitality and implementation of direct energy buy agreements beneath Decree 57 will likely be essential to be certain that Vietnam’s subsequent technology of digital infrastructure is each aggressive and low-carbon.
SCALING IMPACT
Still, these advances characterize solely the tip of the iceberg. The worldwide scientific group has lengthy recognised that mature applied sciences can ship solely a part of the emission reductions wanted for international net-zero. The relaxation should come from options which can be nonetheless in early adoption, demonstration, or prototype levels.
For that motive, entrepreneurs – those that join scientific breakthroughs with industrial functions – will likely be important. They are the bridge between innovation and influence, between concepts and implementation.
In this context, strengthened by Resolution No.68-NQ/TW, a landmark coverage elevating the personal sector as a core driver of nationwide development, Vietnam is uniquely positioned to lead amongst rising economies in connecting science and know-how with the net-zero objective.
Anchored by the National Innovation Centre (NIC), the nation can turn into a take a look at mattress for local weather tech deployment and digital sustainability. In August, throughout Party General Secretary Lam’s state go to to South Korea, Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) director-general Dr. Sang Hyup Kim and the NIC signed an MoU in Seoul, aimed toward strengthening Vietnam’s capability to hyperlink innovation and inexperienced development.
The GGGI has been working globally, and right here in Vietnam, to speed up climate-tech startups and small companies via catalytic grant financing and funding facilitation. This 12 months, along with the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the European Union, we supported early-stage startups growing energy-efficiency options and efficiently matched a number of with buyers and industrial purchasers.
These corporations aren’t merely small enterprises – they’re scalable, system-shifting medium companies able to reworking complete sectors. Energy effectivity is just the start. Our upcoming climate-tech acceleration programmes will broaden into agriculture, round economic system, and transport, specializing in ventures that hyperlink know-how innovation straight to measurable local weather influence.
Beyond startups, the GGGI has helped Vietnam’s monetary sector to each “green the finance” and “finance the green.” On one facet, we supplied technical help for Vietcombank’s first green-bond issuance, price roughly $80 million in 2024, and for Techcombank’s Green Bond Framework. A number of extra offers totaling about $180 million have been concluded in 2025 as effectively.
On the opposite facet, we’ve got supported infrastructure, agriculture, and waste-management initiatives to make them investment-ready. Collectively, our facilitation observe file exceeds $300 million, and we intention to mobilise up to $1 billion in inexperienced investments for Vietnam by 2028.
To unlock the total potential of local weather know-how, technological readiness and monetary innovation should go hand in hand. Given the urgency of the local weather problem, Vietnam wants sooner know-how switch and extra revolutionary financing devices. The nation’s rising worldwide finance centre initiatives in Danang and Ho Chi Minh City might function regional gateways for channelling international capital into home inexperienced innovation, supplied there’s a robust pipeline of investable initiatives and clear verification requirements.
Vietnam holds a strategic benefit amongst fast-growing economies: it could align its AI and digitalisation growth with its local weather ambitions, embedding sustainability inside the very basis of its innovation agenda.
Ultimately, the inexperienced transformation just isn’t solely about codes, chips, or algorithms – it’s a few new mannequin of development. As former Unilever CEO Paul Polman mentioned, “Business cannot succeed in societies that fail.” I’d lengthen that logic: companies and societies, even pushed by AI and high-tech innovation, can not succeed on a planet that fails. Linking science with sustainability, innovation with inclusion, and digitalisation with decarbonisation is a crucial nationwide precedence that the GGGI is honoured to assist advance.
Together, the aforementioned resolutions present the coverage compass for Vietnam’s innovation-led, market-powered development. Entrepreneurs, financiers, and innovators provide the engine. The GGGI stands prepared to assist join them – turning scientific breakthroughs into local weather options, and local weather options into inexperienced development, which is the future all of us aspire to construct.
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| Entrepreneurs – those that join scientific breakthroughs with industrial functions – will likely be important. They are the bridge between innovation and influence, between concepts and implementation. |