Politburo Resolution No. 57-NQ/TW, dated December 22, 2024, marked a significant turning level for science, technology, and innovation in Vietnam. Beyond setting bold objectives, the Resolution recognized science and technology as key drivers of the nation’s breakthrough improvement within the new period. As Vietnam’s financial construction continues to evolve, making use of science and technology to industrialization and modernization has turn out to be important to attaining sustainable progress.
Vietnam’s economic system is steadily shifting away from agriculture, forestry, and fisheries towards better contributions from {industry}, building, and providers. According to the National Statistics Office on the Ministry of Finance, GDP progress reached 8.02 per cent in 2025, with GDP per capita rising to $5,026 and the economic system increasing to roughly $514 billion. The sustained contribution of Total Factor Productivity (TFP) to progress lately offers a robust basis for a transition towards a science, technology, and innovation-led progress mannequin.
A mix of institutional reform, strategic applied sciences, multipolar worldwide cooperation, large-scale transport and power infrastructure, a contemporary industrial workforce, highly-skilled expertise, and a robust science and technology enterprise ecosystem will present the inspiration for Vietnam to satisfy its industrialization and modernization targets by 2030 and obtain developed, high-income standing by 2045, in keeping with Politburo Resolution No. 57 and Resolution No. 29-NQ/TW, issued on November 17, 2022.
To strengthen science, technology, and innovation in assist of industrialization and modernization, six teams of actions must be carried out concurrently throughout the 2025-2030 interval.
Finalizing and implementing the brand new authorized framework
Vietnam should transfer shortly to finalize and implement its new authorized framework for science, technology, and innovation, centered on Law No. 93/2025/QH15, National Assembly Resolution No. 193/2025/QH15, and Law No. 71/2025/QH15. Priority must be given to particular mechanisms masking financing, procurement, possession of analysis outcomes, and better tolerance for research-related dangers.
Politburo Resolution No. 57 targets TFP contributing greater than 55 per cent of financial progress, the digital economic system at the very least 30 per cent of GDP, R&D spending reaching 2 per cent of GDP, and at the very least 3 per cent of annual State price range expenditure allotted to science, technology, innovation, and nationwide digital transformation.
These objectives are aligned with the long-term route of Resolution No. 29, which units out Vietnam’s industrialization and modernization roadmap by means of 2030, with a imaginative and prescient to 2045.
To translate Politburo Resolution No. 57 into follow, the fifteenth National Assembly launched a sequence of key authorized devices in 2025. These embody Resolution No. 193/2025/QH15, dated February 19, 2025, piloting particular mechanisms to speed up science, technology, innovation, and digital transformation; the Law on Science, Technology and Innovation (Law No. 93/2025/QH15), handed on June 27, 2025; and the Law on Digital Technology Industry (Law No. 71/2025/QH15), authorised on June 14, 2025. Together, they kind the core authorized basis for institutional breakthroughs throughout the 2025-2030 interval.
The framework was additional strengthened by Decision No. 21/2026/QD-TTg, issued by the Prime Minister on April 30, 2026, and efficient from July 1, 2026, changing Decision No. 1131/QD-TTg. The Decision established Vietnam’s checklist of strategic applied sciences and strategic technology merchandise, masking ten technology teams and 30 precedence merchandise to focus nationwide assets on key breakthroughs.
Together with Decision No. 569/QD-TTg on the Strategy for Science, Technology and Innovation Development by means of 2030, semiconductor {industry} insurance policies, and Resolution No. 172/2024/QH15 approving the North-South high-speed railway funding coverage, Vietnam has put in place a broadly complete authorized basis for its subsequent stage of improvement.
Prioritizing assets for strategic applied sciences
Vietnam ought to transfer shortly to channel assets towards strategic applied sciences that may drive industrial upgrading, productiveness, and long-term competitiveness.
Decision No. 21/2026/QD-TTg, issued by the Prime Minister on April 30, 2026, and efficient from July 1, 2026, changed Decision No. 1131/QD-TTg and formally launched Vietnam’s up to date List of Strategic Technologies and Strategic Technology Products. Covering ten technology teams and 30 precedence merchandise, the framework offers the nation’s most detailed and legally-binding roadmap for directing price range allocation, tax incentives, credit score, land entry, and worldwide cooperation throughout the 2026-2030 interval.
The ten strategic technology teams embody digital applied sciences, resembling AI, large information, digital twins, cloud and edge computing, the Internet of Things (IoT), and blockchain, alongside next-generation cell networks, robotics and automation, superior biotechnology and biomedicine, power and superior supplies, semiconductors, cybersecurity and quantum applied sciences, marine and sub-surface applied sciences, aerospace, and high-speed and city rail techniques. A key addition in contrast with the earlier framework is the inclusion of high-speed and city railway applied sciences, reflecting Resolution No. 172/2024/QH15 on the North-South high-speed railway venture.
The accompanying product checklist divides 30 precedence applied sciences into two tiers. The first consists of twenty-two market-ready merchandise with rapid financial impression, together with Vietnamese massive language fashions, cloud platforms, 5G/5G-Advanced techniques, batteries and battery power storage techniques (BESS), inexperienced hydrogen, industrial robotics, and unmanned aerial automobiles (UAVs). The second tier contains eight applied sciences aimed toward creating new progress engines and strengthening strategic autonomy, resembling specialised semiconductor chips, quantum applied sciences, uncommon earth and superior mineral processing, Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), low-Earth orbit satellites, and high-speed railway techniques.
This two-tier construction creates a clearer coverage focus. Technologies with established markets must be deployed quickly to assist productiveness and industrial progress, whereas strategic applied sciences with longer improvement cycles require sustained state backing to construct nationwide self-reliance.
The framework additionally helps make clear useful resource allocation. Market-ready applied sciences ought to rely extra closely on non-public funding and public procurement below Law No. 71/2025/QH15, whereas strategic autonomy applied sciences ought to obtain stronger assist from the State price range and focused commissioning below Resolution No. 193/2025/QH15.
Public procurement might be crucial to turning this technique into actuality. Government businesses, State-owned enterprises (SOEs), and massive infrastructure tasks in transport, power, healthcare, and protection ought to allocate a part of their technology budgets, proposed at a minimal of 10-15 per cent, to domestically-developed strategic applied sciences, in keeping with Law No. 93/2025/QH15 and Law No. 71/2025/QH15. Stable demand from public consumers will help stimulate R&D and home manufacturing, following fashions used successfully in international locations such because the US, China, South Korea, and Russia by means of main protection and infrastructure applications.
International cooperation technique
Cooperation methods have been established below the CHIPS Act and with university-industry networks within the US; with Zhongguancun, Shenzhen, and China’s provide chains; with Rosatom, MEPhI, Skoltech, and the Ninh Thuan venture with Russia; with the Yongin cluster and South Korea’s “developmental State” mannequin; with Taiwan (China’s)’s Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI); with Israel’s startup ecosystem and Yozma 2.0 Fund; with Singapore’s RIE2025 technique; and through partnerships with the EU, Japan, and Australia in training, primary analysis, and power.
Cooperation between Vietnam and Russia in nuclear power has been relaunched on the authorities stage. According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Vietnam and the Russian Federation signed an intergovernmental settlement on March 23 to develop the Ninh Thuan 1 Nuclear Power Plant in Vietnam. The venture will deploy two third-generation-plus VVER-1200 pressurized water reactor models with a mixed capability of roughly 2,400 MW.
World Nuclear News reported that the venture might be modeled on the brand new reactor models on the Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant, with Rosatom serving because the principal technology contractor. Beyond energy technology, the settlement presents a strategic alternative for Vietnam to entry superior nuclear technology whereas deepening cooperation in coaching, analysis, and technology switch in areas resembling nuclear physics, supplies science, management engineering, and radiation security.
Russia additionally maintains longstanding strengths in fields related to Vietnam, together with nuclear physics, plasma and laser science, vaccine technology, agriculture in harsh environments, theoretical arithmetic and physics, and engineering training.
Decades of instructional and scientific cooperation between Vietnam and the previous Soviet Union, and later the Russian Federation, have created a big community of Vietnamese specialists skilled at Russian universities, analysis institutes, and firms. Many now work in Vietnam or are a part of the abroad Vietnamese group, representing a precious expertise pool that could possibly be mobilized by means of bilateral science and technology partnerships and talent-attraction mechanisms below Law No. 93/2025/QH15.
Parallel power and science-technology applications
A central actuality of the digital age is that science, technology, and power can now not be developed individually. As the digital economic system, AI, and superior manufacturing turn out to be main progress drivers, power safety and technological safety are more and more intertwined. Data facilities, semiconductor fabs, 5G/6G networks, and AI techniques all depend upon secure, large-scale, and low-emission electrical energy provides. This hyperlink must be mirrored in all science, technology, and power planning from 2025 onward.
On April 15, 2025, the Deputy Prime Minister authorised Decision No. 768/QD-TTg revising the National Power Development Plan for 2021-2030, with a imaginative and prescient to 2050 (National Power Development Plan VIII, or PDP8). The plan goals to strengthen nationwide power safety whereas supporting financial progress. Commercial electrical energy demand is projected to succeed in 500.4-557.8 billion kWh by 2030 and 1.238-1.375 trillion kWh by 2050. Installed energy capability for home demand is anticipated to rise to 183,291-236,363 MW by 2030 and 774,503-838,681 MW by 2050.
PDP8 outlines a extra diversified and lower-emissions power combine by 2050. Solar energy is anticipated to account for 35.3-37.8 per cent of complete capability, offshore wind 14.7-16.6 per cent, onshore and nearshore wind round 10.9 per cent, nuclear energy 1.4-1.7 per cent, hydropower 4.8-5.2 per cent, and battery power storage techniques (BESS) 11.5-12.4 per cent. The the rest will come from gas-fired energy, biomass, transformed coal amenities, imports, and different sources. Renewable power, excluding hydropower, is projected to account for 28-36 per cent of capability by 2030 and as a lot as 74-75 per cent by 2050. Investment within the energy sector throughout 2026-2030 is estimated at roughly $136.3 billion.
Within this construction, nuclear energy and liquefied pure fuel (LNG) will stay important to making sure secure baseload and backup provide. Ninh Thuan 1 and Ninh Thuan 2 are anticipated to ship a mixed capability of 4,000-6,400 MW between 2030 and 2035, together with two preliminary VVER-1200 reactors with complete capability of two,400 MW. LNG energy, projected to account for roughly 3.5 per cent of complete capability by 2050, will present versatile backup for intermittent renewable power.
To higher align power and science-technology improvement, Vietnam ought to give attention to 4 priorities. First, AI information facilities, semiconductor fabs (fabrication crops), and high-tech zones must be deliberate alongside baseload energy tasks, together with nuclear, LNG, and 500 kV transmission networks, to make sure electrical energy is accessible when technology amenities come on-line. Second, the strategic technology checklist below Decision No. 21/2026/QD-TTg ought to give better precedence to enabling power applied sciences, together with superior supplies, battery storage, sensible grids, and high-voltage direct present (HVDC) techniques. Third, Vietnam ought to develop a joint workforce pipeline combining power engineering and data technology abilities to deal with extreme international shortages in expertise for information facilities and semiconductor manufacturing. Fourth, financing mechanisms below Resolution No. 193/2025/QH15 must be prolonged to built-in energy-technology tasks, quite than restricted to standalone science and technology initiatives.
In a world the place AI fashions, massive language fashions, and semiconductor fabs operate as electricity-intensive techniques, Vietnam can not realistically purpose to turn out to be a regional technology hub with out matching energy capability. Developing science, technology, and power in parallel is due to this fact not merely a coverage ambition, however a prerequisite for long-term progress.
Triangular innovation ecosystem
Vietnam ought to speed up the event of an built-in innovation ecosystem linking universities, analysis institutes, companies, and the State. This contains constructing 5-10 internationally-competitive analysis universities, restructuring main institutes into institute-industry partnerships, figuring out lead technology companies in strategic sectors, and growing 2-3 built-in high-tech zones with clear regional specialization.
A typical lesson from the US, South Korea, Taiwan (China), Israel, and China is that innovation ecosystems succeed solely when analysis universities, institutes, technology corporations, and governments work intently collectively. In Vietnam, nevertheless, these actors have largely operated in silos over the previous three a long time, constrained by authorized and monetary boundaries between public analysis and non-public {industry}. Politburo Resolution No. 57-NQ/TW and Law No. 93/2025/QH15 have created a founzdation to deal with these gaps, however the precedence for 2026-2030 is to show coverage into workable institutional fashions.
Vietnam ought to focus assets on growing 5-10 main analysis universities to worldwide requirements. Potential candidates embody the Hanoi University of Science and Technology, Vietnam National University Hanoi, Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City, the Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology, the University of Danang, the Vietnamese-German University, VinUniversity, and different establishments with comparable analysis capability.
At the identical time, main public analysis institutes, significantly the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology (VAST) and the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences (VASS), must be restructured towards institute-industry partnership fashions impressed by Taiwan (China)’s ITRI and Russia’s Skoltech, with stronger commercialization and enterprise collaboration.
On the {industry} aspect, Vietnam ought to determine 5-10 lead enterprises in every strategic technology class below Decision No. 21/2026/QD-TTg to function nationwide technology champions. These companies ought to commit at the very least 3 per cent of annual income to R&D and assist the expansion of home provide chains. In return, they need to obtain entry to analysis commissioning, risk-sharing mechanisms, enterprise financing incentives, and public procurement assist below Resolution No. 193/2025/QH15.
To coordinate this ecosystem, Vietnam ought to set up a National Science and Technology Council with cross-sector authority, bringing collectively representatives from the Ministry of Science and Technology, main universities, main institutes, flagship enterprises, and impartial specialists. The council would advise the federal government on strategic technology priorities, R&D funding, and the implementation of nationwide technology missions.
Highly-skilled workforce
Building a highly-skilled workforce might be crucial to attaining Vietnam’s science, technology, and innovation ambitions. A flagship precedence must be coaching 50,000 semiconductor engineers by 2030, centered on six main universities, whereas strengthening efforts to draw abroad Vietnamese expertise and international specialists. At the identical time, industrial practices resembling 5S, Kaizen, Just-in-Time (JIT), Genchi Genbutsu, Hansei, and Shokunin must be built-in into vocational coaching and enterprise administration.
In the semiconductor sector, Decision No. 1017/QD-TTg, authorised on September 21, 2024, established a nationwide workforce program concentrating on at the very least 50,000 engineers by 2030, with a imaginative and prescient to 2050. Complementing this, Decision No. 1018/QD-TTg authorised Vietnam’s Semiconductor Industry Development Strategy, centered on three pillars: chip design, packaging and testing, and semiconductor manufacturing.
To enhance effectiveness, the 50,000-engineer goal must be divided into three talent teams. Around 15,000 engineers must be skilled in built-in circuit (IC) design by means of main home universities and internships at worldwide design facilities. Another 25,000 engineers ought to give attention to meeting, testing, outsourced semiconductor meeting and check (OSAT), and production-line operations, linked to main traders resembling Amkor, Hana Micron, and Samsung.
Vietnam also needs to launch workforce applications for different strategic applied sciences, linked to home analysis universities, main worldwide establishments, technology companies, and international organizations. Three expertise channels must be developed in parallel: international-standard coaching in Vietnam supported by scholarships, abroad training tied to return commitments, and stronger recruitment of abroad Vietnamese professionals and international specialists by means of reforms below Law No. 93/2025/QH15 and associated rules.
Together, institutional reform, strategic applied sciences, diversified worldwide cooperation, trendy infrastructure, industrial self-discipline, expert expertise, and a robust science and technology enterprise ecosystem can present the inspiration for Vietnam to attain its industrialization and modernization objectives by 2030 and turn out to be a developed, high-income nation by 2045, in keeping with Politburo Resolution No. 57-NQ/TW and Resolution No. 29-NQ/TW.
(*)Professor Nguyen Quoc Sy is from the National Research University, Moscow Power Engineering Institute, within the Russian Federation, and Director of the VinIT Institute of Technology.