At the Ministerial Roundtable on AI Governance, held throughout the framework of
Vietnam International Digital Week 2025 from October 27-29, Minister of Science
and Technology Nguyen Manh Hung delivered a highly effective message to representatives
from the United Nations, the United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), ASEAN nations, and world
tech giants: “Vietnam is prepared to become the AI Competence Center of the Asia-Pacific
area.”
The nation’s dedication to AI isn’t new. Back in 2021, it accepted its National
Strategy on the Research, Development, and Application of Artificial Intelligence,
setting a aim of becoming a member of the Top 4 ASEAN nations and Top 50 worldwide within the
area by 2030. This imaginative and prescient was bolstered by Resolution No. 57-NQ/TW, issued on
December 22, 2024, which raised the bar even increased, aiming to place Vietnam
amongst Southeast Asia’s Top 3 in AI analysis and improvement by 2030.
Strategic applied sciences
Mr. Tran Anh Tu, Deputy Director General of the Authority of ICT Industry at
the Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST), underscored that Vietnam sees science,
expertise, and innovation because the core drivers of its “Second ‘Doi Moi’” – a pivotal
stage in breaking by the “middle-income trap” and realizing its ambition of
turning into a high-income, developed nation.
According to Mr. Tu, mastering strategic core applied sciences is important to
this imaginative and prescient. Vietnam can’t rely on expertise switch alone if it goals to construct
real aggressive benefits. A key milestone on this effort got here with Decision
No. 1131/QD-TTg, issued on June 12, 2025, which accepted a checklist of 11 strategic
expertise teams – putting AI on the very high. The focus now’s on creating 4
core AI merchandise: a Vietnamese massive language mannequin (LLM), a digital assistant,
domain-specific AI, and analytical AI.
MoST has additionally adopted a daring motion framework constructed on 4 strategic pillars:
placing enterprises on the heart; taking nationwide main challenges because the driving
power; viewing expertise as key – with mechanisms that reward scientists for analysis
outcomes; and constructing ecosystem power by “triple helix” collaboration between
authorities, academia, and enterprise. “Our aim is evident: by 2027, Vietnam is to grasp
at the very least 20 strategic expertise merchandise, with AI because the spearhead,” he emphasised.
Within this roadmap, the Vietnamese LLM is taken into account the inspiration of the
nation’s AI ecosystem – designed to seize the linguistic, cultural, and mental
nuances of Vietnam, fairly than counting on imported applied sciences. By 2027, Vietnam
plans to fine-tune open-source fashions corresponding to Llama, Mistral, DeepSeek, and Qwen;
construct a nationwide information corpus; and prepare fashions with up to 30 billion parameters.
By 2030, this may broaden to 100 billion parameters, integrating multimodal information
together with photos, video, and audio – paving the way in which for a complete AI mannequin
that bears a distinct “Vietnamese signature”.
Charting Vietnam’s AI ascent
Amid Vietnam’s strategic imaginative and prescient and decisive coverage strikes in AI, UNESCO has
counseled the nation’s sturdy political will and dynamic method to technological
improvement. In its RAM (Readiness Assessment Methodology) Report, launched on October
27, the physique praised Vietnam’s top-level dedication and described it as a “dynamic
and decided” nation within the world AI panorama.
The report highlighted Vietnam’s exceptional progress in AI analysis over the
previous decade, with the nation’s scientific output surging dramatically between 2018
and 2024. From simply 134 AI-related papers in 2010, the quantity practically quadrupled
to over 520 per yr by 2017-2018. By 2023, Vietnamese researchers have been publishing
greater than 4,000 AI research yearly.
In world rankings, Vietnam positioned twenty sixth in 2022 for AI publications – a main
leap from its fifth-place standing inside ASEAN throughout 1996-2018. The nation’s
tutorial affect can be on the rise: in 2024, 60 Vietnamese scientists made it
into the world’s Top 100,000 most-cited researchers, together with 9 within the world
Top 10,000 – clear proof of Vietnam’s rising credibility on the worldwide
AI map.
Yet UNESCO cautioned that analysis high quality stays a key problem. Vietnam
should give attention to producing higher-impact work and investing strategically in superior
AI expertise, fairly than merely increasing its analysis quantity.
At the identical time, personal funding in AI startups is accelerating. Funding
soared eight-fold, from $10 million in 2023 to $80 million in 2024, reflecting investor
confidence in Vietnam’s AI potential.
Under Politburo Resolution No. 57-NQ/TW, Vietnam goals to raise analysis and
improvement (R&D) funding to 2 per cent of GDP by 2030, with over 60 per
cent sourced from personal capital and at the very least 3 per cent of the State finances devoted
to science, expertise, innovation, and digital transformation. Notably, 15 per
cent of science and expertise spending will probably be directed in the direction of AI, massive information, and
high-performance computing, signaling a clear dedication to technological self-reliance
and world competitiveness.
Despite its popularity as a vibrant tech hub, Vietnam faces a scarcity of high-level
AI expertise, particularly in machine studying and pure language processing. The nation
at present has round 300 AI PhDs and post-doctoral researchers, 5,000 AI engineers,
and roughly 7,000 AI specialists, far wanting market demand. With solely 28-30 per
cent of scholars pursuing STEM (Science, Technology,
Engineering, and Math) majors, the hole between expertise provide and business
wants continues to widen. Vietnam due to this fact wants a complete nationwide technique
for reskilling, upskilling, and profession help to put together its workforce for an AI-driven
financial system.
UNESCO additionally urged Vietnam to deal with the environmental footprint of AI. The
present National AI Strategy has but to combine sustainability targets, and the
2020 Law on Environmental Protection doesn’t account for the energy-intensive nature
of huge information facilities and AI mannequin coaching. Incorporating “green AI” standards into
nationwide planning, UNESCO famous, will probably be essential for aligning Vietnam’s ambitions
with the worldwide push in the direction of sustainable, energy-efficient AI improvement.
Minister Hung reaffirmed Vietnam’s readiness to function the AI Competence
Center of the Asia-Pacific area, selling analysis, coaching, and expertise
cooperation. He emphasised that it views AI governance as a platform for collaboration,
trust-building, and sustainable development in the direction of a protected, humane, and inventive digital
future for all. His message earlier than worldwide delegates underscored Vietnam’s
ambition to lead whereas embracing an inclusive imaginative and prescient: seeing AI not as a race however
as a shared journey of information and progress.