In the 4.0 Revolution, artificial intelligence (AI) is considered as one of the breakthrough technologies, promoting successful digital transformation. Grasping this trend, Vietnam’s big technology enterprises have been taking strong steps in investing in research and development of AI applications…

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According to Analytics Insight’s forecast, the global AI market will reach over 150 billion USD by 2023. In this race, the world’s major technology companies such as Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, IBM China’s Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, and Huawei are investing heavily, pouring tens of billions of dollars into AI with the aim of becoming pioneers.

“RACE” OF TECHNOLOGY BUSINESSES

Large domestic technology enterprises are also not out of this race. FPT Corporation recently announced that it will spend VND 300 billion on AI research and development activities in the next 5 years.

Since 2013, this group has invested in research and development of AI technology, and now has formed a diverse ecosystem of products, solutions, and platforms to help businesses and organizations optimize their operations, improve performance, and provide superior customer experience. Nowadays, more than 100 businesses have used FPT’s AI solutions, serving more than 14 million users.

Mr. Truong Gia Binh, Chairman of FPT said that FPT has an aspiration, which is to become the world’s leading company in digital transformation. This also means that FPT must rise to the top position in the world in AI. This aspiration can only be realized with concrete actions. FPT is contributing to building Binh Dinh into the leading AI center of Vietnam and then of the region and the world. Cooperating with Mila Research Institute and opening a branch of FPT University with its own major in AI… are FPT’s moves to attract and train talents to build AI power for Vietnam.

Besides FPT, several other large enterprises such as Viettel, VNPT, VNG, Vingroup… are all investing heavily in research and development of AI.

To realize the goal of becoming a leading technology company in Vietnam, a pioneer in leading the country’s digital transformation, VNPT has promoted research and mastery of core technologies as well as implementation and application of modern digital technology services. In particular, AI is being applied in many fields, from protecting personal information, taking care of customers to deploying smart urban models, smart control centers, e-health, intelligence transportation, digital government, agriculture…

AI along with the Internet of Things (IoT), 5G, cloud computing, and big data are core technologies for successful digital transformation. Viettel has researched and implemented these technologies to provide digital solutions and services to become a pioneer and a key player in creating a digital society in Vietnam.

Sharing with Vietnam Economic Review/VnEconomy, Nguyen Manh Quy, Director of Viettel Cyberspace Center, said that the group has determined the first strategic goal is to invest in technologies serving Vietnamese people such as: application processing Vietnamese language, voice, writing with high accuracy and intelligence. With the launch of the Viettel AI Open Platform, Viettel provides APIs to help individuals, organizations and businesses integrate and intelligentize their applications. To date, this platform has more than 70,000 individuals and organizations registered to use.

Along with investing in researching new technology trends of the world, Viettel will invest in providing platforms, providing digital services with strong social impact, bringing more value for users, implementing AI deeper in real life, helping to promote national digital transformation.

In order to improve the research and development capacity of AI technology, Viettel and Vingroup have pioneered in investing in supercomputer systems to study highly complex problems, and at the same time accelerate the technology development process. In the past time, Vingroup has promoted investment activities in technology, including AI, offering solutions to apply this technology in the medical field, for smart cars, self-driving cars…

Catching up with the new wave, exploiting opportunities

Mr. Bui Hai Hung, General Director of VinAI Artificial Intelligence Research and Application Company (Vingroup) said that AI has become an effective tool to contribute to solving difficulties as well as creating many opportunities for Vietnamese businesses. Despite possessing great potential, the development of this field in the country still has many challenges. “As a leader in AI research and application, we have the goal of bringing Vietnamese AI research and products to the world,” said Mr. Hung.

As for VNG, AI technology is also being promoted by this company to promote research and development, including Kiki virtual assistant. Sharing with the press, Mr. Vuong Quang Khai, Deputy CEO of VNG said that the next wave is AI and we should invest. If you don’t keep up with the wave of technology that changes drastically day by day, you can become an outsider in the future.

According to experts, investing in research and development of AI technology is an expensive and difficult game. However, this is a trend, if Vietnamese technology enterprises do not join the game, they will be left behind.

Although the investment budget for AI of Vietnamese enterprises is currently not comparable to the world’s technology giants, according to experts, the participation of Vietnamese technology enterprises is a good sign, especially with the strong participation of private sector enterprises has created a driving force to promote development.

With the investment in developing AI technology of large corporations such as FPT, Viettel, and Vingroup, it has attracted Vietnamese experts and AI engineers from all over the world to work and organize seminars with high quality. According to statistics at the International Conference on AI 2020, Vietnam has a research organization ranked 21st on the world AI map.

Connected with development strategy, specific problem

To develop AI technology, some experts believe that it is necessary to meet all the conditions on data, users and have a large enough application problem to make a profit. Besides investing in core technology research and building platforms, most businesses are aiming for specific AI application problems in business to bring profits.

Currently, each enterprise has a strategy of investing in research and development of AI applications according to its own specific and core business ecosystem. Depending on the strategic goal of the business focusing on the industry, which field will invest AI integrated into product applications to solve specific problems.

According to experts, AI technology does not develop independently, but needs to be integrated into specific digital solutions, applications and services to provide and bring value to businesses and people. Along with researching, updating and catching up with world technology trends, Vietnamese technology enterprises need to customize to come up with applications and solutions suitable to Vietnam’s problems, in the field of ready-made data base.

Got It’s founder Tran Viet Hung emphasized that it is important that AI be applied to solve a specific problem in society as well as business and market activities.

Investing in digital transformation in general, including AI, is an inevitable trend to help businesses optimize and improve the efficiency of production and business activities, and improve their competitiveness in the market. Enterprises must clearly see the needs of the problem to be solved, the specific and practical goals in production and business activities in order to apply appropriate technology solutions.

In January 2021, the Government also issued the National Strategy on AI research, development and application to 2030 to promote research, development and application of AI, making AI an important technology field. of Vietnam during the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The strategy sets a target that by 2025, Vietnam will be in the group of 5 leading countries in the ASEAN region and the group of 60 leading countries in the world in research, development and application of AI; built 5 prestigious AI brands in the region.

Source: Báo Thanh Niên