Nvidia’s pledge boosts hopes for Vietnam's AI industry

At a Monday talk show about developing semiconductors and AI hosted by the Ministry of Planning and Investment, Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang said the firm makes over half a billion dollars annually from its many Vietnamese clients.

Nvidia is committed to investing in and making Vietnam its "second home," Huang said.

Several AI companies believed Nvidia could benefit from the several advantages that Vietnam offered and the country’s AI industry might advance quickly thanks to this collaboration.

Vietnam a strong base for Nvidia

Experts claim Vietnam is an excellent environment for AI firms.

Nguyen Manh Tuong, CEO of mobile payment service MoMo, shared that his company started investing in AI seven years ago and has now garnered a team of 200 AI engineers.

He expressed hope that Nvidia will soon build a technology center to help Vietnamese businesses adopt the chipmaker’s AI solutions and create an opportunity for local engineers to experience working in the global AI industry.

According to Truong Quoc Hung, CEO of AI consultant VinBrain, the keys to success in the AI industry are data, computing power and human resources.

Vietnam’s population of over 100 million provides ample data for AI training. In terms of quality workforce, Hung claimed the current generation can become qualified engineers from local education programs without having to study abroad.

He cited VinBrain’s AI product being displayed at global conventions as proof that his team of locally trained engineers can make great products that could serve more than just Vietnamese people.

Lastly, most of the company’s achievements, including providing healthcare assistance to two million people per year and reducing diagnostic fees from hundreds to two dollars in several hospitals, were only possible with the computing power afforded by Nvidia products.

Meanwhile, for Cao Anh Tuan, founder of AI-assisted genetic testing services provider Genetica, good government support is the main reason his firm chose to move from the U.S. to Vietnam instead of Singapore, as initially planned.

After four years in the country, Genetica has reached some major milestones, one of which was being able to provide services to Korean and Japanese clients without having to send gene samples to the U.S.

"We have encountered a lot of challenges and will no doubt run into more in the next 10 years. But with that [government] support, we believe we will become one of the top three AI firms in Asia," Tuan stated at the Monday event.

Nvidida CEO Jensen Huang. Photo by VnExpress/Luu Quy

Prospects for the future

After two meetings with Nvidia founder Huang, Truong Gia Binh, chairman of IT company FPT Corporation, concluded that AI, chips and electronics will be the key industries helping Vietnam catch up to developed countries.

Binh said FPT Corporation had shifted its focus to AI and had accomplished several achievements in the field, including joining the AI Alliance created by IBM and Meta and establishing a collaboration with AI research institute Mila.

According to Binh, cooperating with Nvidia will help Vietnam attract talents in the field of AI and semiconductors, build an AI ecosystem and assist startups in designing and developing supercomputers.

Bui Hai Hung, CEO of AI research firm VinAI, shared that his firm, one of the top 20 firms in the world for AI research in 2022, had published hundreds of reports.

Last week, it launched Pho GPT, a large language model made for Vietnamese people.

Hung noted that to sustainably develop a "greener and cleaner" AI, the firm needed strategies to optimize cost-effectiveness and energy consumption.

"We hope to get support from partners like Nvidia," Hung said.

Aside from developing infrastructure and computing power, AI experts also expected the collaboration with Nvidia to improve the quality of Vietnam’s workforce.

Thang Luong, an expert at AI company Google DeepMind, assessed that tens of thousands of Vietnamese people used new apps like ChatGPT and Bard as soon as they were launched.

He said AI would bring about dramatic changes in many fields and Vietnam would play an important role in the region’s generative AI industry.

"We want to leverage Nvidia’s expertise in AI to push Vietnam’s AI industry to new heights," Thang stated.

Thang affirmed that Nvidia did not need to take a big risk by investing in Vietnam’s AI industry as it had excellent resources and government support.

Taking in all these statements, founder Huang concluded that Vietnam has a very talented and bright team of businesses and leaders.