As part of a delegation of 50 American businesses coming to Vietnam earlier this week, a representative of Meta (the company that owns the social network Facebook) shared about this company's plans in Vietnam as well as commented on the field of artificial intelligence. Creation is growing.
“We are here to support and partner with all of you. It can be said that we do not encounter any limitations and Vietnam has the ability to become a new dragon in the field of artificial intelligence development.", said Rafael Frankel, Meta's Director of Public Policy, Southeast Asia.
Mr. Rafael Frankel.
– In your opinion, what can Vietnam do to speed up the development of artificial intelligence (AI)?
I think Vietnam has been doing very well in many areas, and now let's apply those lessons to AI.
For example, let's look back at how your economy has developed over the past 30 years. Vietnamese people are rich in motivation and energy, intelligence, determination and entrepreneurial qualities. They are also very interested in technology. And your education system also supports this.
You have partners from American companies, especially technology companies like Meta, and those companies are very interested in coming here to build partnerships together in many fields. We have conducted many training programs to help both Vietnamese entrepreneurs and engineers, both in technology. The US and Vietnamese governments have been very welcoming.
Vietnam meanwhile has maintained an open environment for technology and digital economic investment. This is also very important, creating conditions for Vietnamese businesses to succeed. Looking from all that experience, as we are entering the AI era, this development will become even faster. Just keep doing what you're doing, and cooperate with us.
In 2024, we will launch our AI products across many countries in Asia Pacific, I think Vietnam will be one of them. That will enable a generation of Vietnamese tech entrepreneurs to participate in building these products, to make them widely available to the public.
Some products such as large language models will be innovation platforms where Vietnamese researchers and entrepreneurs can register to use. Those activities will move things forward. Therefore, I hope Vietnamese technology entrepreneurs continue to cooperate with us. And together we will build a great future where Vietnam, as I said, can become the region's AI dragon.
– So in your opinion, which industries in Vietnam can best apply AI?
I think we are just in a very new phase of AI. And it's impossible to predict where it will go. But that's also a good thing. We also never knew where social networks would go when Facebook was founded 20 years ago. Now this social network has 4 billion users around the world.
So I think the "beauty" of artificial intelligence at this time is its limitless potential. We're already seeing innovative entrepreneurs across industries and everywhere, finding their own natural ways to use AI. We are not the ones to show them how to use it.
We are just providing the platform and tools, and they are the builders. We have seen incredible applications developed from AI, for example in health, education. The story is about how AI can help create new pharmaceuticals and drugs, can help cure more diseases, or can apply AI to solve the problem of climate change. Or like one student I spoke to who developed an app to help prevent wildlife poaching in India.
The beauty of AI is that it can be used for anything. So this is a huge opportunity for industries across Vietnam and globally.
– Can you give an estimate of Meta's investment in Vietnam in the near future?
I don't think we can come up with a single number yet. But I will talk about the areas we will invest in.
For many years, we have invested in providing the skills needed for the digital economy, for Vietnamese small and medium enterprises (SMEs). We have trained about 85.000 SMEs in Vietnam on digital economy skills. We also invest heavily in digital literacy training for hundreds of thousands of students and teachers, and hope to increase this number to millions.
We also support Vietnamese SMEs in using business messaging functionality to support their business. This year, our business messaging conference will continue to be held.
AI applications have also been invested in to limit harmful content on our platform in Vietnam, and we maintain the tools for free so that more people can access them.
Regarding the future of AI products, I think they will launch in Vietnam soon. We talked about investing in virtual universe technology (metaverse) in Vietnam. Meta sees a bright future in Vietnam, especially with the partnership between the governments, businesses and people of the two countries.
– When do you think the time will be when Vietnam becomes a 'dragon' in AI?
This also depends on businesses and the Vietnamese government. But as I said, looking at your incredible economic success story over the past generation, and beyond, it's fair to ask, will this happen again in AI? I think so.
