Act quickly to seize the opportunity.

On December 11-12, during a roundtable discussion chaired by Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung at the National Innovation Center (NIC) in Hoa Lac, Nvidia Chairman Jensen Huang expressed his positive impressions of Vietnam.

Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung (far right) poses for a commemorative photo with Nvidia Chairman Jensen Huang. Photo: NGUYEN BAO

Jensen Huang stated that he had promised Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh that he would establish a legal entity in Vietnam, making Vietnam Nvidia's "second home." Interestingly, just before that, while visiting the NIC Hoa Lac, the tech billionaire enthusiastically wrote on a board in the NIC lobby: "Vietnam is beautiful, a magical country with wonderful people. I will definitely return to build Nvidia's future home."

According to Jensen Huang's assessment, Vietnam has great potential for developing the semiconductor and artificial intelligence (AI) industries, but to ensure a successful future of cooperation in Vietnam, many more factors are needed. Accordingly, Vietnam already has a relatively good education system and infrastructure, and especially a rich "digital asset" in terms of language, culture, etc.

However, to develop AI, Vietnam needs to build a specialized infrastructure system, including supercomputers. Software engineers also need in-depth training and creative synergy within the technological ecosystem. Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung stated that Vietnam has actively prepared the conditions to welcome and cooperate with US businesses and investors in the fields of innovation, semiconductor industry, and AI. The strategy for developing the semiconductor industry, as well as the plan for developing human resources in the semiconductor industry, will be issued in early 2024. Accordingly, Vietnam will train at least 50,000 engineers for the industry by 2030, including an estimated 15,000 high-quality engineers in integrated circuit design.

Recently, the National Assembly issued a resolution allowing the Government to draft a decree establishing a fund to support investment in several high-tech projects, including semiconductor and AI projects. This decree is expected to be issued in mid-2024. However, the road to realizing all these policies is still long and arduous. The factors mentioned by Nvidia's leadership, such as equipping with state-of-the-art equipment, enhancing skills, and aiming to build a team of 1 million AI experts… are clearly challenging goals that are difficult to achieve without the extraordinary efforts of regulatory agencies, the education and training system, and the business community; as well as support from Nvidia itself and other major technology companies.

As Jensen Huang rightly pointed out, this new wave is enormous, larger than any other, but it comes and goes just as quickly. Like AI, in just one year, it went from being virtually nonexistent to being a topic of conversation worldwide. Vietnam, if it doesn't want to miss this opportunity, must act very quickly.

ANH PHUONG

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