Launching the program "Vietnam Innovation Challenge 2025"

DNVN - The program "Vietnam Innovation Challenge 2025" was launched on the morning of March 14 by Meta Group in collaboration with the National Innovation Center (NIC) under the Ministry of Finance, aiming to promote the development of the field of artificial intelligence (AI) in Vietnam.

The “Vietnam Innovation Challenge 2025” marks the third year of the program's implementation, aiming to promote the development of AI in Vietnam. Since 2022, the program has attracted more than 750 solutions annually from over 20 countries and territories.

During US President Biden's visit to Vietnam in 2023, the "Vietnam Innovation Challenge" was recognized by the White House website as a highlight of technology and innovation cooperation between Vietnam and the US. This year's program focuses on the ViGen Project, which aims to create a high-quality open-source Vietnamese dataset for training and assessment.

This will enhance the effectiveness of large language models (LLMs), helping AI models better understand the culture, context, and expressions in Vietnamese. This project is expected to increase the presence of the Vietnamese language in AI development, while contributing to the rapid and sustainable development of the digital economy .

Press conference announcing the "Vietnam Innovation Challenge 2025" program.

The ViGen project originated from a tripartite collaboration between Meta Group, NIC, and AI for Vietnam. NIC acts as the managing entity, coordinating and ensuring the project aligns with Vietnam's national goals. AI for Vietnam is the project implementation partner, providing technical and financial support from Meta Group.

Strategic partners include Nvidia, Viettel , and the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology. The mission of the ViGen Project is to make AI models support Vietnamese naturally and comprehensively, starting from the very beginning, to unlock the potential of AI applications in Vietnam.

ViGen will build large-scale, high-quality open-source Vietnamese datasets to train and evaluate the capabilities of AI models. The project also contributes to ensuring that AI development in Vietnam aligns with Vietnamese cultural values ​​and ethical standards, aiming to build a responsible and locally-relevant open-source AI ecosystem.

Sharing the program's objectives at the press conference announcing the "Vietnam Innovation Challenge 2025," Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Chi Dung stated, "The 'Vietnam Innovation Challenge' is a strategic program to seek innovative solutions worldwide to address important national challenges, aiming for a prosperous and sustainable Vietnam."

"For the program to succeed, it requires cooperation between the public sector, the private sector, and domestic and international partners to jointly formulate, test, and implement innovative initiatives for a prosperous Vietnam," Mr. Dung said.

Professor Yann LeCun, Vice President and Chief AI Architect at Meta Group, hailed as one of the pioneers of AI, commented: "The ViGen project and the 'Vietnam Innovation Challenge' not only aim to promote technology but also to build a comprehensive AI future that honors and integrates Vietnam's unique cultural and linguistic heritage."

Mr. Tran Viet Hung - Founder and CEO of AI, stated that the support from NIC and Meta is perfectly aligned with the AI ​​Alliance's Open and Trusted Data Initiative (OTDI).

"The project will contribute large, high-quality datasets in Vietnamese to the community, aiming to improve the current situation where Vietnamese is considered a language with a very limited presence in AI," Mr. Hung said.

Also at the press conference, Meta, in collaboration with Deloitte, selected Vietnam as the first country in the Asia-Pacific region to launch a handbook titled "Innovation in the Public Sector in Asia-Pacific with Open Source AI: Unlocking Breakthrough Potential with Liama".

Ha Anh