BECAMEX, FPT, VIETTEL PROPOSE VN ECONOMIC BOOST

At the 3rd National Forum on Digital Economy and Digital Society Development, chaired by Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh on the morning of December 20, Mr. Le Hong Viet, General Director of FPT Smart Cloud, stated that AI can create a leap in productivity, rather than just linear growth.

Betting on AI?

Drawing from practical implementation experience, Mr. Le Hong Viet cited examples. At bank customer service centers with 1,000-2,000 staff, FPT deployed 24/7 AI support agents. After over three years, about 70% of the workload is handled by AI, with humans managing the remaining 30%, tripling each employee’s productivity. In pharmaceutical retail, FPT built an “AI teacher” for about 20,000 Long Chau pharmacists. After two weeks, the AI can map individual knowledge, identify strengths and weaknesses, and distribute suitable training content, improving pharmacist quality and productivity by about 15% while increasing training department productivity dozens of times.

From these examples, Mr. Le Hong Viet emphasized that Vietnam needs to shift from a cheap labor advantage to building a high-quality workforce that knows how to collaborate with AI to increase labor productivity. Suitable platforms and mechanisms are needed for humans and AI to work together. FPT pursues the vision of mastering AI for Vietnam through its AI Factory platform and partners with Nvidia to provide large computing capacity, aiming to popularize AI services and simplify AI development for the business and social community.

Mr. Pham Kim Hung, founder and CEO of Base Enterprise, also affirmed that AI is fundamentally changing the tech industry and opening opportunities for Vietnamese companies to rise on the world tech map. He believes Vietnam should not just apply AI domestically but take AI products “to the open sea” to compete fairly with international solutions. About three years ago, Base Enterprise began its first steps into foreign markets, but initial efforts did not meet expectations. The company realized traditional software architecture was no longer suitable for building a strong, comprehensive AI platform. After over 10 years of development, Base Enterprisenearly rewrote all its source code to form a new, more suitable architecture, shifting from a feature-oriented software model to an output-based service model. By mid-2025, after nearly three years of restructuring, Base Enterprise completed this transformation and has now commercialized products in over 10 countries, including Australia, Malaysia, and Singapore.

Foundation for Sustainable Development

Sharing at the forum, Dr. Pham Tuan Anh, General Director of VNTT (Becamex Group), said the 4th industrial revolution is led by two main trends: digital transformation and green transformation. Recently, Becamex has invested in building centers of excellence, smart production centers, 4.0 industrial parks, technology labs, Fab Lab and Tech Lab systems, and university training facilities to form an innovation ecosystem and human resources for the digital economy. Greening is also being implemented through specific projects.

From practical implementation, Becamex recommends that Vietnam form centers of excellence for digital and green transformation, especially targeting SMEs, to improve labor productivity and gradually build a national multi-point center network. Simultaneously, the government needs preferential tax and land mechanisms for FDI investors linked to using domestic technology and localizing supply chains, creating a “two-way” strategy that supports domestic enterprises while accompanying foreign investors in model transformation. Additionally, Dr. Pham Tuan Anh believes indirect support through Vietnamese infrastructure and tech enterprises is also an important lever. Only when the supply chain is localized and investors develop alongside domestic enterprises can the development model transformation process occur sustainably and effectively.

Regarding infrastructure, Mr. Cao Anh Son, Deputy General Director of Viettel Group, said in the national digital transformation process, new-generation telecom carriers not only provide connectivity services but also play a foundational role in building digital infrastructure. In the coming time, Viettel will continue expanding telecom infrastructure with the goal of nationwide 5G coverage by 2030 and readiness to provide Gigabit-speed fiber internet to every household.

Internationally, Viettel plays a key role in connecting Vietnam with the world by operating 5 international submarine fiber-optic cable routes, with a total capacity of about 64 Tbps, accounting for nearly 60% of Vietnam’s international data traffic, directly connecting with major digital hubs in Asia, Europe, and America. The group is also striving to build a private submarine cable connecting Vietnam and Singapore.

Parallel to telecom infrastructure, Viettel is accelerating the construction of national digital infrastructure. The group currently operates 15 internationally certified data centers with over 11,000 racks and has started construction on three new data centers this year in Hoa Lac, An Khanh (Hanoi), and Tan Phu Trung (Ho Chi Minh City). The goal by 2030 is to expand to about 24 data centers with a total capacity of about 560 MW. Viettel also cooperates with Nvidia to develop large-scale computing infrastructure, applying over 6,000 high-performance GPUs to create a platform for AI, big data, and new-generation digital services.

Viettel leadership recommends the government soon issue specific guidelines for effectively allocating and using R&D budgets, prioritizing foundational technology projects. Simultaneously, according to Mr. Son, the government needs special mechanisms to access, research, and purchase core technology from abroad, as well as soon establish and operate suitable funds to promptly implement key tasks in the national strategy for science and technology, innovation, and digital transformation.