‘Vietnam’s highest goal is to be self-reliant in AI’

Speaking at the GStar 2026 event with the theme Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Humanity taking place in Ho Chi Minh City on May 29, Deputy Minister Bui Hoang Phuong emphasized that Vietnam aims to become a group of three leading countries in Southeast Asia in artificial intelligence research and development by 2030. In 2025, Vietnam issued the Artificial Intelligence Law, becoming one of the few countries to soon have a law on AI, considered a pioneering institutional spirit to pave the way for technology to develop, creating a safe legal environment based on risk management to promote innovation.

After 2025 has a legal framework, 2026 is the period when the country will enter acceleration, according to Deputy Minister Phuong. Vietnam will not stop at just applying AI, instead aiming for the larger strategic goal of comprehensive national transformation with artificial intelligence.

To promote, Vietnam will gradually research, develop, and master core technologies, be autonomous in multi-purpose models, and platform models based on domestic data, not completely dependent on foreign technology.

“AI research and development activities require a huge demand for high-quality human resources, computing infrastructure and large data systems,” Deputy Minister Phuong said. “Without proper attention and investment, strong enough infrastructure, large enough database, and qualified and competent human resources, AI research and development is still a very difficult problem.”

Focus on investing in infrastructure development for data and AI

According to the Deputy Minister of Science and Technology, after the Government issues the list of strategic technologies and strategic products, in the coming time the Ministry will focus on investing in developing infrastructure for AI, developing databases to serve AI and training people with enough capacity and qualifications to research and develop AI.

“However, the State alone is not enough. We need the participation of the business community, research institutes, universities, and scientists at home and abroad,” Deputy Minister Phuong said. “If we can do this, Vietnam can promote the research and development of artificial intelligence in the coming time.”

With the orientation of strengthening and promoting AI application, Deputy Minister Phuong said that the most important immediate goal is to change thinking and popularize AI skills for people, businesses, agencies and organizations. Besides, it is necessary to clearly define that applying AI is not simply about purchasing a software product but also about changing thinking when handling work.

For example, during an overseas business trip, Deputy Minister Phuong said a professor told him that the first thing is not to change the way of doing things, but when faced with a difficult problem, the first thing to think about is how to use technology to solve that problem in the best way.

“Only when every individual, person, business, and organization in Vietnam knows how to use AI as an assistant, will the AI ​​transformation process really take place,” Deputy Minister Phuong emphasized.

However, he also acknowledged that in the process of applying AI extensively, it is necessary to address the impacts of AI on society, especially changes in employment structure, arising ethical and fairness risks. Accordingly, “training and career change for workers must go hand in hand, ensuring an inclusive, human-centered development process, leaving no one behind when applying and developing AI”, Deputy Minister Phuong said.

Regarding AI institutions and governance, Deputy Minister Phuong assessed that research, development and application of this technology all need a solid foundation of management institutions. We must solve the problem of harmony between promoting innovation and managing risk. The legal corridor needs to go one step ahead with clear regulations to ensure the safe and secure use of AI, protection of personal data and digital sovereignty.

The Deputy Minister of Science and Technology also wants to promote cooperation, connectivity and sharing in research, development and application of AI between countries in building computing infrastructure, connecting databases, and sharing experiences in AI management. “The whole world is facing this problem. We need to increase cooperation and share experiences to fully exploit the power and benefits that AI brings, while contributing to building a global AI ecosystem, ensuring national interests,” he said.

AI makes fake news “unpredictable”

Mr. Le Quoc Minh, Editor-in-Chief of Nhan Dan newspaper, Deputy Head of the Central Propaganda Department, said that the speed of AI application in Vietnam is very fast. According to him, 15 years ago, when it came to this technology, not many people knew and if they knew, they could not understand it clearly. Many people even think that what happens in the world will need a certain “delay” to reach Vietnam.

“However, in reality, the pace of AI entering Vietnam is very strong,” Mr. Minh emphasized. “AI is currently being applied in many fields such as education, health, climate change and journalism, helping people significantly reduce labor.”

Citing reality from the journalism field, Mr. Minh said that content is operating in completely new ways. In the past, when searching on the Internet, users received “green links” and chose reliable news sources to read. But today, just ask a question and the system will provide a series of answers. Many new concepts have been born, such as “liquid content”, which means multimedia content “flows” through many platforms and adapts to each context of use; or adaptive content, which means it is adjusted to suit each platform and reception needs.

However, Mr. Minh said that the strong application of technology entails many consequences. In the world, there have been websites completely operated by AI, capable of producing many times more content than large newspapers such as New York Times hay Washington Post.

Copyright issues also become more serious. In the past, copyright infringement was mainly about copying or “cooking” journalistic content. Now, AI systems scan newspaper content to train models without paying any costs to content producers.

In addition, AI also entails many other social risks. Input data is inherently biased and lacks ethical standards, so if left unchecked, AI systems can create “echo chambers” – an environment that only reinforces existing prejudices such as sexism, discrimination or social bias. “If there is no monitoring mechanism, this situation can get out of control,” Mr. Minh said.

Professor Preslav Nakov, Head of the Natural Language Department at Mohamed bin Zayed University of AI (MBZUAI), assessed that the development of AI is creating a revolution with profound transformation for society similar to the new industrial revolution. However, he believes that AI safety is of the highest importance, safety mechanisms must be placed at every layer: training data, the model itself, control prompts and deployment systems.

According to Professor Nakov, no layer of protection is perfect if it operates alone. He gave the example that even Wikipedia contains content about conspiracy theories, so data filtering cannot completely remove harmful information.

Another topic is AI authenticity. Professor Nakov believes that generative AI has created a “third revolution” in information production. If social networks help everyone become a “publisher”, generative AI allows anyone to create fluid and convincing content. This increases the risk of fake news, propaganda and information manipulation.

To reduce the “illusion” of AI, Professor Nakov offers a number of approaches such as filtering data, post-training or using larger models and building an information verification system. According to him, the larger the model, the less likely it is to hallucinate, because it is able to remember more facts instead of having to “create” answers.

“The future will not have one AI model dominating them all, instead there will be many specialized models for each different language, field and task, from video processing, robotics to biomedicine,” Nakov predicts. “Of course, future AI needs to meet four criteria: transparency, understanding of local languages, safety and information reliability.”

GStar 2026 Forum is a continuation of the annual AI event series organized by NTI, formerly VietAI, since 2018 with the goal of connecting the Vietnamese AI community with global experts. Previous events have featured a number of artificial intelligence experts and celebrities, such as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Stanford University AI Lab Director Christopher Manning at AI Day 2023, or Google chief scientist Jeff Dean at GenAI 2024.