A special year for Vietnam’s science and technology industry

On the morning of December 26, the Ministry of Science and Technology organized a conference to summarize the work in 2025 and deploy tasks in 2026. The conference was held in a live and online format, connecting to 34 provinces, cities and units under the Ministry.

For nearly four hours, delegates looked back on a pivotal year for Vietnam’s science and technology industry, through speeches and presentations. Sharing at the conference shows that the direction of the science and technology industry in 2026 and the following years is gradually becoming clear.

In his opening speech, Minister Nguyen Manh Hung called 2025 a “special year”, with institutional innovations equal to the previous decade. In just one year, Vietnam’s institutions for science and technology have basically become modern, equivalent to those of developed countries.

According to him, 2025 also marks a change in development thinking, shifting from a model based on cheap labor, attracting FDI and exports to development based on science and technology, innovation and digital transformation. This is also the year these three pillars were put under one roof, when the Ministry of Information and Communications merged the Ministry of Science and Technology.

The Minister spent most of his time talking about awareness, saying that all changes start from the way of looking at problems, the core of which are concepts. In the past 5 years, along with the movement of the industry, many new concepts have been formed and spread, thereby changing the way of thinking about the science and technology industry, the role of the State and the country’s development path in the digital and knowledge era.

He mentioned the emergence of the concept of digital infrastructure and the advancement of telecommunications infrastructure. Digital infrastructure is not just a network, but includes data infrastructure, cloud computing infrastructure, AI knowledge infrastructure, digital identity and trust infrastructure. According to the Minister, this approach opens up new development space, moving the industry from the role of “ensuring connectivity” to “creating digital development space” for the entire society and economy.

Similarly, postal service is redefined, not just as delivery, but as a network connecting transportation, warehousing, supply chain, e-commerce and data, becoming a national logistics infrastructure on a digital platform.

The Minister also emphasized the emergence of the concept of digital platforms. Instead of developing individual systems, a shared digital platform allows many entities to participate, creating a widespread and scalable effect. According to him, this concept changes the way ministries and branches manage, the way businesses develop products and the way society exploits technology.

In the field of science and technology, the concept of innovation also marks an important shift in thinking. If in the past, science was often evaluated through topics and publication of research results, now innovation focuses on the ability to create new value, solve practical problems and contribute to growth. This is a step from doing science to gain knowledge to doing science to develop the country.

Along with that, new concepts such as national knowledge infrastructure, national innovation ecosystem, knowledge – technology – market value chain, technology sovereignty, strategic technology autonomy, product ordering or technology sandbox are gradually formed.

The Minister also mentioned digital transformation as a concept that changes the way we view technology application. Meanwhile, the concept of digital government reflects a deeper step forward in the perception of state governance. Digital government is not just the digitization of administrative procedures, but the State operates based on data, makes decisions based on evidence, and serves the people proactively and individually.

When talking about the digital economy, the Minister said that this concept helps review the position of the ICT industry in the national development picture. Accordingly, this is no longer an independent economic sector, but becomes the infrastructure and driving force for every industry and every field.

The fields of standards, measurement, quality, intellectual property and atomic energy are also approached with new thinking and development, instead of just management and control.

“The past five years have been the process of forming a new development reference system for the Ministry and the science and technology sector,” said Minister Nguyen Manh Hung. According to him, 2025 is not just a milestone to summarize a period, but a “qualitative shift in awareness and development thinking”. Now is the time for the industry to turn those concepts into concrete results to develop the country.

Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Chi Dung assessed 2025 as a special year for the whole country and the science and technology industry. He acknowledged the Ministry’s role in implementing Resolution 57 of the Politburo, with a huge workload, up to 473 tasks. To date, the Ministry has basically completed its assigned tasks. “It can be said that this is an unprecedented amount of work,” the Deputy Prime Minister noted.

According to him, the first highlight is the breakthrough in institution building. The Ministry has advised and submitted many laws and resolutions to the Government and National Assembly, and issued many accompanying decrees and circulars. These are important legal documents, removing barriers and bottlenecks, unlocking resources, releasing creative potential for intellectuals and scientists, creating a foundation for development.

The position and potential of national science and technology have been significantly improved. 2025 is a pivotal year in shaping national technological potential, with the Prime Minister issuing a list of 11 strategic technology groups and 35 strategic technology products.

The third highlight is the change in state management thinking, when shifting from allocation management thinking to constructive service, from input management to output management, taking efficiency as the main measure. He assessed this as a big change, consistent with development requirements in the new period.

The Deputy Prime Minister also frankly pointed out limitations that need to be overcome soon. The contribution of science and technology to growth has improved but has not created a breakthrough. Some implementation tasks are still behind schedule. Digital infrastructure in remote areas does not meet practical needs, there are still signal dips. Some policies have been issued but have not yet come to life, and are still inadequate when applied and deployed.

According to the Deputy Prime Minister, if 2025 is the year of institutional improvement and momentum, 2026 must be the year of action and acceleration, towards specific results. He proposed that the Ministry of Science and Technology focus on 5 key task groups: promoting the role of the standing agency of the Steering Committee for science and technology development, innovation and digital transformation; bringing institutions to life; investing in strategic infrastructure and technology, high-quality human resources; Taking businesses as the center of the innovation ecosystem; associate science and technology with digital transformation and Project 06.

Minister Nguyen Manh Hung affirmed that the Ministry will concretize these instructions into the 2026 action program. He emphasized that Resolution 57 has placed science and technology, innovation and digital transformation at the center of the growth model, considering this a thorough driving force of socio-economic development.

According to the Minister, after one year of implementation, the Resolution’s movements are relatively synchronous, most clearly at the policy and institutional levels. Vietnam has issued the Law on Digital Transformation – the first law in the world in this field. Vietnam is also in the first group of four countries to promulgate the Law on Artificial Intelligence and in the group of five leading countries in the Law on Digital Technology Industry.

Some products belonging to strategic technology groups such as cruise missiles, UAVs, and AI cameras have had positive results, as Vietnam basically masters the core technology and has a high localization rate. Regarding biomedical technology, Vietnam also owns a number of rice varieties and vaccines. Regarding AI, a large Vietnamese language model was developed and put into application. The above results contribute to creating confidence in the core technology autonomy capacity of Vietnamese people.

The Ministry of Science and Technology identifies 2026 as the year of “acceleration”, moving from building institutions to creating real, measurable and widespread results, affecting economic growth and improving the quality of people’s lives. The Ministry will focus resources on a number of key technologies, instead of spreading them widely. Each field will have clear output products and specific responsible individuals.

The Ministry will also propose that the Government transfer science and technology to the economic – industrial – technological sector, instead of the current cultural – social sector. According to the Minister, this is not just an administrative decision, but a fundamental change in development thinking. This approach helps science and technology be seen as a lever for the economy, as it is in most developed countries.

Recognizing the contributions of the Ministry of Science and Technology in implementing Project 06, the President awarded the Third Class Labor Medal to the National Digital Transformation Department. Vietnam Post Corporation also received a certificate of merit from the Prime Minister for its outstanding achievements in the emulation movement “The whole country joins hands to build new rural areas” in the 2021-2025 period.