Au Lac AI Alliance makes debut in Vietnam

The alliance will develop Vietnamese large language models (LLMs), building an open AI community and promoting responsible AI applications. It will focus on three main areas: research and development, developing AI standards and policies, and training.

Members joined the launch ceremony. Photo: FPT

The alliance now has more than 20 members, including leading technology companies, organisations, and technology startups such as the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics, MobiFone, VNPT, FPT, CMC, BKAV, Misa, MoMo, VNPAY, Zalo, AI For Vietnam, AI Hay, N2TP, and Finhay.

They are joined by the Hanoi University of Science and Technology, Academy of Posts and Telecommunications Technology, Academy of Cryptography Engineering, Ho Chi Minh City University of Technical Education, Ton Duc Thang University, Ho Chi Minh City University of Law, and FPT University.

At the launch ceremony of the Au Lac AI Alliance, Prof. Dr. Nguyen Xuan Thang, Politburo member, director of the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics, and chairman of the Central Theoretical Council, said, “In this new era, we must act now – now or never. We must stand on our own feet. Vietnam has intelligence, creativity, and an overseas Vietnamese community that wants to contribute to the development of the Fatherland."

Prof. Dr. Nguyen Xuan Thang, Politburo member, director of the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics. Photo: FPT

“We need to connect, create a strong enough innovation ecosystem, while perfecting and building institutions, where AI is not just a technology, but a strategic tool for decision-making, governance, and serving people,” he added.

Truong Gia Binh, chairman of FPT's Board of Directors and initiator of the Au Lac AI Alliance, emphasised three major challenges Vietnam is facing in the AI ​​era: protecting technological sovereignty, realising the goal of becoming an advanced country by the 100th year of independence, and lacking investment and resources compared to major powers.

Truong Gia Binh, chairman of FPT's board of directors and initiator of the Au Lac AI Alliance. Photo: FPT

At the event, business leaders and experts discussed AI's future prospects, and their strong commitments to creating an AI technology platform with a strong national identity.

Nguyen Van Khoa, CEO of FPT Corporation, committed to opening up all of FPT's core technology platforms, from LLM to Cloud AI, for members to develop together.

“FPT will also invest in open AI, and support small businesses, research institutes, and schools to access data and tools, and accompany the steering committee of Resolution 57 to propose breakthrough policies, such as sandboxes for AI,” he said.

Nguyen Tu Quang, chairman of the board of directors and general director of BKAV JSC, added that AI is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Vietnam to climb into the group of leading technology countries. “BKAV believes that Vietnam can achieve artificial general intelligence, which many countries are investing hundreds of billions of dollars to achieve. We cannot do this unless there is a connection of strength and purpose that suits each unit.”

A panel discussion. Photo: FPT

Nguyen Minh Tu, Zalo Technology director, committed to contributing his experience of successfully building a pure Vietnamese AI model, system architecture and Vietnamese proficiency assessment set with more than 10,000 questions, supporting the country in AI ​​mastery and affirming Vietnam's technological position.

At the launch ceremony, the alliance proposed a large Vietnamese language model, Au Lac LLM, as a foundation for building AI applications for end users.

FPT has also announced plans to develop the VietGPT product, a virtual assistant dedicated to every Vietnamese person based on this language model.

VietGPT is a virtual assistant that deeply understands Vietnamese culture, society, language and thinking, meeting the needs of learning, exploring, and improving productivity and quality of work at a reasonable cost. VietGPT will also help optimise and improve model capacity as well as share models, data, and experiences with the community.

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