Promote the AI ecosystem

AI4VN 2019 will promote artificial intelligence in Vietnam

With the theme of "Promoting the development of artificial ecosystems", on August 15-16 at Hanoi University of Science and Technology AI4VN 2019 will stage a conference as well as an exhibition of AI solutions, providing a place to connect stakeholders in the AI ​​community.

The presentations will disseminate the trends, reports, and directions to develop to the Vietnamese research and development community, providing lessons learned from other countries' experiences in the development of technical infrastructure, and policy implications for Vietnam.

The press conference to introduce AI4VN 2019 was held with the participation of Bui The Duy, Deputy Minister of Science and Technology, Ly Hoang Tung, Deputy Head of the Department of High Technology, Ta Hai Tung, director of the Institute of Information Technology of Hanoi University of Science and Technology, and Le Hung Viet, chief technology officer of FPT, as well as delegates from related departments.

In addition, the AI event is also accompanied by the Ministry of Planning and Investment which is mobilising resources to promote science and technology development, particularly 4.0 solutions.

Deputy Minister Bui The Duy said that: “In the fast development of digital technology, especially Big Data, Internet of Things (IoT), AI, and social networks, there are many new applications which are gradually changing our lives. Vietnam has been benefiting from and is influenced by the Fourth Industrial Revolution. For the first time, our parliament used speech conversion technology to help the national assembly run the questioning session more easily. In this context, Vietnam has many things to do in the field of science and technology. Enterprises that do business based on the results of scientific research and technological development are those who create high value-added products, especially in the field of AI.”

“There are very few products based on technology in Vietnam. Schools provide IT training but this is still fragmented and is not associated with businesses to create good products. AI ​​has switched to handling Big Data instead of relying on people like before. Frankly, Vietnam still does not have enough data to develop AI, especially in converting from paper-to-digital data storage,” Bui The Duy added.

Le Hung Viet from FPT clarified that the biggest challenge is human resources. This is a difficult challenge to overcome in a short time and AI4VN 2019 will help popularise AI. He conceded, however, that this deficiency is a global issue and is not unique to Vietnam.

Connect people, management agencies, and schools is a sizeable challenge that will be difficult to solve. Also, communications campaigns to turn awareness into action is another issue.

In the world, according to the latest research by technology consulting firm Gartner, the global AI technology industry in 2018 has seen breakthrough growth, topping its 2017 size by more than 70 per cent, with a total market value of $1.2 trillion. AI is likely to become the hottest field of technology in the next 10 years thanks to advances in computing capacity and leaps in volume, speed, and diversity of data.

Since 2014, AI has been on Vietnam's list of high-tech priorities for development investment. The government has determined that this is one of the groundbreaking technologies spearheaded by the Fourth Industrial Revolution that needs to be researched but have yet to be issued specific legislation by the authorities to promote development.