Smart cities on the tech titan radar

Smart city fever is accelerating up and down Vietnam, Le Toan

On March 11, Viettel signed a cooperation agreement with the northern province of Hoa Binh, with smart cities being a key focus for the next three years.

Under the strategic cooperation for digital transformation in 2022-2025, Viettel will provide the province with high-tech solutions to accelerate public administrative reforms and develop e-government. The two sides will also partner in developing telecom infrastructure; applying IT in building smart city, smart agriculture and smart tourism; improving information security; and enhancing quality of telecom and IT workforce.

Vietnam has witnessed several new smart city agreements already this year between domestic firms and local authorities. They included Mekong Smart City, signed between NovaGroup and the Mekong Delta provinces of An Giang and Dong Thap; and FPT Corporation teaming up with the central province of Khanh Hoa.

Developing smart cities in Vietnam has been advancing since 2018, when the prime minister approved the scheme for sustainable development of smart cities towards 2025 but with a vision towards 2030. Over the past two years, the government has urged big cities to take bold and drastic steps in applying technology and solutions for smart city development in a move to control the pandemic, as well as serve economic recovery and development.

To date, 41 out of 63 cities and provinces have built or are building their smart cities development schemes. Thus far, more than 100 smart cities projects have been carried out in Vietnam, mostly in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, and the central city of Danang, and fields of interest include e-government, transport, and the environment.

Viettel might be one of the biggest beneficiaries of this trend. It is said that about 30 cities and provinces have signed cooperation agreements with Viettel on smart city development. In particular, in 2021, Viettel signed a deal with Danang to last until at least 2025, focusing on the digital development of infrastructure, platforms, government, economy, and society.

Other technology giants like FPT and VNPT are also getting involved, with the latter building the Intelligent Operation Centre in the northern province of Phu Tho in 2020. Last year, FPT carried out similar activities in the south-central province of Binh Dinh, as well as signed many agreements on smart city development with a raft of other provinces.

Together with domestic players, foreign groups have been boosting their footprint in the field.

SonKim Land entered into strategic cooperation with US tech giant Qualcomm last year to deploy its telecommunications infrastructure for the 9 Stellars smart township project.

Also that year, Vietnam’s Becamex IDC signed a cooperation programme with The Connected Places Catapult of the United Kingdom on developing the Binh Duong smart city, an ‘Innovation Region’, and a sci-tech industrial park in the southern province.

Similarly, Korea Land and Housing Corporation has signed deals on cooperation in smart city development in recent times with the northern province of Hung Yen, the People’s Committee of the central province of Thua Thien-Hue, and with the Vietnamese Ministry of Construction on cooperation in social housing, energy-saving housing, smart city development and green city and urban reconstruction.

At a meeting with Samsung in 2021, Chairman of Hanoi People’s Committee Chu Ngoc Anh suggested that the South Korean conglomerate provides the city with technical support in developing smart cities, smart transport, and promoting digital transformation. Samsung’s $220 million research and development centre in Hanoi, initiated in March 2020, is expected to be completed by the end of this year.