Viettel Chairman proposes special mechanism to purchase high-tech secrets

Mr. Tao Duc Thang, Chairman and General Director of Viettel Military Industry and Telecommunications Group, proposed that the Government have a special mechanism for researching, accessing, and trading foreign technology secrets, while accepting risks in scientific research and issuing specific instructions to establish a venture capital fund. At the Conference to summarize the work in 2024 and deploy tasks in 2025 of the Ministry of Information and Communications, Mr. Tao Duc Thang shared that by 2030, Viettel aims to master 100% of the design and production of chip products serving national defense and security and some new generation breakthrough specialized chips such as AI chips and IoT chips. By 2028, Viettel's 5G network will also be covered nationwide. By 2030, four new submarine optical cable lines will be put into use, including at least one owned by Viettel, and 11 new large-scale data centers will be deployed with a total expected capacity of over 350MW, accounting for over 40% of the total capacity of data centers in Vietnam. Viettel will also cooperate with NVIDIA to deploy a large-scale data center infrastructure with high-performance servers to serve the explosive demand for AI applications with nearly 800 supercomputers and 6,000 GPU cards.

Mr. Tao Duc Thang, Chairman and General Director of Viettel Group.

According to Mr. Tao Duc Thang, the Politburo has just issued Resolution 57 on breakthroughs in science and technology development, innovation and national digital transformation with clear and specific goals and solutions. Viettel's Chairman proposed 5 solutions to realize Resolution 57, including accepting risks in science and technology research through implementing a pilot mechanism of exemption policies for businesses to test new technologies and new business models. Mr. Thang said that the nature of venture investment projects is high risk, low success rate, but if successful, there will be large profits, offset costs, promote the development of new technologies and new business models. "Therefore, this will be a breakthrough policy that allows state-owned enterprises like Viettel to boldly research, test, master and apply new technologies and new business models," said Mr. Thang. Viettel's Chairman also proposed that the Party, State and Government leaders soon provide guidance on the use of the budget set out in Resolution 57 to carry out research and development tasks. In Section 1, Part II of the Resolution, the target for 2030 is that the budget for research and development will reach 2% of GDP, approximately 9 billion USD/year. This is a large budget that will strongly promote Vietnam's scientific and technological research and development. Mr. Thang shared that at Viettel, with the budget allocated for scientific and technological research and development of about more than 10 trillion VND ~ 45 million USD/year, the Group has completed many important projects assigned by the Party, State and Army such as research on 5G products, 5G core, and products for the defense industry. The representative of Viettel Group also emphasized that investment in science and technology should focus resources on technology research projects that play a fundamental and comprehensive role such as semiconductor technology, low-altitude satellites, and dual-use defense industry, and should not be dispersed or fragmented. In addition, Viettel proposed implementing a special mechanism in researching, accessing, and trading foreign technology secrets and advanced technologies. "According to our experience, the most difficult thing now is to evaluate and determine the value of these technologies because they are specific, exclusive technologies that are very difficult to reference and compare," Mr. Thang stated and suggested that the Government and ministries provide guidance on the principles of evaluating and determining the value of technologies in the process of transferring foreign advanced technology secrets. Source: https://tienphong.vn/chu-tich-viettel-de-xuat-co-che-dac-biet-mua-bi-mat-cong-nghe-cao-post1705026.tpo