The S-shaped strip of land attracts technology tycoons, a 50-year-old "uncle" goes to school to study AI

(Dan Tri) - In recent years, Vietnam has become an attractive investment destination for many large technology corporations in the world such as Apple, Google, Microsoft and most recently Meta Group - Facebook's parent company.

In recent years, Vietnam has become an attractive investment destination for large technology corporations in the world such as Apple, Google, Microsoft or most recently Meta Group - the parent company of Facebook. Many large technology corporations choose Vietnam to set up headquarters to produce, research and develop advanced technology products, helping Vietnam emerge as a technology center. Mr. Nguyen Van Tiep, Deputy Director of Training at the Blockchain and AI Technology Institute, shared with Dan Tri reporters his perspective on Vietnam's development potential from the investment of foreign technology corporations, as well as the benefits that users enjoy from these investments.

Sir, in the past 2 years, Vietnam has continuously welcomed leaders from many of the world's leading technology corporations such as Apple CEO Tim Cook, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, and most recently, the President of Global External Affairs of Meta Corporation, Mr. Nick Clegg. How does this demonstrate Vietnam's position in attracting large technology corporations from abroad? - Vietnam has many opportunities to attract foreign investors, the Government is promoting many investment support programs for digital transformation, policies to encourage international investors, and the construction of high-tech zones across the country, typically in Hanoi, Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City.

The S-shaped strip of land attracts technology tycoons, a 50-year-old "uncle" goes to school to study AI (Video: Khanh Vi).

In addition, Vietnam has a population of 100 million people with a young population accounting for the majority, this is an important thing that shows that our country's market has great potential for technology products, the young population also reflects that our country has a quality labor supply, dynamic and ready to adapt to new technologies. These are important factors for corporations and technology organizations in the world when wanting to invest in Vietnam or any country, in addition to that country having good policies, political stability, another important issue is the labor force that meets the requirements.

Meta Group's Global External Affairs Chairman, Mr. Nick Clegg, recently visited Vietnam and committed to deploying Vietnamese AI and building a factory to produce Quest 3S virtual reality headsets by 2025. Could you share your perspective on this investment cooperation? - Meta Group's choice of Vietnam as the place to produce Quest 3S virtual reality glasses affirms Meta's belief in the abundant and stable labor market in Vietnam. First, arguably the most important application of Quest 3S virtual reality glasses when produced and commercialized domestically will contribute to the education sector, students can experience more visualization and video, helping to increase creativity and practical ability. Second, it will contribute to research, especially in industries such as medicine or fields related to engineering. According to research by Google and Brian and Company, Vietnam has more than 70% of the population using the Internet, Vietnam's digital economy is very large, estimated at 150 to 220 million dollars. Vietnamese users are using Facebook , I see that this is an ecosystem that Meta wants to focus on investing in Vietnam. Besides, Vietnam is having a golden population age, the income level as well as the strong development of Vietnam's economy will be a very good market for Meta. Besides Meta, we can see that Apple in recent years has invested and considered Vietnam as a strategic market to sell their technology products such as iPhone , iPad (tablet) or Macbook which are of particular interest and use to Vietnamese people.

Samsung has also invested in many large factories in Vietnam, creating tens of thousands of jobs, or recently there is information that billionaire Elon Musk will invest and develop the Starlink system in our country in the near future. Starlink satellite Internet technology will be very supportive because Vietnam is a country with many mountainous areas as well as islands. Starlink has high-speed transmission and wide coverage, which will help everyone, no matter where they are, to access the Internet, participate in digital citizenship and digital economy according to the Government's goals. It can be seen that Vietnam is a fertile land attracting foreign investors, with an abundant labor force and low competitive costs compared to other countries in the region. In particular, Vietnam is the center of the supply chain in Southeast Asia as well as in South Asia, accessing Korea and Japan as well as other countries. Our country has many positions and advantages for corporations and technology centers to invest and choose this as a place to stay for a long time. As you shared, Vietnam is a country with a young population and many innovative businesses . How will benefiting from artificial intelligence (AI) help develop businesses in particular and the country in general, sir? - One very special thing about artificial intelligence (AI) is that it is not only for large corporations and businesses, but anyone can use AI. In Vietnam, the Government has policies to promote digital transformation and the application of artificial intelligence, which is especially considered a strong and important driving force for digital transformation. Currently, Vietnam's young population adapts and grasps the applications of artificial intelligence very quickly. Especially from 2023 to 2024, many technology startups have invested in artificial intelligence application products, which bring new values, support the socio-economic development process, especially the education process and help Vietnamese businesses and individuals develop. Everyone is familiar with ChatGPT, Gemini or tools from Generative AI (Generative AI) used to create photos, videos, content, text editing... This helps to strongly enhance the learning, development, and self-improvement process of each person, not only in the major they are studying and working in but can also serve new majors.

In addition, Gen AI also greatly supports repetitive tasks; manual work, supporting increased labor productivity. Many businesses are looking for solutions to synchronize Gen AI applications into business models, as well as work processes to ensure safety and security related to data as well as starting to have directions to integrate Gen AI into the company's development process.

Vietnam has chosen October 10 as the national digital transformation day. How does this demonstrate the role of technology in general and artificial intelligence in particular in the development of the country, sir? - I regularly attend training courses on AI gene application, digital transformation in administrative work in some localities and find that they are very eager and also apply AI Gen very quickly. Everyone feels that using artificial intelligence is very easy, quickly supporting tasks such as using chatbots to answer questions from people, bringing AI into drafting emails, documents... When deploying in the provinces on AI application in administrative work, I find that it brings a lot of efficiency. We should remember that Vietnam's administrative apparatus is being streamlined, this will cut down on civil servants in many departments. Therefore, when the staff is cut, the application of artificial intelligence will support the staff with many different tasks such as analyzing, synthesizing records, evaluating documents as well as helping them access new expertise even without practical experience. Can you share more about this? - For example, in provinces and cities that are promoting digital transformation applications, from the level of the provincial Department of Information and Communications to each district, town, ward and especially commune staff; clearly they face many difficulties due to limited information technology capacity.

But through AI genes, they can both learn and update circulars and decrees with very specific and detailed instructions; especially, they can include the local context for reference. Here I emphasize the phrase "reference", because AI genes still have responses with low accuracy. During the training process, I also emphasize that no matter what results are generated from artificial intelligence, we need to have a processing and comparison step to ensure absolute accuracy. Vietnam is in the process of strong digital transformation and artificial intelligence is one of the core technologies to achieve this goal. From an expert's perspective, can you share the contributions that AI brings? Currently, the Vietnamese Government expects and positions artificial intelligence as an important factor in the digital transformation process and I would like to emphasize that AI is the most special technology ever, all individuals can access and use it. It is certain that the digital transformation, Industry 4.0 will now take place much faster than any previous industrial revolution. Now, students, students to office workers can access and use AI to support their studies and work, especially jobs related to writing, creativity, marketing, and communication. Everyone, especially young people, are using many AI technologies to support their work and life, which will promote the completion of the digital transformation goals of the Vietnamese Government; companies are also gathering enough resources to build systems and programs related to data to be able to integrate and promote the effects of AI into their organizations, I think this is something that will happen very quickly in the near future.

What are your views on this issue? - AI will replace basic repetitive tasks and highly automated jobs, requiring workers to learn and transform themselves to adapt to this change. It's similar to the period more than 20 years ago, when we started using Word and Excel, at that time an Excel user could calculate much faster than a regular note taker. So regular note takers will have to learn how to use computers, Excel, and in the era of AI integrating more and more deeply, penetrating all aspects of work and life; I see a huge shift in skills, knowledge as well as the change of old jobs and the creation of new jobs. I think the change here is natural following the development of society and technology. Many students ask me that they use Gen AI to support them in doing their homework, especially the GPT chat tool, so how can they use it without becoming dependent or lazy? There are two main reasons: first, we are currently using Gen AI in the habit of using Google - meaning we only ask to look up information. Second, when AI returns results, users often have a judgmental mindset and as I see it, it is a closed mindset. This will lead to the fact that we cannot exploit all the effectiveness of Gen AI, but we often judge and stereotype the results. This action is very dangerous because many times users cannot evaluate whether the answer is correct or not. Therefore, we need to have the skills and knowledge to evaluate the results returned by artificial intelligence, as well as need to be oriented in terms of thinking and methods of using AI to be able to exploit the maximum effectiveness of Gen AI for learning.

So how do businesses need to change, sir? - For businesses, I see that they are looking for many methods, ways and inviting experts to train, apply and develop Gen AI. In fact, Vietnamese companies are very dynamic, transform very quickly and they will quickly achieve these goals. After the Covid-19 pandemic and economic crisis, businesses are currently facing many difficulties, the first step is to organize training programs for employees to use Gen AI properly and apply it to their daily work, how to let employees use Gen AI without being dependent on it, as well as ensure data security for businesses. Obviously, businesses are eager to have a comprehensive solution to integrate and apply GenAI into their apparatus and strategy, but to do that is not feasible now because currently no one knows how far the AI ​​story will develop and what tools will support us. I see that people and businesses need to adapt to learning, now the phrase being mentioned a lot is "lifelong learning", lifelong learning. Therefore, businesses will need to adapt very quickly, change quickly in the process of developing and integrating AI technology. How is the Blockchain and AI Technology Institute contributing to the country's development, sir? - Currently at the Blockchain and AI Technology Institute, we have many projects to research, train and develop Blockchain and AI application products, typically the goal of training 1 million Vietnamese people to be able to use and apply AI to support work and life.

In addition, a very important product that we are deploying day and night and hope to popularize to the people is: MasterTeck Platform. We update and introduce standardized programs on AI, Blockchain as well as technology so that every Vietnamese person has a platform to learn and update knowledge accurately. Finally, we also have an AI product to look up laws, aiming at the goal that every Vietnamese person will have access to and understand the law when they carry out any activity in life or work. In particular, this tool greatly supports the State apparatus, communes, wards, in remote areas so that people as well as local officials can quickly and promptly access the instructions and directions of the State. There is an opinion that, at some point, the cost of operating AI will be saturated with the cost of labor. That will be the time when conflicts and wars between workers and AI will explode. Do you think this is possible and what should humans do to avoid being replaced by AI? - AI is a technology that will develop with humans in the future and we should be open to it and prepare, of course for the worst-case scenarios, so that humans do not lose control. Any development process in history will always have people who adapt, but there will also be people who are left behind. With the current story of AI, we are seeing it more and more clearly.

Currently in Vietnam, I see many 50-year-old uncles and aunts who are still learning and using AI. This is a great thing and I think that Vietnam will never be left behind. Thanks to the efforts to learn and the current large government support policies, we will use AI as a powerful tool for socio-economic development and those who do not accept and are not open to using AI will be at a disadvantage in the future. We can see that at the end of 2022, early 2023, in the West, they also argue a lot about Chat GPT plagiarism or that people using this tool will reduce creativity, academics, and poor research. But now, the number of foreign professors and scholars using AI is very large to support the learning and research process. The most recent Nobel Prize in Chemistry is a typical example of AI technology supporting human development, which is the research on proteins by the group of scientists David Baker, Demis Hassabis and John Jumper. It is clear that from the early days when Chat GPT was born, the academic community also had many concerns and assessments about the accuracy of information, transparency and bias of it. But now they are also using and applying AI very successfully, especially through the results of the recent Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Thank you for taking the time to chat!

Content: Nam Doan

Photo: Quyet Thang

Video: Khanh Vi

Design: Tuan Huy

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