For the first time, Vietnam has a master plan for IT&T infrastructure, with the orientation of developing into a new generation infrastructure, synchronizing components, creating harmonious and sustainable development between regions and localities. From there, creating a new development space for the country, creating favorable conditions for the development of digital government, digital economy, and digital society. In terms of the national master plan, the implementation of IT&T infrastructure planning is considered to play an important role in the overall socio-economic development of Vietnam. VietNamNet would like to send readers a series of articles about the picture of IT&T infrastructure in the digital age.

Lesson 1: Planning IT&T infrastructure will promote national digital transformation

Article 2: Vietnam aims to be in the top 10 countries in Asia in terms of domain names

New space needs new infrastructure

Speaking about digital infrastructure, Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Manh Hung affirmed: “For a country to develop, it must rely on new spaces. New development spaces are mainly digital spaces. New spaces need new infrastructure, which is digital infrastructure. The next 10-20-30 years will be important shifts in the second innovation of the industry: From telecommunications infrastructure to digital infrastructure” .

Therefore, the Information and Communications Infrastructure Planning also focuses on developing digital infrastructure. Accordingly, broadband telecommunications networks require large capacity, high speed, modern technology, and widely integrated Internet of Things (IoT) infrastructure, ensuring harmonious development, serving digital transformation, digital government, digital economy, digital society, and national security and defense.

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Goal by 2030: Vietnam will have a 5G mobile broadband network covering 99% of the population, aiming to develop the next generation of advanced mobile networks. Photo: Viettel

Vietnam will form large-scale data centers, following green standards, closely following regional energy planning; ensuring that data centers are synchronously connected, have data interconnectivity and mutual redundancy, promote the development of the big data industry; improve performance and effectively exploit existing data centers.

In addition, Vietnam will prioritize and encourage the use of cloud computing owned by Vietnamese enterprises, serving the connection and management of resources and data in a flexible, stable and effective manner, strictly complying with regulations on network information security.

Will develop 4 - 6 more international submarine optical cable lines

A representative of the Department of Telecommunications said that the Information and Communications Infrastructure Planning determines the orientation for the development of telecommunications infrastructure, in which the broadband telecommunications network ensures large capacity, high speed, and modern technology.

One of the key tasks is to develop 4-6 more international submarine optical cable lines by 2030. According to the content of the Plan, it is necessary to deploy and invest in 4-6 more submarine optical cable lines to serve domestic needs and meet the requirements of regional data centers, with landing points at convenient locations along the coast, prioritizing locations that already have landing stations, and have connections to island districts and large islands of Vietnam. In particular, planning 1 optical cable line in the Gulf of Thailand area, planning to place the landing station at a location in the Ha Tien - Rach Gia - Ca Mau economic corridor, with connections to Phu Quoc island district and large islands of Vietnam, prioritizing islands with grid electricity.

“Developing 4-6 more international submarine optical cable lines as planned will diversify connection directions, balance the load for the submarine telecommunications cables currently in use, ensure network safety, optimize service quality, and move towards acting as an intermediary for Internet traffic for countries in the region,” said a representative of the Telecommunications Department.

50% of people use cloud computing services

According to the assessment of the Telecommunications Department, Vietnam's connection infrastructure is basically very good. However, in terms of cloud computing infrastructure, Vietnam is still in its early stages and needs to make more efforts. Currently, Vietnam's cloud computing infrastructure is mainly provided by foreign enterprises, with about 80% of the market share in the hands of foreign suppliers such as Google, Amazon, etc.

With the orientation of developing cloud computing, aiming for revenue from the cloud computing market in Vietnam to reach at least 1% of GDP (about 4.7 billion USD) by 2025 is an ambitious number. Striving to achieve the above goal will open up a large market for domestic enterprises.

According to the plan, Vietnam will have 100% of state agencies and enterprises and over 50% of people using cloud computing services provided by domestic enterprises. To achieve this goal, the State will have solutions to accompany enterprises and will issue many policies to develop domestic cloud computing.

Target by 2025:

- 100% of households have access to fiber optic cable when needed, with 90% of users having access to fixed Internet, with an average speed of 200 Mb/s, and 90% of socio-economic organizations such as enterprises, production and business establishments, schools, hospitals, and offices in urban areas having access to the Internet with an average speed of 1 Gb/s.

- Mobile broadband network with an average download speed of at least 40 Mbps for 4G and 100 Mbps for 5G and 100% of the adult population having smartphones.

- 100% of high-tech zones, concentrated information technology zones, research, development and innovation centers can access the Internet with a minimum speed of 1Gb/s.

- 100% of Party and State agencies from the central to communal level are connected to the specialized data transmission network serving Party and State agencies.

- 100% of essential infrastructure such as transportation, energy, electricity, water, and urban areas are capable of integrating sensors and IoT applications.

- 100% of government agencies use cloud computing ecosystems to serve digital government and 70% of Vietnamese enterprises use cloud computing services provided by domestic enterprises.

- Vietnam will deploy and invest in 2-4 more international telecommunication cables.

- Deploy national data centers, at least 3 national multi-purpose data center clusters, regional multi-purpose data center clusters and 1-2 regional data centers to serve the needs of Vietnamese financial centers and for the region and internationally.

Target by 2030:

- Vietnam will have a fixed broadband access network infrastructure that is invested in and upgraded to ensure that 100% of users have access to speeds above 1Gb/s.

- 5G mobile broadband network covers 99% of the population, aiming to develop the next generation advanced mobile network.

- 100% of state agencies, state-owned enterprises and over 50% of people use cloud computing services provided by domestic enterprises.

- Develop 4-6 more international submarine optical cable lines.

- Develop large-scale data center clusters according to green standards, connect and share to form a network of data center clusters to promote the big data industry, including forming at least 3 national data center clusters.