Vietnam’s largest city, Ho Chi Minh City, is investing in the latest emerging technology, including blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI) and 5G, as it seeks to become one of Asia’s digital hubs.
The city intends to allocate at least 3% of its annual budget in 2030 to research and development of the latest technology, local outlets report. In 2024, the city’s budget stood at 502 trillion VND ($20.5 billion).
The new initiative is the city’s local implementation of Resolution 57-NQ/TW, a roadmap published by the Communist Party of Vietnam last December. It outlines a plan to grow the digital economy to contribute at least 30% of Vietnam’s GDP by 2030 and establish it as a high-income nation by 2045, where the digital economy would contribute at least half the national GDP.
Ho Chi Minh City targets to produce 5,000 startups and five centers of excellence in major tech fields. Vietnam ranked 31st and fifth in Southeast Asia last year for the number of startups globally, respectively. Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, the capital, ranked 111th and 157th globally and 6th and 7th in the region, respectively.
With blockchain and digital assets, Vietnam has been among the global trailblazers, ranking first globally for adoption in the Chainalysis index in 2021 and 2022. The most recent ranking placed the country fifth.
Vietnamese firms have also been increasingly exploring blockchain technology to enhance efficiency, cut costs and improve transparency. Most recently, several firms in the agricultural sector have leveraged blockchain to prove their produce adheres to halal standards.
The country hasn’t fared as well in AI. While it ranked fifth in Southeast Asia for AI readiness, it was 39th globally, according to one study.
To advance AI, Ho Chi Minh City intends to promote semiconductor production in the city, which is home to ten million residents. Other Asian nations have become critical cogs in the burgeoning AI sector by producing the chips on which AI models are trained, with Taiwan and South Korea as the two frontrunners.
Ho Chi Minh will not be starting from scratch. The city is already home to Intel’s (NASDAQ: INTC) $1.5 billion semiconductor assembly and test facility, the American firm’s largest facility of its kind globally. The city will have to compete with other local hubs for semiconductor supremacy; for instance, the northern city of Bac Ninh is home to a $1.6 billion facility owned by American firm Amkor.
Beyond supporting new startups, Ho Chi Minh City intends to digitize the city’s economy, targeting 80% cashless payments.
Watch: Blockchain & AI unlock possibilities
title=”YouTube video player” frameborder=”0″ allow=”accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share” referrerpolicy=”strict-origin-when-cross-origin” allowfullscreen=””>
