AI race: Which direction for Vietnamese businesses?

AI tools have taken the world by storm, and Vietnam is no exception. Businesses and individuals are increasingly comfortable with the new technology.

“Vietnamese users respond to ChatGPT relatively well. This can also serve as a welcome signal for the AI development and application story in Vietnam," said Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Xuan Hoai, Director of the AI Academy Vietnam, at the WISE Talk No. 7 of VnEconomy.

CEO Nguyen Vu Anh of Coc Coc, a popular web browser and search engine in Vietnam, said many local users have been using ChatGPT daily on the browser.

He estimated that Vietnam currently has half a million daily users of ChatGPT.

“That is a very large number, especially considering OpenAI is restricting ChatGPT in the Vietnamese market," Anh said.

According to Finbold's data, the global AI market is estimated to reach a valuation of US$208 billion this year, with the potential to hit US$1.87 trillion by 2030.

The global AI market is expected to cross US$1 trillion for the first time in 2028.

Despite this, experts say that Vietnamese businesses face many challenges getting ahead in the AI application race.

According to Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Xuan Hoai, technology in general is changing fast, but AI is an area of particular concern to business.

“Today we're talking about ChatGPT, or AI in general, but in three or five years, we may be talking about something completely different. Businesses need to calculate how they invest their time and capital very carefully,” he added.

ChatGPT has already made a strong impression and many ordinary people are now familiar with how it works, he said.

Vietnamese businesses and individuals are excited for the possibilities, but also anxious about the new technology.

They're content that AI is not an incomprehensible technology - they can apply it to increase productivity and quality of life.

The flip side is that AI is already on the radar of the world's largest companies.

As AI opens up to big competition, a fierce battle will commence with the winner taking a major share of the market.

This has been demonstrated clearly in the case of ChatGPT from OpenAI and Microsoft.

Immediately after ChatGPT laucnhed, giants such as Google and Facebook quickly stepped in and launched their own products, but none of them have been able to steal the limelight from ChatGPT.

ChatGPT has has already been used to build new products, business models, financial strategies, and more.

Dr. Nguyen Xuan Hoai commented that “for Vietnamese businesses, there will be no right-wrong story but only a story of choices. If we choose a global strategy then it will be very difficult to compete with Big Tech abroad. Vietnam is not alone in this situation - many countries are also experiencing this situation."

We could choose to stand on the shoulders of giants to compete, he said.

“AI models such as ChatGPT are still very new. Most of these models only answer general information, and if we want the answers to be clear in a specific context for an industry or business, or a country, we will have to refine the models, Hoai said.

The third option is to do it differently to everyone else, he explained. For example, in agriculture there is AI software used to identify rice grains in Japan and the US, but rice in Vietnam is different, so we can't use the existing tools and must develop our own solution for the local market.

In addition, if wanting a more global perspective, businesses should choose the “niche way", and build an application support system and put AI into practice, he said.

There is one thing everyone can agree on. The system needs to ensure some criteria of safety, security, and compliance with the country's regulations.

Source: VNS