How Vietnam Develops AI Without Losing Control
ho chi minh stad, dinsdag, 2 december 2025.
Vietnam stands on the brink of a significant step in the world of artificial intelligence. During a seminar in Ho Chi Minh City on Tuesday, the country unveiled its national AI manifesto with an unexpected goal: not only to use AI, but to develop it independently—based on open data, open standards, and a ‘Make in Vietnam’ infrastructure. The most striking aspect? Vietnam aims to position AI as a national intellectual infrastructure, akin to electricity or the internet, yet with a strong emphasis on humanity, safety, and ethics. With a young, tech-savvy population of 100 million and a strategy that balances global collaboration with national sovereignty, the country is striving to find a balance between innovation and responsibility. In an era when AI risks rapidly spiralling out of control, Vietnam’s approach offers a valuable lesson in how technology can advance without losing sight of its human core.
Vietnam’s AI Manifesto: A New Perspective on Technological Sovereignty
On Tuesday, 2 December 2025, in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam unveiled its national AI manifesto during the seminar ‘AI for Humanity: AI Ethics and Safety in the New Era’ as part of the VinFuture 2025 Science and Technology Week. The manifesto, built around the core principles ‘Humanity – Openness – Safety – Autonomy – Collaboration – Inclusion – Sustainability’, presents an ambitious vision in which artificial intelligence is no longer merely a tool, but a national intellectual infrastructure—comparable to electricity or the internet [1][2][3]. This vision is a strategic response to the rapid evolution of AI technology, which rendered the old 2021 AI strategy inadequate in light of recent technological breakthroughs [1]. Deputy Minister of Science and Technology, Bui The Duy, emphasized that AI represents a historic opportunity to accelerate economic growth, improve public administration performance, and build a sustainable, inclusive technological infrastructure [1][2]. According to him, the AI era is comparable to the industrial or digital revolution, where nations that effectively manage this process gain a superior advantage across socio-economic and defence domains [2][3]. Vietnam aims to play a leading role by not only using the technology, but also developing it through a ‘Make in Vietnam’ infrastructure based on open standards and open data [1][2][3].
From Open Data to National AI Ethics: The Foundation of the Vietnamese Model
Vietnam’s approach to AI is characterised by a unique blend of openness and national sovereignty. Deputy Minister Bui The Duy stressed that ‘open’ is not merely a technological choice, but an ethical necessity: open standards, open data, and open-source code are essential to ensure safety, transparency, and global knowledge exchange [1][2][3]. This philosophy is embedded in the idea that technology in the digital age knows globalisation, but data remains local—meaning critical applications must run on national infrastructure [2][3]. To ensure this, Vietnam is building a national AI supercomputer centre, an open data ecosystem, and a ‘Make in Vietnam’ AI infrastructure [1][2][3]. Moreover, the country aims to adopt a national AI ethics code with core principles such as risk-based management, transparency, accountability, and putting people at the centre [1][2][3]. This ethics code will be supported by the National Technology Innovation Fund, which will allocate 30–40% of its resources to AI applications, including AI vouchers for small and medium enterprises [1][2][3]. University Principal Lecturer Luu Anh Tuan highlighted that Vietnam, by building from scratch, has a unique opportunity to generate ‘clean’ data—including dialects of ethnic groups—and develop an ethical mechanism to prevent misinformation and fake news [2].
Economic Vision and Strategic Plans for 2025
Vietnam is pursuing an economic transformation in which AI serves as a driving force. Deputy Minister Bui The Duy stated that AI presents a historic opportunity to achieve breakthroughs, enhance labour productivity, attain double-digit growth rates, and strengthen national governance capacity [1][2][3]. The country, ranked as the 32nd largest economy in the world, has 100 million young, dynamic, and technically skilled people, 11 strategic technology clusters, rich data resources, and an active community of research startups—conditions that provide favourable groundwork for AI development [1][2][3]. As part of this vision, Vietnam plans to announce an updated AI strategy and AI law by the end of 2025, formally designating AI as the nation’s ‘intellectual infrastructure’ [1][2][3]. Although the exact date of this announcement remains unspecified, the seminar on 2 December 2025 (Tuesday) is scheduled as a pivotal moment within this process [1][2][3]. The development of AI infrastructure is grounded in four pillars: institutions, infrastructure, human resources, and AI culture—interconnected and complementary [1][2][3]. The Saigon AI Hub, the first open AI research space in Ho Chi Minh City, has already been launched as part of this strategy [2].
The Role of International Collaboration and Local Capability
Vietnam’s AI strategy is defined by the word ‘and’: global and local, collaboration and autonomy, technology and application, elite and mass, open and protected data [1][2][3]. This balance is enabled by active collaboration with international experts, including Yoshua Bengio, Geoffrey Hinton, Vinton Cerf, and Toby Walsh, who participated in the 2 December 2025 seminar [2]. Geoff Hinton, winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics, warned that AI models may behave like ‘agents’ capable of complex responses that cannot be easily explained [2]. Yoshua Bengio underscored the challenge that society is still unable to predict the behaviour of complex models, and cautioned that large-scale models could optimise themselves in ways that cause humans to lose control over the technology they created [2]. Vinton Cerf, the ‘father of the internet’, reminded attendees that despite its good intentions, the internet has caused a series of negative consequences due to the absence of ethical norms from its inception [2]. Vietnam aims to set an example by building an ethical framework from the outset, where the state, businesses, and citizens jointly manage the infrastructure [2].
Future Vision: From AI Strategy to Practical Implementation
Vietnam is moving toward an AI era in which technology is not only implemented, but fully understood and controlled. With a young population, an ambitious strategy, and a clear ethical direction, the country is taking a unique step: developing AI without losing control. By combining openness with national sovereignty, and linking technology to humanity, safety, and sustainability, Vietnam offers a model that is not only economically significant but also ethically responsible. The coming months will reveal whether this model can be successfully implemented in practice, particularly through the announcement of the revised AI strategy and AI law by the end of 2025 [1][2][3].