CMC OpenAI Ushers in a New Era for Vietnamese AI
The recent launch of CMC OpenAI (C-OpenAI) represents a significant new milestone in Việt Nam’s national ambition to fully embrace a comprehensive AI-driven era. According to Nguyễn Trung Chính, Chairman and Executive President of CMC Corporation, C-OpenAI is specifically designed to serve the country’s citizens with top-tier reliability and robust data security, a crucial factor in building public trust and ensuring national digital sovereignty. The platform is built on 25 core proprietary technologies, including advanced capabilities in computer vision, natural language processing, large language models, speech processing, and data lake house management. These technologies, which have already seen considerable commercial success and earned international recognition, are running on CMC Cloud, which ensures that all of Việt Nam’s sensitive data remains within the country’s borders. CMC plans to deploy its AI solutions across a wide range of critical sectors, including virtual assistants for legal and citizen services, education, healthcare, finance-banking, manufacturing, and public administration, positioning itself as a central player in the nation’s digital transformation.
Embracing a Knowledge-Based Economic Model
Minister of Science and Technology Nguyễn Mạnh Hùng praised C-OpenAI as a prime example of a business model tailored for a knowledge-based economy. He drew a clear distinction between developed and underdeveloped nations, stating that a developed nation’s assets are 80% intellectual property, while an underdeveloped one’s are 80% physical assets. This powerful analogy underscores Việt Nam’s strategic shift toward intellectual capital as the primary driver of future growth. The Ministry is actively encouraging more domestic technology firms to adopt a hybrid model that effectively combines capital with knowledge and blends physical assets with intellectual ones. Minister Hùng highlighted C-OpenAI’s key advantages, which include its unique access to domestic data, its ability to solve problems specific to Việt Nam’s market, and its foundational reliance on open-source AI and the ingenuity of local talent. CMC’s strategic embrace of open-source AI is a deliberate move aimed at fostering nationwide creativity, reducing development costs, and broadening access to advanced AI solutions that can address a wide array of socio-economic issues, making the technology more accessible and impactful for the entire country.
Strategic AI Development and National Goals
CMC’s ambitious project is perfectly aligned with Việt Nam’s broader national goals for technological advancement. Globally, a growing number of governments are recognizing the importance of open technologies for critical infrastructure investments, including 5G and AI. This trend reinforces Việt Nam’s strategic decision to leverage open-source solutions to build its AI capabilities. The nation has set clear and ambitious targets for itself, as outlined in the Politburo’s Resolution No. 57-NQ/TW, which aims for Việt Nam to rank among the top three countries in Southeast Asia for AI research and development by 2030. Furthermore, AI has been designated as a top strategic technology in the Government’s Decision No. 1131/QĐ-TTg, a key document that details priority technologies and products essential for national development. By focusing on a domestically-built, data-sovereign, and open-source approach, C-OpenAI is not only a commercial venture but also a strategic asset that contributes directly to these national objectives, helping to position Việt Nam as a regional leader in AI and a formidable player in the global knowledge economy.
