Hanoi (VNA) – A stable economy, a rapidly developing ecosystem, a favourable startup environment, low costs, and support from policies are creating favourable conditions for Artificial intelligence (AI) startups to thrive, said insiders.
AI is developing rapidly and gradually establishing itself as a foundational and breakthrough technology in the 4th Industrial Revolution. However, this process also faces numerous challenges and barriers while impacting various aspects of contemporary life in positive ways.
Increasingly fierce competition
The race to develop AI is becoming increasingly fierce globally and is expected to significantly change behaviour, not only for individual users but also for businesses.
To leverage the potential along with practical opportunities for AI development solutions, the Vietnam National Innovation Centre (NIC) in collaboration with the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) partnered with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to organise a seminar themed "Vietnam AI Frontier: Funding and Futures in Vietnam” on May 22 as part of the Vietnam Innovation Challenge (VIC) programme.
Sharing insights into the future of AI, Kai Yong Kang, Business Development Manager - Startups at Amazon Web Services (AWS) said that 2024 is referred to as the "year of products."
He said that within the vast scope of AI, Generative AI (GenAI) has been the hottest topic recently. This represents a significant advancement where technology can mimic human intelligence by generating new content (such as text, image, music, video) from the data it has been trained on. GenAI is fundamentally changing human behaviour and approaches to work, learning, entertainment, artistic creativity, and deeply impacting all aspects of life.
Regarding this, Le Vy, CEO of Do Ventures Fund, noted that technology companies are heavily investing in GenAI.
According to Vy, the most important factor for startup development is to create favourable infrastructure.
Vietnam boasts a stable economy, rapidly developing ecosystem, conducive startup environment, low costs, and support from government policies and large enterprises. All of these have provided great conditions for AI startups to flourish, Vy said.
Many GenAI founders benefit from partnerships with large corporations, where vast systems and data are readily available, she noted, adding that this is particularly impressive as corporations in Vietnam all have policies to collaborate with startups.
Vy said a huge amount of capital is being directed to GenAI startups in leading technology centres such as Silicon Valley and Europe.
However, she also noted that the AI market, although "fertile", is also changing rapidly, as applications are constantly updated, therefore, investors in the region need to consider carefully before deciding to cooperate with a GenAI startup.
The three key factors to evaluate an AI startup are competitive advantage, revenue model, and human resources, Vy said.
Meanwhile, Laura Nguyen, Partner at GenAI Fund, emphasised that the top concern of investment funds is ensuring the sustainability of startups' business models.
Laura said that GenAI startups need to focus on protecting their businesses against risks from the AI market, while always innovating and creating.
According to Valerie Vu, Founder of Ansible Ventures, with their intelligence and abilities, Vietnamese engineers can take their AI applications to the world.
While Western countries focus on software development, Vietnam has the advantage of high-quality human resources, both in charge of software and hardware development, Valerie said.
With its role of coordinating, creating a legal corridor and supporting policy mechanisms, the MPI is making initial efforts in building the foundation for the startup ecosystem.
The VIC 2024, which is co-organised by the Ministry and US tech giant Meta Group is one of the key programmes.
With strong pushes from policies and support from programmes such as VIC, participants shared the view that AI has great potential to contribute to socioeconomic development, improving the quality of life and work efficiency in Vietnam./.
