Paris (VNA) - Alongside investment resources, Vietnam needs more flexible mechanisms that encourage innovation, risk-taking and talent attraction to drive breakthroughs in strategic technologies, in line with the Politburo’s Resolution 57 on science – technology development, innovation and national digital transformation, a Vietnamese expert based in France has said.
Vietnam’s goal to develop 10 strategic technology groups and 30 strategic technology products marks an important step toward achieving the national target set by the resolution. However, real breakthroughs will depend not only on investment but also on governance mechanisms that are flexible enough to foster innovation and attract talent.
According to Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tran Le Hung from Gustave Eiffel University (France), many countries have invested heavily in cutting-edge technologies but have failed to achieve expected results. The main constraints, he said, are often not capital or human resources, but regulatory bottlenecks, policy policies and implementation mechanisms.
As a member of the Global Network of Young Vietnamese Intellectuals, Hung stressed that in a rapidly evolving technological landscape, the key challenge is ensuring public policy can keep pace with innovation.
He cited the European Union’s regulatory framework for data and artificial intelligence, including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the AI Act, saying that these rules help protect user privacy and ensure safety, but also significantly increase compliance costs for tech firms, which slows innovation and reduces competitiveness
From this experience, he said Vietnam should adopt a more flexible management mechanism tailored to different technologies and levels of risk, making it easier for businesses to experiment with new technologies within controlled frameworks.
He highlighted the importance of regulatory sandbox mechanisms, which enable firms to test new products in real-world conditions and help regulators refine policies based on practical outcomes.
Regarding support policies for technology enterprises, the expert warned that financial assistance, if poorly designed, could create dependency on public funding. He suggested linking support programmes to specific and measurable technical goals, and disbursing funds in stages based on results.
He also proposed strengthening innovation-driven procurement and competitive competitions, in which the State sets technological problems and enterprises compete to develop solutions, thereby improving efficiency in the use of public resources.
Human resources, he said, remain the decisive factor in the long-term success of strategic technology programmes. While Vietnam may not be able to compete with countries such as the US or Singapore in terms of salary, it has advantages in attracting talent through meaningful projects with social impact, and those contributing to the national development.
Hung noted that Vietnam holds rich data resources in areas such as healthcare, transport, agriculture and public administration, which could serve as a strong foundation for AI development if effectively harnessed. He also proposed more open mechanisms to attract international experts and overseas Vietnamese intellectuals to contribute to the nation’s science and technology programmes.
Regarding the 30 strategic technology products, he stressed that Vietnam should aim to integrate more deeply into global supply chains rather than focusing solely on the domestic market. Instead of developing entire production chains, the country should prioritise areas where it has competitive advantages, ensuring that Vietnamese-developed technologies and components become part of globally used products.
He suggested prioritising areas with the potential for breakthroughs such as AI, 5G and 6G technologies, robotics and agricultural automation, battery and energy storage technologies, as well as technologies serving major infrastructure projects such as nuclear power and high-speed rail./.
VNA
