It is no coincidence that in Silicon Valley - the technology capital of the US and the world - a new trend is starting. That is, large technology companies such as: Semiconductor Manufacturing Company NVIDIA, Electric Vehicle Manufacturing Company Tesla, and a series of other technology giants such as Apple, Microsoft, Google are in the process of "self-transformation", investing heavily in AI platforms and even defining themselves as AI companies, not traditional technology companies anymore.

According to NVIDIA Chairman and Founder Jensen Huang, AI will help humans realize unlimited ambitions, helping the world produce hundreds of times more material wealth than humans have produced since its inception. NVIDIA alone, thanks to reshaping the company and focusing only on producing products that build AI platforms, has made great strides. In 2023 alone, the company's market value increased more than 2.5 times, from 480 billion USD to nearly 1,300 billion USD.

What is AI , why should we focus on AI and not semiconductor chips to create technological breakthroughs and opportunities for Vietnam?

There are many different definitions of AI, but in the simplest terms, AI aims to develop computer systems and algorithms that can imitate, think similarly, and perform tasks that require human intelligence with a speed and perfection that is thousands of times faster. The birth of the ChatGPT language model - an application of OpenAI - 3 years ago was considered a blockbuster even though this test version was quite simple and still had many flaws. Very quickly after that, the ChatGPT push invisibly promoted the race, both public and secret, to gain a dominant position in providing infrastructure, solutions, services... in the field of AI between giant technology companies such as NVIDIA, Intel, Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet and pioneering countries in this field such as the US and China, becoming more fierce than ever. Any company or country that is a leader in the field of AI will certainly have an absolute advantage over its competitors in shaping AI technology standards, general development trends, and field-based development of AI in key technology areas.

According to the forecast of the global auditing and consulting firm PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers), AI will contribute up to 15,700 billion USD to the global economy by 2030. The global AI market is expected to grow at a rate of about 40% from 2021 to 2030, an increase of about 20 times - from 100 billion USD to nearly 2,000 billion USD. Meanwhile, the market value of the semiconductor industry increases much more slowly, only at 7% - 8% for the period from 2021 to 2030 and the value only increases from nearly 600 billion USD to nearly 1,000 billion USD in 2030, which is only half of the AI ​​industry.

With such a big pie, it can be seen that large technology companies in Silicon Valley are quickly positioning and transforming themselves into AI companies for the following reasons:

Creating a Competitive Advantage: Early adoption and innovation of AI technology will help them gain a competitive advantage in the market. By highlighting their AI capabilities, these companies seek to differentiate themselves from their competitors and position themselves as leaders in the rapidly evolving AI landscape.

Capturing and leading market demand: By positioning themselves as AI companies, these companies are and will attract customers who are looking for AI-powered products and services.

Branding and creating awareness among the public and customers: Associating with AI creates an image of a company that is cutting-edge and forward-thinking. By incorporating AI, companies are shaping their brand awareness and attracting investors, potential partners, and customers interested in these future technologies.

Market Positioning: By positioning themselves as AI companies, these companies position themselves as key players in shaping the future of AI. This positioning allows them to attract top talent, build strategic partnerships, and stay at the forefront of AI advancements.

AI for Vietnam, we need to realize that this AI revolution has some differences compared to previous "mini revolutions" in the technology field such as the birth of desktop computers, handheld mobile devices, the internet, cloud computing or semiconductor chips. In these changes, we are often behind other countries by about 10-20 years. Experience shows that for latecomers, finding a way to enter a mature market, divided among the big players, is not easy because we no longer have many advantages. In most cases, joining later makes us only play the role of processing, assembling or participating in stages that do not create high profit margins.

However, this AI revolution has a new point. For most countries in the world, AI is an almost completely new field. The difficulties that countries, including Vietnam, are facing are almost equal. Meanwhile, focusing resources on AI research and development at this time will put Vietnam in a position almost equal to other companies and countries. In addition, Vietnam currently has certain advantages compared to many other countries, which are:

Although Vietnam is a developing country, its technological development level surpasses many countries with similar income or development levels, with some technology companies reaching regional and even global levels such as Viettel, FPT...

Vietnam has a large team of programmers with more than 1 million engineers, with the world's leading software export volume. This team can be upgraded and retrained to develop into engineers writing software for AI.

Located in an important geo-strategic position in the region, attracting the attention of many partners, upgrading relations with some of the world's leading countries in the technology field in recent times such as the US, Japan, and South Korea has created better conditions for attracting external resources and promoting cooperation in the field of AI.

Besides, there is the attention of the Government and the digital transformation process taking place strongly in many localities, fields, ministries and branches.

All of the above factors show that the opportunity for development, making Vietnam a country with a name on the world technology map, is very large. If we can overcome internal obstacles and seize opportunities with reasonable policies, technology, especially AI, will be a breakthrough field, bringing Vietnam to the "1,000 billion USD club" in the near future!