Open technology will be a strategic choice for Vietnam in the digital era

On the afternoon of November 3, 2025, in Hanoi, the Ministry of Science and Technology organized the 2025 Open Technology Forum with the theme “Artificial intelligence with open technology and open source” to exchange, share vision, experience and propose strategic solutions to promote the development of artificial intelligence (AI) for national digital transformation.

The road for Vietnam to become a tech-nation

Speaking at the opening of the Forum, Minister of Science and Technology Nguyen Manh Hung emphasized the importance of digital technology for economic, social life and the inevitable development of open technology in sharing and connecting digital knowledge.

“Digital technology has been and will be infiltrating every corner of social life and will become our breathable air. So it has to be as cheap as the air. And the solution to get that is open technology. Open technology is not only open source, but also open architecture and open standards. Accompanying open technology is an open culture. We will all contribute to the development of technology, share the use of technology to achieve the universalization of the whole people,” Minister Nguyen Manh Hung said.

According to Minister Nguyen Manh Hung, open technology is utilized for countries to master the technology that they use. As before, we used to buy a "Black Box" from another country and leave our country's fate to another country. Currently, many countries have announced that they only buy technology when technology is open, especially when those technologies are used to build key national infrastructure.

The greatest creation is the creativity of the whole people. And it is this creativity that can solve the problems, the problems of each individual, each small organization and of each country. No company, no multinational corporation, no matter how large the scale, can solve all problems, meet all the needs of change.

No one can understand our problems better than ourselves, and so we will be the best person to solve our problems. The creativity of the whole people can only happen when technology is open. Open technology will unleash the creative capacity of each individual. Each person stands on the shoulders of others to grow and from there creates a new higher ground for others.

With a country like Vietnam, to go ahead, you have to stand on the shoulders of others. The choice of open technology development, the choice of open source software development, the choice of open data for individuals and businesses to participate in the creation of new values is our direction.

With this orientation, Vietnam will develop into a technologically industrialized country, based on and inheriting human knowledge but also contributing to human knowledge, the Minister of Science and Technology shared.

Minister Nguyen Manh Hung said that AI needs to be developed in an open way to ensure safety, transparency and technological sovereignty.

Quoting Elon Musk’s view that “If powerful AI is controlled by a few companies, that would be the greatest risk to humanity’s future,” the Minister emphasized that the stronger AI becomes, the more it needs community oversight, transparency in resources and models, to prevent abuse of power, bias, or manipulation. Open-source code enables nations to access core technologies, foster business ecosystems, and popularize AI applications.

Open to accelerate innovation, shorten the technological gap; open to self-control, master the technology core and avoid being locked into the foundation of others; open to nurture the business ecosystem, especially startups; open to transparency and safety, with many parties monitoring, reduce the risk of deviations and manipulation, the Minister stressed, and affirmed: Open must be disciplined, have safety standards and have inspections.

To realize that vision, the State must play a role in leading the open-ended game, through the use of open source in the Digital Government, the National AI Supercalculation Center, the National AI Open Database, and order open AI problems.

This is not only a commitment, but also a strategy of Make in Vietnam – developing and mastering Vietnamese technology on an open standard foundation, because of a self-reliant, creative and sustainable Vietnam.

Ministry of Science and Technology commits to pioneer the completion of legal corridors for AI

Presenting the report “Developing the Open AI Ecosystem – The Foundation for Technological Autonomy and National Innovation,” the Director of Ho Duc Thang National Institute of Digital Technology and Digital Transformation said that Vietnam is standing at a historical crossroads: Amid the path of dependence on the “black box of technology” and the path of autonomy – creativity – sovereignty named Open Technology. The choice of open technology is the choice of bravery and national aspiration, the path to creating the sovereignty of a number of countries.

According to the Director of National Institute of Digital Technology and Digital Transformation, the philosophy of "open" is fully compatible with the spirit of Make in Vietnam. AI today is not just a tool, but a national intellectual infrastructure, like electricity or the Internet. A country that does not own intellectual infrastructure will lose its sovereign sovereignty in the 21st century.

Open technology allows Vietnam to “stand on the shoulders of giants”, taking advantage of global knowledge to solve native problems – from Vietnamese data, specific applications to creativity with Vietnamese identity. To turn the vision into reality, it is necessary to synchronize the development of three pillars of strength:

Firstly, the national computational infrastructure, including data centers and high-performance computing clusters “Make in Vietnam”, is a physical backbone for AI development.

Secondly, the data platform is open, creates data warehouses, standardizes Vietnamese data, and builds large language models that speak Vietnamese, “understand our culture and serve the interests of our people.”

Thirdly, build an open AI community where scientists, engineers and businesses participate in the development and contribution of common knowledge.

Citing Minister Nguyen Manh Hung, Mr. Ho Duc Thang affirmed that open AI is not only a technology story, but a development vision – a path to a strong and prosperous Vietnam. In order to realize that vision, it is necessary to join hands with the whole society in the spirit: the State creates institutions, enterprises to develop technology, and the community joins hands to contribute.

On the State side, the Ministry of Science and Technology is committed to pioneering the completion of the legal corridor for AI, building a flexible test framework, investing in national computing infrastructure and renewing the public procurement mechanism to create an "order" for AI solutions in Vietnam.

Enterprises, institutes - universities are called to lead research, apply open AI, create products "Make in Vietnam" with global competitiveness. The community of experts and engineers is encouraged to become "soldiers on the open-life knowledge front", building the "collective brain" of the nation.

The Director of the National Institute of Digital Technology and Digital Transformation concluded with a message: If in 1945, Uncle Ho said "Nothing is more precious than independence and freedom" then in 2025, we can affirm: Nothing is more important than digital sovereignty. In this spirit, Vietnam can fully rise to become the center of innovation on open AI of the region and the world, contributing to the realization of the national aspirations of prosperity and prosperity in 2045.

Within the framework of the Forum, delegates had heated exchanges, focusing on two main topics: Open technology, open source and application of AI; computational infrastructure and security safety for AI development.

The Vietnam 2025 Open Technology Forum has affirmed the strategic role of AI and open technology, while demonstrating Vietnam’s aspiration to self-control and creativity with the spirit of “Open to master, create and breakthrough”. /.

Translated by Vietnam Journal of Science and Technology (VJST - MOST).