Party General Secretary and State President Tô Lâm (right) shakes hands with Vice President for Government Affairs and Public Policy at Google Karan Bhatia. — VNA/VNS Photo Lâm Khánh

NEW YORK — Party General Secretary and State President Tô Lâm met with Karan Bhatia, Vice President for Government Affairs and Public Policy at Google on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York on September 25 (local time).

Lâm emphasised that Google and its partners’ continued expansion of operations in Việt Nam reflects the country’s increasingly importance to both consolidating the supply chain and developing the market for the group’s products.

Pledging favourable conditions for US firms to operate in Việt Nam, he called on Google to continue guiding its suppliers to expand investment and business activities in the country, and help local companies improve their capacity and join in its supply chain.

He applauded Google’s cooperation proposal on training AI manpower, and asked it to work with the Việt Nam National Innovation Centre, agencies, institutes, and schools in the country to carry out concrete and fruitful projects to practically benefit both sides.

The Vietnamese leader also highly valued the group’s cooperation proposal on cybersecurity, which is a particularly critical area as the Fourth Industrial Revolution is strongly affecting every aspect of the economy.

Bhatia affirmed Google’s commitment to the partnership with Việt Nam. He announced that the firm has opened a new office in HCM City this year while its mobile phone and component manufacturing establishments in Việt Nam are operating efficiently.

He expressed his hope to cooperate with the country in AI development, a sphere of Google’s strength that could be greatly useful to Việt Nam.

Google is expanding skill training in the Southeast Asian nation to foster AI-related collaboration, and also giving policy advice to help facilitate AI development, Bhatia noted, adding that it expects to assist Việt Nam in integrated cloud computing and AI services, and step up cybersecurity collaboration. — VNS