Speakers at the 2019 Tech Summit organised by Nhịp Cầu Đầu Tư magazine in HCM City on Thursday. — VNS Photo Bồ Xuân Hiệp

HCM CITY — With an increasing amount of data and faster processing power, AI, blockchain, cloud and data technologies are increasingly applied in almost every industry, opening up new business opportunities and attracting new investments, experts told a tech summit in HCM City on Thursday (Aug 29).

More than 300 executives from leading tech firms and start-ups participated in the summit organised by Nhịp Cầu Đầu Tư magazine to discuss the application of ABCD (AI-blockchain-cloud-data) in transforming business models and shared success stories about Vietnamese and international start-ups.

According to US research firm Tractica, AI-based applications are expected to earn revenues of US$59.7 billion a year by 2025.

Experts said AI leverages algorithms to predict demand, increase product keyword search rankings and suggest similar products and services and how to display products and prevent counterfeiting.

The impact of AI is hard to perceive but silently improves the core operations of a business, they said.

AI is used in a diverse range of businesses to increase sales, make product recommendations on e-commerce sites and analyse consumer behaviour to increase demand, they said.

The development trends in AI in the near future would focus on processing neural networks and natural languages, and this would be an opportunity for Vietnamese start-ups to explore potential co-operation and investment opportunities, they said.

Big data is a field that treats ways to analyse, systematically extract information from, or otherwise deal with data sets that are too large or complex to be dealt with by traditional data-processing application software, according to experts.

In addition, when combined with other technology applications like AI, big data helps analyse customers’ behaviours and hobbies more accurately.

Nguyễn Minh Đức, deputy director of Ernst & Young Việt Nam, said the world is witnessing and taking advantage of technological development, which is changing lives and creating jobs in new fields and new business opportunities.

It is also changing the system of communication between people and between people and machines.

In this context, Việt Nam is catching up on new technological trends such as IoT, AI and block chain on the back of Government policies and innovative start-up ideas.

While Vietnamese technology companies are attracting investments worth hundreds of millions of dollars, there is no Vietnamese unicorn start-up yet though there are many in the region, he said.

Talking about the start-up ecosystem in Việt Nam, Lê Hoàng Uyên Vy, executive partner at ESP Capital, said the country is a promising destination for investors thanks to its economic stability and “golden” population.

Two years ago, Việt Nam only ranked fifth out of six Southeast Asian countries in terms of the amount of money and number of start-up investments, but since last year has risen to third, she said.

In the first half of this year, Vietnamese start-ups have mobilised a total of US$246 million, she said.

More and more Vietnamese companies are valued at $500 million, and it is expected many would be valued $1 billion next year, she added.                    

The annual Tech Summit, titled “The Power of ABCD”, highlighted how technology trends in AI, blockchain, big data and cloud computing are reshaping the world and changing the way people interact and work together.

It provided a platform for leading international and local entrepreneurs, policymakers and start-up executives to discuss visions and ideas related to new technological trends, new solutions and the latest information on new and creative products and their perspectives on creating a unicorn in Việt Nam.

Other topics on the agenda were technology investment in Việt Nam, AI value in the financial industry and application of block chain to decentralise e-commerce.

The event was led by leading local and regional technology firms such as YellowBlocks, Smartly Pte, Logivan, Go-Viet, ESP Capital Partner, PowerSteam, and Tugo. — VNS