A student team from the HCM City University of Information Technology won first prize in the AI-powered solutions contest 2022. — VNA/VNS Photo Thu Hương

HCM CITY — Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming an effective tool to solve difficulties in the urban development and modernisation process of big cities like HCM City, vice chairman of the municipal People's Committee Dương Anh Đức said at a workshop held on Monday (December 27).

The Ministry of Science and Technology and the municipal People's Committee co-organised the workshop “Application of AI in public administrate services”, and a ceremony to summarise the AI-powered solutions contest 2022.

Dương Anh Đức said the city has determined that administrative reforms must be continuous and committed to stabilising political security, social order and safety.

An important task is accelerating digital transformation and AI application to improve the quality of public service management.

He asked the city’s Department of Information and Communications to seek potential AI solutions to put into use in the government’s administration system, in order to better serve residents.

It needs to focus on main issues such as human resources, infrastructure, and -identification of core problems.

“That also requires expanding the scale and improving the quality of human resources in the field of information technology in general and AI in particular,” he said.

The city is focused on building hardware and software infrastructure, and it is also calling on businesses, organisations and research groups to come up with effective solutions.

Deputy Minister of Science and Technology Bùi Thế Duy said that in Việt Nam, AI applications cannot replace humans in the workplace completely, as most are only used for repetitive tasks with a large scale or work that humans cannot do.

“The city has favorable conditions to implement most of the Government's strategies on digital transformation, so it should take the lead in technology application, and build a legal corridor for promoting the use of technology in daily life,” he said.

Lâm Đình Thắng, director of the city’s Department of Information and Communications, said the city's digital transformation ranked third out of 63 provinces and cities nationwide.

There are a number of technology applications in the city’s public sector.

For example, there are four types of civil status records for people that can be made anywhere.

The hotline 1022, which is available 24 hours a day, can receive calls from the public. A dashboard system helps the city government make better decisions based on available data.

District 1’s authorities have applied electronic identification to conduct administrative procedures.

The city police uses AI cameras for security surveillance, and many wards’ authorities have applied chatbots and callbots on public services.

The department is working with the city People's Council to make a virtual assistant.

Also on the same day, the organising board of the AI-powered solutions contest 2022 awarded 13 prizes, including one first prize, one second prize, four third prizes and seven consolation prizes.

A student team called Helios from the HCM City University of Information Technology under the Việt Nam National University-HCM City won first prize in the contest.

The municipal People’s Committee’s contest attracted the participation of more than 1,000 contestants in 210 teams from more than 40 units across the country in AI Challenge category, and 29 products and solutions in AI Solution category. — VNS