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HÀ NỘI — The Vietnamese Government ranked 59th out of 193 countries in terms of artificial intelligence (AI) readiness on a 2023 report by the UK-based Oxford Insights.

The country ranked 55th in 2022, 62nd in 2021, and 76th in 2020.

The Oxford Insights annual report looks at the preparedness of governments to use AI to deliver public services to their citizens. The report includes 39 indicators that measure governments' digital capacity, technological capabilities, and data infrastructure.

With a total AI readiness score of 54.48, Việt Nam ranks at 9th place within the East Asia region. This score is lower than four of the country's ASEAN peers — Singapore (which ranked 1st), Malaysia (6th), Thailand (7th), and Indonesia (8th) — but higher than the readiness rankings of Philippines, Laos, and Cambodia.

Việt Nam's score is higher than East Asia's average ranking of 51.41, which places it 4th among the 9 global regions covered in the report.

East Asia has the highest disparity of AI readiness rankings this year, as there is a 72-point gap between top-ranked Singapore and the eighteenth-ranked Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), and a 52-point gulf between Singapore and Timor-Leste (which ranks 17th).

The United States of America, Singapore, United Kingdom, Finland and Canada are the top-ranked governments in the world for AI readiness, while South Sudan, Syria and the DPRK take up the bottom three spots.

On January 26, 2021, Việt Nam's Prime Minister issued Decision No. 127/QĐ-TTg on the "National Strategy for Research, Development, and Application of Artificial Intelligence until 2030." This strategy set the goal of "promoting research, development and application of artificial intelligence, making artificial intelligence a crucial technological field for Việt Nam in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, contributing to the socio-economic development and gradually establishing Việt Nam as a bright spot in research, development and application of artificial intelligence in the region and the world."

In the three years since this decision was issued, AI technologies have been deployed across multiple sectors in Việt Nam.

By 2030, Việt Nam aspires to be one of the top four nations in ASEAN and among the top 50 globally in the realm of AI research, development and application. The country aims to trademark 10 AI technologies and create three high-performing national data and computing centers. — VNS