The Việt Nam National University HCM City and Australia's Deakin University sign an agreement on April 8 to cooperate in AI research and training.  — Photo courtesy of VNU-HCM

HCM CITY — Việt Nam National University HCM City (VNU-HCM) University on Monday (April 8) signed an agreement with Australia's Deakin University for cooperation in a number of fields, especially artificial intelligence.

Speaking at the signing ceremony its chancellor, Vũ Hải Quân, said the university seeks to become a leading centre for AI research and application in Southeast Asia.

Over more than 10 years of collaboration in research and co-supervision of graduate students with professors at Deakin’s Applied Artificial Intelligence Institute, he said VNU-HCM had identified the university as a strategic partner for AI and information technology.

Under the agreement, the two sides will research AI and IT.

They will focus on AI applications for solving major problems related to healthcare, agriculture, public administration, and building smart cities.

They will collaborate in training and research in public health, biotechnology, advanced manufacturing, digital transformation, agriculture, the environment, sustainable development, and climate change adaptation.

They will develop short-term training programmes for university administration and public management.

They will increase the number and scale of student exchange programmes.

Deakin University will provide research internship opportunities for VNU-HCM students.

They will develop mechanisms to enable scientists on the two sides to connect, jointly carry out research and organise international scientific conferences and seminars.

They will train young lecturers for VNU-HCM under a programme to meet the requirements of comprehensive and fundamental innovation in education and training in 2019-30 run by the Ministry of Education and Training.

On the occasion leading AI experts from the two universities held a discussion with more than 800 lecturers and students at VNU-HCM about the latest achievements, challenges and the applicability of AI in many fields, especially health and biomedical research.

Deakin University ranks in the top 1 per cent of universities in the world, according to the 2024 Times Higher Education rankings.

Its Applied Artificial Intelligence Institute is a leading AI research centre that combines basic research and cutting-edge software development, and has more than 120 AI researchers and software engineers. — VNS