Vietnam races to bridge talent gap amidst global tech innovation
Vietnam has faced a formidable challenge in developing international-standard AI talent, requiring an urgent need for quality over quantity in technical education.
Recent AI breakthroughs, including Chinese company DeepSeek's AI model and US OpenAI Inc's Deep Research, highlighted how leading tech giants could create world-changing inventions through their talent pools which have been developed over decades with training strategies.
For Vietnam's universities currently offering AI programmes, the focus must shift from enrollment numbers to educational excellence. Industry experts said that degrees alone no longer suffice as employers demand practical expertise.
However, another significant hurdle that Vietnam is facing lies with a shortage of qualified AI instructors capable of training the next generation of tech innovators.
To address the challenge, Vietnam should pursue a three-pronged strategy. First, it should recruit more Vietnamese scientists from abroad. Most recently, the country saw return of several distinguished scholars such as Dr. Can Tran Thanh Trung from the California Institute of Technology (the US), Dr. Tran Minh Tuan from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (the US), Dr. Le Trung Hoang from Singapore's School of Computing and Information Systems, and Dr. Le Van Ve from the Republic of Korea’s University of Science and Technology, all joining Ho Chi Minh City University of Science.
The second approach involves offering scholarships to exceptional students for study at world-leading AI institutions while the third component focuses on attracting both Vietnamese and international AI experts to work in Vietnam.
