How AI Is Helping Government Companies in Viet Nam Cut Costs and Improve Efficiency

Vietnam's public sector is at an inflection point: strong government backing, a National AI Strategy and big funding (the NDDF's initial USD 38.4B capital) are turning AI from pilot projects into tools that cut costs, speed services and extend reach into rural communities - imagine a farmer getting pest alerts by phone rather than a tractor ride to town.

Government agencies are already piloting chatbots, eKYC and document automation to reduce wait times and error-prone data entry, while national plans aim to democratise AI across provinces (see the State of AI in Vietnam for 2025).

Retail and logistics programmes show how AI can stabilise supply chains and boost consumer trust, which matters when public services must keep prices and access steady.

For government teams seeking practical skills, targeted training like Nucamp's Nucamp AI Essentials for Work bootcamp helps staff adopt AI tools, write better prompts and manage AI-driven workflows.

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The case for AI adoption in Viet Nam's public sector is pragmatic: strong policy levers, growing infrastructure and a deep talent pool are aligning to turn pilots into measurable savings and faster services.

National plans - anchored in the 2021 National AI Strategy, reinforced by recent measures such as Decree No.13/2023 and MoST's responsible-AI principles - create a predictable environment and even a proposed regulatory sandbox for testing new tools, while the NDDF and draft DTI Law offer incentives that make investment practical rather than hypothetical; read more on Vietnam's evolving regulatory framework Vietnam AI regulatory framework 2025.

Operational wins are already visible: AI aids diagnostics in 180+ hospitals and powers smart-traffic and municipal services in Ho Chi Minh City, showing how automation can free staff time for complex cases rather than routine data entry.

The economic case is compelling too - the 2025 market and policy reviews highlight a fast-growing AI market, expanding cloud and data-center capacity, and tens of thousands of IT graduates each year - factors that let government scale chatbot-driven citizen services, automate eKYC and speed case processing without prohibitive cost.

For agencies weighing adoption, the “so what?” is clear: with legal clarity, public–private projects like Project ViGen, and on-the-ground use in health and transport, AI becomes a tool to cut red tape, lower operating costs and reach underserved communities; see a sector overview in The State of AI in Vietnam for 2025 (Invest Vietnam).

Key Enabler	Fact from research
National funding (NDDF)	Initial capital USD 38.4B
AI market (2024)	USD 753.4 million (reported)
IT/engineering graduates	~50–60k per year
Healthcare AI deployment	AI used in 180+ hospitals

“This makes Vietnam the second-largest supplier of software engineers in the world – a fact that few people know about. With this potential, we believe that Vietnam is an ideal place for NVIDIA to develop R&D centers and build a strong AI ecosystem here.” – Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA

Automating citizen interaction in Viet Nam is moving beyond prototypes into everyday reality: VNPT's “Virtual Assistant for Citizens – Businesses” uses NLP to give personalised, round‑the‑clock guidance, pre‑fill forms from national databases where permitted, and let users track application progress via chatbot so fewer people queue at counters; OpenGov Asia's coverage of AI‑driven public services describes how the Ho Chi Minh City pilot handled 10,000–13,000 in‑person submissions daily (saving roughly 1,400 staff hours, equivalent to 175 civil servants) plus 5,000–6,000 online submissions (another 550 hours), a vivid example of “time saved = public servants redeployed to complex cases.” These virtual assistants standardise answers across changing district and commune boundaries, cut errors with AI document scanning and decision support, and are being extended for multilingual access to reach ethnic minorities; Vietnamnet's reporting shows chatbots already embedded on official sites and recommended for wider use to improve transparency and speed for citizens and businesses.

"Chatbots will approach people in the quickest possible way, and at the same time discover areas with high infection levels, and give prompt responses."

AI is turning the tangle of paper and PDF into a smoother intake pipeline: tools that use computer vision and OCR now scan, categorise and flag missing fields at the point of submission, decision‑support modules match records to procedures and law, and chatbots let applicants track progress so fewer files get bounced back for rework; VNPT's suite of tools, for example, can pre‑fill forms from national databases and standardise case guidance across changing administrative boundaries (VNPT virtual assistant and AI systems for public services), while the VNeID public administration assistant logged nearly 100,000 interactions in its first week with a 98% positive rating, a vivid sign citizens will use digital channels instead of queuing at counters (Launch of the AI-powered VNeID public administration assistant).

Homegrown models like CATI‑VLM are already improving document reading and governance, which means administrative staff can be redeployed from repetitive data entry to exception handling and oversight - turning everyday paperwork into measurable time savings and more consistent, transparent case outcomes for citizens and businesses.

Metric	Value
VNeID first‑week interactions	~100,000 (98% positive)
Administrative units (provinces/cities)	63 → 34 (Resolution No.202/2025/QH15)
Communes/wards	over 10,000 → 3,321
CATI‑VLM	3 billion parameters; top 12 globally in DVQA

“We are proud to partner with the Police Department for Administrative Management of Social Order to develop the virtual assistant, enabling citizens to handle administrative tasks anytime, anywhere.”

AI and process automation are already translating into real staff-time savings and lower operating costs across Vietnamese government agencies: Robotic Process Automation (RPA) tools can act as “virtual assistants” that scan and OCR documents, auto-fill forms, pull data from other systems and even generate routine reports - cutting repetitive data‑entry and lookup time and letting civil servants focus on complex cases (see FPT's RPA overview for practical use cases and the FPT akaBot platform).

Centralised digital records - MHA's shared directory and the National Database on Public Officials with over 2.3 million records, plus more than 1 million matches to the National Population Database - mean fewer duplicate handoffs and faster verification, which supports the Government's push to streamline staff and potentially reduce payroll by at least 20% as part of the apparatus overhaul.

The “so what?” is simple and vivid: replace hours spent re‑typing paper into screens with a click‑triggered robot, and teams reclaim whole workdays per week for oversight, quality control and citizen-facing work rather than repetitive chores; for on‑the‑ground detail read how virtual assistants and streamlining are being framed by ministries and the press.

“With a virtual assistant, the least competent individual in any organization can be as qualified as an above-average or good employee,” - Minister Nguyen Manh Hung

Ho Chi Minh City's AI pilot turned a crowded counter into a productivity experiment with clear, measurable wins: local virtual assistants and intake automation handled 10,000–13,000 in‑person submissions a day (saving roughly 1,400 staff hours, the output of about 175 civil servants) and 5,000–6,000 online submissions (another ~550 hours), freeing teams to focus on complex cases while the city pushes ambitious administrative reforms to cut processing times and boost growth (see the State of AI in Vietnam for 2025 for national context and Ho Chi Minh City's 2025 growth plan for local policy drivers).

The pilot's takeaway is vivid and practical - when a chatbot and document‑OCR pipeline shave whole workdays from routine chores, the city reclaims human effort for oversight, investment facilitation and strategic projects that underpin its push for higher productivity and double‑digit growth ambitions.

Metric	Value
In‑person submissions handled daily	10,000–13,000
Staff hours saved (in‑person)	~1,400 hours (~175 civil servants)
Online submissions handled daily	5,000–6,000
Staff hours saved (online)	~550 hours

Scaling services and reorganising processes across Việt Nam will mean more than rolling out chatbots: it demands regional hubs, clearer rules and real investment in people and infrastructure so pilots can become permanent services that citizens rely on.

The National Innovation Center's projection that AI could add up to US$130 billion by 2040 highlights the prize, but the ecosystem still faces hard limits - homegrown applications are uneven, only a handful of provinces have AI centre plans, and Vietnam produces roughly 50–60k IT graduates a year while only a few hundred are deep AI experts - constraints that slow nationwide scaling (see the Vietnam AI Economy 2025 report).

Practical levers are emerging: a two‑year regulatory sandbox to test services at scale can let startups and agencies iterate safely, and the new Vietnam AI Academy aims to multiply qualified practitioners so city pilots evolve into nationwide platforms; learn more about the sandbox and policy roadmaps from Vietnam Briefing and the Academy plans via VietnamPlus.

The most vivid payoff is simple: with the right orchestration, an investment in training and cloud capacity could turn scattered pilots into a unified platform that serves millions rather than thousands.

Metric	Value / Source
Projected AI GDP contribution	Up to US$130B by 2040 (NIC/BCG) - Vietnam AI Economy 2025 report (VnEconomy)
AI market (2024)	~US$750M - VnEconomy: Vietnam AI market 2024
IT graduates per year	~50–60k; true AI experts <300 - VnEconomy report on IT graduates and AI expertise
Regulatory sandbox	Up to 2 years for trials - Vietnam Briefing: Vietnam's AI sector in 2025 - regulatory frameworks

“This isn't merely about typical development; it's about breakthrough growth. Advancing AI applications will also catalyse the growth of tech startups in Việt Nam,” - Đỗ Tiến Thịnh, NIC

Vietnam's policy mix is turning AI from an experiment into an investable public‑sector tool: the National Strategy to 2030, paired with Decree No.13/2023 and MoST's nine responsible‑AI principles, creates predictable guardrails while the draft DTI Law and a proposed regulatory sandbox let projects iterate in the open for up to two years - a practical way for agencies and startups to pilot chatbots, eKYC or document automation without immediate heavy compliance risk (see Vietnam Briefing's regulatory overview).

Generous fiscal incentives aim to pull in R&D and talent: NDDF's deep pool (initial capital USD 38.4B) and provisions such as preferential corporate tax, 150% R&D expense deductions, five‑year PIT breaks for experts, customs and land‑rent relief (full exemption for the first 10 years, 50% thereafter) make large‑scale AI projects financially viable.

Data protection and a forthcoming Personal Data Protection law (targeted for 2025) add legal clarity, so public agencies can scale AI with both finance and rules in place - a combo that shifts pilots into durable services that actually reduce cost and waiting times for citizens; read the sector context in the State of AI in Vietnam for 2025.

Policy / Incentive	Detail
NDDF initial capital	USD 38.4 billion
R&D tax incentive	150% deduction of actual R&D expenses
PIT exemption for experts	5‑year exemption for qualifying talent
Land & rent incentives	Full exemption first 10 years; 50% reduction thereafter
Regulatory sandbox	Trials up to 2 years for innovative digital products

Building the cloud and talent backbone is the practical hinge that will let AI move from pilots to everyday public services in Việt Nam: the government's 2025–2030 action plan directs every agency to prioritise new systems on cloud platforms and to migrate at least 70% of existing services to the cloud by 2030, while aiming for domestic “Make in Việt Nam” cloud platforms and a national network of high‑quality data centres to support e‑government and AI workloads (see the national cloud programme).

That ambition is already driving big infrastructure projects - including a planned 1.9‑hectare An Khánh data centre with a 60 MW capacity and Viettel's VND10‑trillion R&D campus - and a market that analysts value at nearly USD 1 billion for public cloud in 2023, signalling both demand and room for local providers to scale (Ken Research).

Closing the loop requires people as much as pipes: targets for training, university–industry links and large vendor upskilling (AWS's mass training programmes are a noted example) must match infrastructure so cloud, AI and cyber security skills are available where services roll out; read the programme details and the push to put all eligible services online by 2025 for implementation context.

Metric / Target	Value / Note
Government cloud adoption target (by 2030)	All agencies prioritise cloud; migrate ≥70% of existing systems - (VNS / Government action plan)
Public cloud market (2023)	USD 0.96 billion - (Ken Research)
An Khánh Data Centre	1.9 hectares; 60 MW capacity; online Q2 2026 - (OpenGovAsia)
Viettel R&D investment	VND 10 trillion (≈ US$380M) for Hoa Lac Hi‑Tech Park campus - (OpenGovAsia)

Risk management must be the spine of any AI rollout in Việt Nam: last year the National Cybersecurity Association logged 659,000 incidents that affected roughly 46% of agencies and businesses, while automated scanning hit 36,000 attempts per second and AI‑powered phishing made up 67.4% of phishing attacks - so basic deepfakes that took tenfold growth and can be created in about 45 minutes are no longer a sci‑fi worry but an operational reality (see the VietnamPlus report on AI and cyber risks in Vietnam).

Preparedness gaps are stark - only about 11% of organisations are judged adequately prepared and just 37% reported protective measures at a July workshop - so practical defences matter: layered encryption and access controls, anomaly detection for model‑level attacks, multi‑factor authentication, routine backups and clear incident‑response playbooks are all recommended by local experts and international partners.

Integrating cyber defence into digital transformation - from procurement to cloud migration - and running regular drills with law‑enforcement contacts can turn AI from a new attack surface into a managed capability; for a national view on readiness and urgent priorities, see the OpenGov Asia report on strengthening Vietnam's cyber defences.

Metric	Value / Source
Cyber incidents (2024)	659,000 - National Cybersecurity Association / VietnamPlus
Entities affected	~46.15% of government & business - VietnamPlus
Automated scans	36,000/sec - Fortinet (reported in VietnamPlus)
AI‑powered phishing	67.4% of phishing attacks - VietnamPlus
Credential leaks	1.7 billion sets - VietnamPlus
Organisations adequately prepared	~11% - OpenGov Asia
Orgs with protective measures	37% (workshop finding) - VietnamPlus

“There is no system too small to be attacked. If it's connected to the Internet, it's a potential entry point.”

A practical roadmap for Viet Nam government companies starts with small, measurable pilots that embed clear governance, citizen feedback loops and staff training before scaling: adopt citizen‑facing AI in narrow use cases, instrument real‑time monitoring and evaluation, then expand when KPIs (processing time, error rates, user satisfaction) improve - best practices for designing these feedback systems are outlined in the Vietnam citizen-feedback AI case study (Vietnam citizen-feedback AI case study for local policy design).

Pair pilots with the MoST guidance on safe chatbot use - restrict uploads of sensitive/state‑classified data, control access by role, and require humans to verify outputs - to manage risk while increasing uptake (Vietnam MoST guidelines for civil servants using AI chatbots).

Use the regulatory sandbox and incentive frameworks to test integration with legacy systems, and deploy multilingual, OCR and decision‑support modules where audits show high reuse; when Ho Chi Minh City's pilot automated intake and chat responses it reclaimed daily work equal to about 175 civil servants, a vivid sign that careful piloting plus feedback loops can turn experiments into real capacity gains (Ho Chi Minh City AI-driven smart services pilot).

Prioritise transparency, privacy, continuous evaluation and workforce reskilling so automation augments oversight and service quality rather than replacing trust.

Vietnam has the policy momentum, public funding and growing market to make AI a national advantage, but the path ahead is practical and precise: move beyond pilots, close the talent and infrastructure gaps, and lock in legal safeguards so citizens and agencies can trust scaled systems.

The NIC/BCG projection that AI could add up to US$130 billion by 2040 is a useful north star, yet today the market sits near US$750M and only a few hundred deep AI experts exist - so turning ambition into durable services means focused investment in cloud and compute, data‑governance laws, regulatory sandboxes and scalable upskilling programmes.

Agencies that pair tightly scoped pilots with continuous evaluation, public–private data platforms and workforce reskilling will capture real efficiency gains; practical training - such as Nucamp's AI Essentials for Work bootcamp - can help civil‑servant teams write prompts, use AI tools, and operationalise automation safely.

For a clear diagnosis and policy context see the Vietnam AI Economy 2025 report and the sector overview in The State of AI in Vietnam for 2025; act now, because as analysts warn, the “golden opportunity” to leapfrog won't come twice.

Metric	Value (source)
AI market (2024)	~US$750M - Vietnam AI Economy 2025
Projected AI contribution (2040)	Up to US$130B - NIC / BCG
Annual IT graduates	~60,000 - Vietnam AI Economy 2025
Deep AI experts	~<300 - Vietnam AI Economy 2025

“If data are the raw material, AI functions as the refining tool and insights derived from customers form the bridge that converts data into profit.”