Public Sector
Communist government plans personalized ‘data-driven decision-making based on real-time information’ by 2035
Vietnam has decided to develop its own cloud platform, so its government agencies can stop using foreign-owned services.
Prime Minister Le Minh Hung last week announced the plan in Decision 808/QD-TTg, which lists 20 strategic technologies Vietnam wants to develop to improve its technological self-reliance and give its government the tools to tackle national challenges.
Developing a national cloud computing platform is number 13 on the list.
Machine translation of Decision 808 yields the following goals for the project: “Ensuring national data sovereignty and cybersecurity for the digital government and key digital economic infrastructures; forming a centralized, secure, and reliable digital and data infrastructure to serve national digital transformation; gradually replacing foreign cloud services in state agencies, reducing the risk of data leaks and breaches of state secrets.”
The move is a sign that Vietnam’s government, like many others, fears entanglements with cloud providers that may struggle to escape edicts from their home jurisdictions.
Yet major hyperscalers Microsoft, Google, and Tencent Cloud are yet to build facilities in Vietnam. AWS will bring one of its lightweight Local Zones to Hanoi, Alibaba Cloud intends to build a datacenter, and Huawei Cloud has expressed interest in doing likewise.
Vietnam’s government wants more love from hyperscalers – the nation’s Deputy PM recently met with AWS officials and called for greater co-operation.
Yet any Vietnamese government workloads currently operating in a major hyperscaler violate the nation’s own laws that require local storage of personal information!
Other technologies Vietnam wants to develop include a large-scale Vietnamese language model, virtual assistants, and AI to power applications including cameras, credit risk management, and something that translates as “a national smart education platform applying controlled AI.”
The nation also wants its own next-generation firewall; anti-malware software, a next-generation SIEM system, and an “AI-integrated security operations center platform.”
Quantum-resistant encryption also makes the list, as does a “user and entity behavior analysis system.”
Rare earth processing is another capability Vietnam desires, as are 5G expertise, the ability to build and operate autonomous and industrial robots, and improved semiconductor design skills.
Vietnam is in a hurry: Decision 808 set a 2030 deadline to get this all done.
According to a Tuesday post to a government news platform, 2030 is also the year in which Hanoi expects all core government services will be online, and digital infrastructure enables outcomes such as “Ensuring social welfare and supporting crime prevention and control, national security, and social order and safety” plus “Supporting scientific research and innovation.”
And in 2035, Vietnam “will become a developed digital nation” in which “National databases, with population data serving as the core, will be interconnected, shared, and effectively utilized to support the development of a smart government, enabling data-driven decision-making based on real-time information.”
Smart government will mean “Citizens will benefit from personalized, automated, and convenient digital services tailored to different life events.”
What a time to be alive. ®
