Lam emphasised that Google and its partners’ continued expansion of operations in Vietnam reflects the country’s increasingly importance to both consolidating the supply chain and developing the market for the group’s products.

Pledging favourable conditions for US firms to operate in Vietnam, he called on Google to continue guiding its suppliers to expand investment and business activities in the country, and help local companies improve their capacity and join in its supply chain.

He applauded Google’s cooperation proposal on training AI manpower, and asked it to work with the Vietnam National Innovation Centre, agencies, institutes, and schools in the country to carry out concrete and fruitful projects to practically benefit both sides.

The Vietnamese leader also highly valued the group’s cooperation proposal on cybersecurity, which is a particularly critical area as the Fourth Industrial Revolution is strongly affecting every aspect of the economy.

Bhatia affirmed Google’s commitment to the partnership with Vietnam. He announced that the firm has opened a new office in HCM City this year while its mobile phone and component manufacturing establishments in Vietnam are operating efficiently.

He expressed his hope to cooperate with the country in AI development, a sphere of Google’s strength that could be greatly useful to Vietnam.

Google is expanding skill training in the Southeast Asian nation to foster AI-related collaboration, and also giving policy advice to help facilitate AI development, Bhatia noted, adding that it expects to assist Vietnam in integrated cloud computing and AI services, and step up cybersecurity collaboration.

VNS