Tech procurement creates new options

Businesses are anticipating new opportunities in the domestic market as the Vietnamese government makes its first orders for strategic technology products such as AI cameras and autonomous robots.

- By Bich Thuy

According to the Ministry of Science and Technology (MST), relevant ministries and agencies must urgently develop a public procurement mechanism for domestic technology products and a controlled testing sandbox.

Hoang Anh Tu, deputy director of the MST’s Department of Science and Technology, said, “Relevant ministries and agencies are reviewing obstacles to propose suitable public procurement. Once this legal framework is completed, the state’s direct procurement of strategic technology products will be implemented nationwide.”

He disclosed that among specific orders in place, AI cameras are for surveillance and security purposes from the Ministry of Public Security (MPS); for construction and transportation from the Ministry of Construction; and for healthcare and education from the Ministry of Health (MoH) and the Ministry of Education and Training.

For unmanned aerial vehicles, orders are from the Ministry of National Defence, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, and the MoH. For autonomous mobile robots, orders from the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the MPS, and local authorities.

“These tasks require the output to have clear application places, receiving agency, and commercialisation roadmap. Based on the prime minister’s framework for assigning these tasks, ministries, sectors, and localities develop and place orders based on their own needs,” he said.