How did Vietnam’s pioneering “AI incubator” appear?

Decision to change life

Khai, 22 years old, senior student, Hanoi. Chuong, 24 years old, Bachelor, HCMC. The “fate” of these two young people from the North and the South is strangely similar.

10 months ago, both Khai and Chuong were still uncertain about their future. 10 months ago, both Khai and Chuong English only stopped at a rocky level. 10 months ago, both Khai and Chuong never expected to apply for PhD scholarships at top schools in the United States.

But Revelation and Chapter of the present have changed. After less than a year, both have changed so much that sometimes they think they are in a dream. “The miracle” came to the two boys after a landmark decision – joining the “AI Residency” program of the VinAI Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (Vingroup).

Of course, there are no witches hands at VinAI. There are only leading experts in machine learning and artificial intelligence in the world, with specialized computer systems first appearing in Vietnam and especially the “American standard” practice method that is difficult to school. college or company.

Khai and Chuong joined VinAI in July 2019 after the exams were both described as “difficult as entrance exams to Google”. Just after 10 months, the “transformation journey” at VinAI has turned them into completely different people.

Khai said that “the world-class working environment of VinAI helps the trainees grow faster than we can imagine”.

In addition to disseminating relatively new field knowledge in Vietnam, with the goal of paralleling with world scientists, VinAI pays special attention to improving English proficiency for trainees. “In VinAI, from the simplest of greetings must also use English,” Khai revealed. “English teachers are international IELTS examiners. In addition to group lessons, we also have 1: 1 private lessons with teachers, ensuring after 7.0 the course is upwards.”

Every day, trainees like Khai and Chuong must update the latest information and research from the global AI world. “This field is developing very fast, just one day of no update can be outdated. In a flowery manner, we have to live with the world scientists,” Chuong said. You are 100% technical.

When coming to VinAI, both Khai and Chuong went through insomnia days, seemingly giving up because of the pressure and the way they worked was so different. But with the guidance of world-renowned AI experts, now, two timid boys last year had research submitted at leading international conferences. This result far exceeds the initial goal of both – “beautify” CV to apply for scholarships.

“Now I think I can compete fairly with any student in the world in this field of top-notch research,” Khai and Chuong are confident.

Raising the first flag

Khai and Chuong are two of the first 27 members of the program “AI Residency – Nurturing talents” of VinAI Institute. After 10 months, the trainees had 8 projects submitted to the world’s leading AI conferences namely ACL, ICML and ECCV 2020 as the main author or co-author. In particular, a study led by intern VinAI Research was published at the 34th AAAI conference held in the US in February 2020.

As the founder of VinAI from scratch, with Dr. Bui Hai Hung – one of the world-famous names in the field of AI – the biggest goal when deploying “AI Residency” is to cultivate talents to prepare people. force for Vietnam in 5-10 years.

The director of VinAI shared that, just like the reason why he left Silicon Valley behind to return home, investing in the field of potential AI at this time is very necessary and reasonable. The current “incubated” trainees will become global scientists and engineers, helping the world know Vietnam through its world-class research.

“Vietnam has a lot of good people but the way of development and their success in foreign countries is random, unlike India or China, good people have the way available to go,” said Dr. Hung shares after taking an example of himself. “We want to disrupt the coincidence by creating a path for young Vietnamese to develop and travel to the world.”

The former senior expert of Google DeepMind also did not expect that under the guidance of researchers at VinAI, trainees like Khai or Chuong “changed 180 degrees” so quickly.

“Through contact with many international students and recruiting for many foreign companies and universities, I believe that they can completely compete at the highest level , “ said Dr. Hung reviews. “In the near future, we will recruit about 30 more trainees.”

Compare the implementation of “AI Residents” like seeding, TS. Hung said that the first stage is the most difficult because the environment is not good enough, plants are strong enough to grow or not. ” But now we can be confident that the tree is not only lush but has produced pioneering fruits, soon to be harvested,” said VinAI Director.

Sharing the secret of success, PhD. Bui Hai Hung said that the researchers at VinAI, including the trainees, are being very well invested to reach the international level. “In addition to the generous funding support, Vingroup also has an ecosystem of industries and products with huge databases and rich application potential.” , Dr. Hung confirmed.

Possessing a good background in Mathematics, Vietnam is evaluated to have full potential to be able to compete with other developed countries in the region such as Singapore, Japan or South Korea if properly and adequately invested. . TS Hung expects that the initial success of VinAI will be able to spread to other universities in the country.

“We have already pioneered the seal, the schools can collaborate or compete with VinAI to train young talents for Vietnam in this top-notch research field,” said VinAI Director.