In 2024, Vietnam's digital economy saw a major uptick in interest in artificial intelligence (AI).

Vietnam can unlock the digital economy across sectors through the effective use of AI-powered solutions.

The growth of Vietnam's esports market is highlighted in the Vietnam Esports White Book 2022-2023, which outlines global trends.

The Hanoi Times - Vietnam’s TOSY Robotics Joint Stock Company’s stall attracted more than 3,000 visitors each day at the 60th Spielwaren-messe International Toy Fair in Germany. The world’s largest international toy fair was held in the city of Nuremburg from February 5-10. TOSY introduced four hi-tech toys a the fair: the dancing Tiny TOPIO, the mini version of TOPIO 2.0 - a ping-pong playing robot; Tyre ROBO; Ball ROBO, which can run forwards and backwards, climb and move o­n snowy, grassy and sandy terrain; and Boomerang TOSY UFO, which lights up when flying.With the high level of interest in TOSY products at the fair, the Vietnamese company now intends to open up TOSY stores in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Spain and Japan.All TOSY’s toys are made in Viet Nam, and is the o­nly hi-tech toy company to make the toys without any imported components. The company’s products will be the country’s first hi-tech toys exported abroad. TOSY’s toys will start being sold domestically in June.

The Hanoi Times - Vietnamobile will roll out its mobile phone services nationwide next month after finishing network installations and successful trial runs.Vietnamobile - formerly HT Mobile will be the country's fourth GSM mobile services provider after MobiFone, Vinaphone and Viettel.The company has yet to declare its mobile services charges.HT Mobile was licensed by the Ha Noi People's Committee last March to invest in a transformation from Code Multiple Division Access (CDMA) technology to Global System for Mobile communications (GSM). The new company is a joint venture between Ha Noi Telecom and Hutchison Telecommunication.Company bosses have announced they would pump another US$150 million into its initial $650 million investment to cover the cost of the network change.HT Mobile admitted that the major reason for its failure was that it operated a CDMA service, and not the much desired GSM service.Established in Ha Noi in January 2007, the company has o­nly 200,000 subscribers - a fifth of its intended target after a year's operations.In August last year, the network decided to purchase GSM network equipment worth $600 million from Ericsson and China's Huawei. Ericsson provided $450 million worth of equipment while Huawei provided $150 million worth.

The Hanoi Times - Broadband use will continue to grow strongly this year despite the global economic crisis. With demand for advanced services and technologies continuing to rise, broadband internet win would be used for watching o­nline TV and sharing data by businesses to improve their efficiency, experts said.

The Hanoi Times - Vietnam will join an international campaign to fight global warming for the first time, turning off lights for an hour at 8.30 pm o­n March 28.

The Hanoi Times - VNPT technicians check a switching system. The country’s telecom sector earned a revenue of nearly VND93 trillion (US$5.6 billion) in 2008, up 39.1 per cent over the previous year. There are now almost as many phones in Viet Nam as there are people.As many as 85 per cent of the country’s population are mobile phone users, with 97.5 per cent of the population able to access phone services either through a mobile service provider or a fixed line, according to the General Statistics Office(GSO).This puts Viet Nam o­n a par with many other developed countries in terms of telephone use.More than 3.2 million new subscribers were registered last month alone, bringing the total number of telephone subscribers in Viet Nam to 82.5 million, according to the GSO.The country’s telecom sector earned a revenue of nearly VND93 trillion (US$5.6 billion) - up 39.1 per cent for last year, according to the Ministry of Information and Communications.Viet Nam’s two biggest firms, the VNPT and Viettel, which control over 90 per cent of the telecom market, said the reason for the gains was the result of a fast-growing customer base.The Viet Nam Post and Telecommunication Group (VNPT), owners of MobiFone and Vinaphone - the country’s oldest mobile carriers, posted a twofold increase in its profits compared to last year.MobiFone’s revenue in 2008 reached VND 17.5 trillion with a total profit of VND 5.8 trillion. Vinaphone earned VND14 trillion last year, a year-on-year growth rate of 35 per cent.MobiFone and Vinaphone have 30 million and 16 million mobile subscribers, respectively.Meanwhile, military-run telecom company Viettel said its gross profit last year was double that of 2007, reaching nearly VND8 trillion ($471 million).The Ha Noi-based firm earned a revenue of more than VND33 trillion last year, 26 per cent above the combined revenue for the eight years up to 2007, the company revealed in a statement. It did not give a net profit figure.Last year Viettel expanded its mobile phone network to cover the entire country, serving 28 million subscribers or 40 per cent of Viet Nam’s total mobile subscribers. Its 51,300km optic cable network connected all communes, the statement said.Viettel is running a $30 million internet data joint venture with Taiwan’s Chunghwa Telecom, of which it owns 70 per cent.In 2006, it became Viet Nam’s first telecoms firm to invest abroad when it started Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) services in Cambodia, and later mobile phone, fixed-line and internet services.Growing internet useInternet use in Viet Nam also grew significantly during 2008, with 6.7 million new internet subscribers over the course of the year - up 28.4 per cent from the year before.Boasting 20.67 million internet users, Viet Nam is now o­ne of the top 20 countries in the world in terms of internet use.This is a 60 per cent increase from the same period last year

The Hanoi Times - The Hanoi-based Institute for Material Sciences is selling carbon nanotubes (CNTs) at 50% of international price. The HCM City Hi-tech Park plans to produce 2.4 tonnes of CNTs this year.

The Hanoi Times - The number of magnetic storms will steadily increase until 2011 with possible harm to people’s health and damage to electrical systems, warns the Geology and Physics Institute.There will be 15-20 storms this year with an intensity of 300-400nT (nano-tesla), a unit of magnetic density.Institute director Dr Ha Duyen Chau says the storms will not severely affect electrical distribution but capacity could be lowered when they occur.Electricity and oil pipeline managers should monitor information so they can take preventative measures, he says.Radio waves can also be disrupted.“Unfortunately we can’t say for sure in which months the storms will occur and although we can predict the possibility of a storm o­ne or two days before it happens, we can o­nly know for sure 30 minutes before it strikes,” he explains.The past two years have been quiet with just 10 storms per year, Dr Chau says.The sun’s operative cycle is 11 years. The last peak was in 2001 and the next will be in 2012. At that time, about 40-50 500-600nT storms can be expected.“We can’t exclude the possibility that it will affect Vietnam’s Vinasat-1,” he says.“We are powerless against the storms but we can understand them and thus avoid their effects.”People who suffer from heart disease, high blood pressure and psychological disorders should be aware of the storms and stay at home or travel by car during a magnetic storm.Dr Chau says that, although magnetic storms do not usually markedly affect Vietnam, it has no concrete statistics about the damage they cause.The institute has four monitoring stations-Hanoi’s Gia Lam District, Lao Cai Province’s Sapa, Da Lat in the Central Highlands and Bac Lieu in the south. Their tasks include recording the intensity, amplitude, frequency and duration of the storms.Vietnam started to study magnetic storms in 1957 but the monitoring stations were not installed until after the 500KV national grid was functioning in 1998.The institute’s statistics show the country had 40 magnetic storms in 2001 and 15 in 2006.Magnetic or geomagnetic storms are a disturbance of the earth’s magnetic field associated with charged particles generated from solar flares and sunspots.They usually last from 24 to 48 hours, but some have lasted many days. An electromagnetic storm disrupted power throughout most of Quebec, Canada, in 1989.

The Hanoi Times - Prospects for Vietnam’s agricultural market will be discussed at a seminar in Ho Chi Minh City o­n March 24-25, according to the Institute of Policy and Strategy for Agricultural and Rural Development (IPSARD).

The Hanoi Times - The Binh Son petrochemical company will begin its first 10-day pilot programme tomorrow to process crude oil into petroleum and other products, said Dinh Van Ngoc, deputy general director of the company under the Dung Quat Oil Refinery.

The Hanoi Times - According to the results of the latest test administered by the Ministry of Information and Communications (MoIC), MobiFone is still in the lead for mobile service quality, though the gap between it and Viettel has narrowed.

The Hanoi Times - EVN Telecom under the Electricity of Vietnam Group (EVN) said it would exploit the Intra-Asia (IA) submarine optical cable system in the first quarter of this year, allowing the company to provide telecommunication connections to transit centres in Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, the US and European countries. It is designed to meet the increasing demand for broadband and other telecommunication services in the coming years, serving as a standby for the safety of the national telecommunication network.

The Hanoi Times - Unique internet domain names are registered o­n a first-come, first-served basis. Besides being used to locate an address o­n the internet, in place of a hard-to-remember numeric serial chain, domain names are a superb marketing tool, a method to telegraph information about the business or service being offered.

The Hanoi Times - Vietnamese scientists have developed a method that allows the delivery of fresh coconuts from the southern delta to East Asia, North America and Europe.

The Hanoi Times - The Vietnamese government is taking concrete steps this year to speed up the development of e-government and the local IT industry.

The Hanoi Times - The Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park has so far licensed 32 projects with a total registered capital of around US$700 million. The Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park is a joint venture between Japan and Vietnam. The agreement o­n the Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park was in furtherance of the Vietnam-Japan joint statement signed by the two Governments o­n October 19, 2006. When completed, the park, which will be divided into four zones: Research and Development, Hi-tech Industry, Software Park and Education and Training, is expected to house universities and many plants that produce high-tech equipment like electronic and semi-conducting products, telecommunication, digital technology, and bio-technology. According to its management board, the park licensed 8 projects worth US$275.4 million in 2008 and is now discussing with investors o­n 27 other potential projects with a combined capital of some US$2.5 billion.

The Hanoi Times - Thanks to the 50 percent discount offered by the Vietnam Post and Telecommunications Group (VNPT) last September, international call charges from Vietnam are lower than any other country in the region. The group’s 2008 revenue increased 19 percent against over 2007, at more than 55 trillion VND (3.2 billion USD), even in the face of the current financial difficulties that are affecting the economy.  These figures were announced during a press conference in Hanoi by Bui Quoc Viet, director of the VNPT’s Information Centre.  During 2008, VNPT added 22 million subscribers to its list of phone users, increasing the number of its subscribers to 49 million.  The launch of Viet Nam ’s first satellite, Vinasat-1, into orbit in April 2008 was a breakthrough improvement in telecommunications infrastructure, helping local service providers, including VNPT, to expand their networks and services.  The telecommunications sector is expected to experience even tougher competition in 2009 when Vietnam opens the industry to foreign service providers, in line with its WTO commitments.  However, VNPT plans to increase its revenue during 2009 to around 60 trillion VND whilst making further reductions to call charges.

The Hanoi Times - The Director of HCM City Department of Transport, Duong Hong Thanh, said HCM City will put two compressed natural gas-fueled buses into operation in early-2009.

The Hanoi Times - TOPIO 2.0, the human-shaped robot who can play table tennis, will arrive Germany at the end of this month to attend the 60th Spielwarenmesse International Toy Fair scheduled o­n February 5–10 in Nuremburg,Germany .

The Hanoi Times - An Internet service investor shook his head, said: “We can’t understand Vietnamese people’s Internet surfing habits. We have invested a lot to study their habits but we can’t understand.”

The Hanoi Times - Viet Nam plans to launch its first remote sensing satellite by 2012, chairman of the national Research Program o­n Space Science and Technology Nguyen Khoa Son announced yesterday at this year's Asia-Pacific Regional Space Agency Forum (APRSAF-15).