Vietnam Promotes Digital Transformation with Cloud Computing Technology

The Covid-19 pandemic has been affecting nearly every corner of the global economy, but the cloud computing and the ecosystem surrounding this technology is a rare bright spot. The pandemic has forced many agencies and businesses to switch to remote working, a factor contributing to the increased demand for data center and cloud computing services.

According to experts, driven by the Covid-19 pandemic, digital transformation will take place strongly and comprehensively in all fields. Digital conversion helps Vietnamese businesses to be flexible in changing operating models, reducing costs, maintaining operations to survive and recover strongly after the pandemic has passed. One important pillar of digital transformation is cloud computing. Currently, leading technology enterprises in Vietnam have adopted this trend and the demand for cloud computing is also growing strongly.

It is estimated that the domestic cloud computing market currently reaches about US$200 million with an annual growth rate of over 30%. However, Vietnamese enterprises only account for about 20% of the market, while 80% still use cloud computing located abroad, so it is still very modest. Meanwhile, Vietnam now has about 27 data centers invested by 11 domestic enterprises with over 270,000 servers. Cloud computing service is ready to meet the standards, businesses can rent it with very competitive prices.

Recently, the Ministry of Information and Communications has launched a campaign to promote digital transformation with Vietnam’s cloud computing technology. Through this campaign, the Ministry has urged the whole society to make faster digital transformation with Vietnam’s digital computing platform.

Speaking at the launching ceremony, Minister Nguyen Manh Hung emphasized that Vietnam must master the infrastructure and digital transformation platforms for each industry and each field. Vietnam is a large market with 100 million people, ranking 12th in the world in population. Various platforms such as distance learning, telemedicine, telework, video conferencing, remote accounting services, e-newspaper, cybersecurity, cloud computing infrastructure cannot let all the data of Vietnam's digital economy be taken and stored abroad by foreign companies.

Also according to Minister Hung, Vietnam is one of the countries that promulgated technical criteria and targets for cloud computing infrastructure early. In the coming time, more Vietnamese enterprises will develop cloud computing infrastructure. This is also the most important component of the digital infrastructure. Digital infrastructure must be invested in advance, promoting digital transformation for digital economy development.

Furthermore, the Vietnamese open source community is growing. In the third quarter of 2020, the Ministry of Information and Communications will hold the Vietnam Open Source Congress for the first time to promote technology development in this direction.

Minister Nguyen Manh Hung said that domestic telecom enterprises have mastered telecommunications infrastructure. They must now try to master the digital infrastructure. Digital infrastructure is also the telecommunications infrastructure plus cloud computing platform. Therefore, mastering the cloud computing platform is very important for Vietnam. Vietnam’s providers of cloud computing service will continue to improve technology, focusing on ensuring network information security, with domestically and internationally competitive prices.

According to Mr. Nguyen Trung Chinh, Chairman of the Board of Directors of CMC Group, cloud computing infrastructure is the most important element of digital infrastructure, making an important contribution to successful digital transformation and building a digital government, digital enterprises and digital life. In early 2019, CMC officially introduced the C.Ope2n open ecosystem platform, in which the main digital infrastructure is C.Cloud. C.Cloud currently leads the market and has an impressive growth rate of 250% / year.

Also from an enterprise perspective, Ms. Nguyen Hien Phuong, Deputy General Director of Hanoi Telecom, said the readiness of a large team of Vietnamese engineers, the training for customers to use on-site applications are outstanding factors of domestic cloud computing enterprises compared with foreign suppliers. With these advantages, cloud computing will spread widely, not only in service providers but also in businesses using the service.

According to the set of criteria for evaluating cloud computing enterprises to meet the standards for businesses and state agencies to use, announced by Mr. Nguyen Khac Lich, Deputy Director of the Department of Information Security (under Ministry of Information and Communications), they include: Enterprises that own the cloud computing technology they are providing; have their own infrastructure for cloud services with a scale of 1,000 servers or more; and ready to provide to the market. This is also the orientation for Vietnamese businesses to master the technology and develop Vietnam's cloud computing platform.

Currently, Viettel CHT Company Limited; Vi Na Data Information Technology - Service Joint Stock Company (VNG Cloud); CMC Telecommunication Infrastructure Corporation; VCCorp Joint Stock Company are four key cloud computing enterprises, leading in technology ownership, infrastructure availability and products and services provision on cloud computing platform in Vietnam. Besides, along with these four businesses, 7 others also committed to participate in the campaign, discounting 20% for all new customers registering for cloud computing service in Vietnam within two months (from May 22 to July 22) to stimulate market demand, contributing to promoting economic development, supporting agencies and businesses to transform operations into the online environment.

By Thu Ha, Vietnam Business Forum