Mr Truong Gia Binh: Vietnamese Labour Force Ready to Take on Semiconductor Industry

DNHN - Young Vietnamese people are particularly interested in working in the semiconductor industry, according to Mr Binh. Opportunities for employment in the US, Japan, and South Korea must be created if we are to draw young people to this sector.

On January 16, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Truong Gia Binh, Chairman of FPT, shared his thoughts on the opportunities for the Vietnamese semiconductor industry.

According to Binh, the semiconductor industry has many unique characteristics. In 1960, the semiconductor industry developed in the United States, and then in the 1970s, it moved to South Korea and Taiwan. However, today, there is a great need for the semiconductor industry, but the workforce, especially young people in countries like the United States, Japan, and South Korea, are not interested in working in this industry because it is fast-paced and demanding.

“Meanwhile, young Vietnamese people are very interested in working in this industry. Opportunities to work in the United States, Japan, and South Korea must be created for young people to attract them to this industry. I hope that there will be more cooperation with foreign companies so that Vietnam can become a destination for the industry,” said Binh.

In an interview with Rest of World, Nguyen Thanh Yen, Chief Engineer at Korean chip design company CoAsia Semi, said that Vietnam currently has about 5,000 hardware engineers who specialise in semiconductors.

According to Reuters, in the next 10 years, Vietnam will have to increase this number by almost 10 times to meet the demand of semiconductor manufacturing companies.

In the field of semiconductor technology, FPT has been preparing for the past 10 years. In 2022, the Group established FPT Semiconductor Company and also included microchip design training content in the curriculum of FPT University.

“We, along with the National Innovation Centre (NIC) and the American technology expert organisation TreSemi, have signed a cooperation agreement to establish the Vietnam Semiconductor Higher Education Centre (VSHE). The centre will help Vietnam train an additional 50,000 semiconductor engineers in the coming years, thereby improving the quality of human resources, creating trust in the regional semiconductor ecosystem and the global value chain,” said Binh.

In addition, Truong Gia Binh affirmed that since 2013, FPT has identified artificial intelligence as a key technology in the digital transformation strategy in Vietnam and worldwide. Since then, FPT has focused on investing in research and development of artificial intelligence from human resources, infrastructure, and data, bringing artificial intelligence to life and has achieved some results.

Most recently, the AI-powered virtual assistant FPT won the award for the leading virtual assistant software in 2023, affirming the quality of “Made in Vietnam” technology products in the international market and motivating the team to continue towards the goal of making Vietnam a regional and global AI hub.

In the field of automotive technology, FPT has more than 10 years of experience in the industry, with more than 4,000 engineers and experts in the field of automotive software. FPT decided to establish FPT Automotive Company in the United States at the end of 2023.

“We plan to focus on key markets such as the United States, Europe, Japan, South Korea, China, and Vietnam with professionalism, confidently ensuring compliance with industry standards in functional safety management and software development processes in the automotive sector. We look forward to continuing to work with leading OEMs to accelerate the development of the automotive industry, an industry that is being driven by software,” said Truong Gia Binh.

Also at the Forum, representatives of Vietnam and domestic and foreign enterprises shared their thoughts on finding new opportunities and promoting investment cooperation activities in the coming time. The enterprises presented their investment cooperation orientations in Vietnam in the three fields of AI, semiconductors, and automotive industry; at the same time, they listened to the Prime Minister and leaders of ministries and sectors speak about the vision, orientations, and solutions to promote development, cooperation, and attract investment in these fields, as well as the stable macroeconomic foundations, peaceful, stable, and developing environment of Vietnam.

Representatives of large corporations in the world such as Google, Siemens, Qualcomm, Ericsson, etc. highly appreciated Vietnam’s development achievements and hoped that the Vietnamese Government would continue to create conditions for enterprises to invest and develop in the fields of technology, innovation, semiconductors, AI, strategic infrastructure, etc.

Minh Phuong