NVIDIA executives visit and work at CCS in Ho Chi Minh City

View of the meeting

Representing NVIDIA at the meeting were: Mr. Keith Strier – NVIDIA Vice President, AI Nations Initiative; Mr. John Ashley – Director of Global Public Sector Solutions Architecture and NVIDIA AI Technology Centers; and Mr. Anissh Pandey – Director of NVIDIA Asia-Pacific. From CMC Corporation (CMC), there were: Mr. Nguyen Trung Chinh – Chairman of Board of Directors/Executive President; and Mr. Ho Thanh Tung – Senior Vice Executive President, CEO. The meeting was also attended by key technology executives of both companies. Other participants included Mr. Hoang Anh Tuan – Consul General of Vietnam in San Francisco (USA), Mr. Vo Xuan Hoai – Director of National Innovation Center (NIC) – Ministry of Planning and Investment, and Mr. Nguyen Anh Thi – Director of SHTP in Ho Chi Minh City.

Within the framework of the work session, representatives of CMC presented the infrastructure of CMC Tan Thuan Data Center, the potential for collaboration in technology transfer and AI technology development in Vietnam, and the corporation’s ability to work together and develop into a comprehensive partner to provide digital infrastructure for NVIDIA’s AI Factories, Cloud Partners, and Service Delivery Partners for both domestic and foreign corporate markets.  CMC is a leading ICT corporation in Vietnam with 31 years of establishment and development. With strong ICT experience and potential, CMC and the government of  Ho Chi Minh City seek to establish a comprehensive strategic partnership with NVIDIA to transform the city into a national hub for artificial intelligence (AI), with an emphasis on developing IT human resources for AI, utilizing AI to address issues facing the city, developing new values, and leveraging AI to propel economic development . On the other hand, the city’s government is also dedicated to creating the best working environment and conditions for businesses such as NVIDIA and CMC to flourish and generate values for everyone, as well as helping Ho Chi Minh City become the nation’s smart city and AI hub, ranking among the top 5 AI cities in the world and acting as a catalyst for the development of other cities in the country. Mr. Hoang Anh Tuan – Consul General of Vietnam in San Francisco (USA) promised that the strategic cooperation program between NVIDIA and Vietnamese enterprises, including CMC, will be supported, adding that conditions for importing high-tech equipment will soon be lifted.

Chairman of BOD/ Executive President of CMC Nguyen Trung Chinh welcomes Mr. Keith Strier – NVIDIA Vice President, AI Nations Initiative to CMC Creative Space in Ho Chi Minh City

At the meeting with senior executives of NVIDIA, President Nguyen Trung Chinh said: AI will usher in a new era in which it profoundly affects society, the economy, and all facets of daily life.  In CMC’s development strategy and business plan, artificial intelligence is becoming essential. Specifically, we anticipate that by 2028, the Corporation would employ 15,000 IT engineers, of which 6,000 are AI engineers, making up 40% of our human resources.“.

Lately, CMC has been in the forefront of the cloud computing industry with its Make-in-Vietnam CMC Cloud platform. With the utilization of NVIDIA GPU chipset since 2017, this is the first domestic cloud platform that offers high-performance computing services. To encourage the robust development of cutting-edge applications and solutions, CMC announced in early 2024 that it would use 1,000 NVIDIA GH 200 GPUs with a value of $250 million USD for the 2024–2025 period, with a focus on building an ecosystem of interactive technology products in six main areas, namely: Chip design, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Big data, Social data, Internet of Things – Smart devices – Image processing (IoT), and Blockchain technology/Information security (Blockchain).

Mr. Keith Strier – NVIDIA Vice President, AI Nations Initiative highly appreciated CMC vision and strategy in utilizing the expanding AI wave for further development on a global scale, and indicated his desire to collaborate with CMC. As Vietnam possesses all the necessary resources to rapidly develop and become an artificial intelligence powerhouse, Mr. Keith Strier -NVIDIA Vice President, AI Nations Initiative noted: “At NVIDIA, development cooperation is more important than business performance. With the intention of boosting digital transformation, elevating Ho Chi Minh City to the top 5 AI cities globally, and transforming Vietnam into an AI powerhouse, we will therefore support Vietnamese companies, including CMC“.

The delgation visits CMC Tan Thuan Data Center in Ho Chi Minh City

In response, President Nguyen Trung Chinh underlined that CMC’s advantages in data centers and cloud infrastructure will foster a collaborative effort between NVIDIA and CMC. The architecture of CMC Tan Thuan Data Center is designed to meet the most exacting requirements for a contemporary data center. Being the first data center in Vietnam with an Uptime Tier III certification for construction as well as a TVRA-certified security and risk prevention certification, it can address issues with digital infrastructure for AI Factories in Vietnam and the region. After nearly 7 years of development, CMC Cloud has become the No.1 local cloud service, accounting for more than 25% of market shares.

CMC’s upcoming investment in a 40MW expansion of the AI DC at Ho Chi Minh City High-Tech Park will guarantee that each client has access to both private and AI Cloud infrastructure, thereby helping the AI community to soon have a space for application development.

In terms of HR training solutions, CMC is dedicated to collaborating with NVIDIA to establish an AI community that includes research, startup, and development of AI human resources to transform 1 million programmers, more than 65% of which are from Ho Chi Minh City, into those who can use AI to generate new values

The head of CMC said that CMC University is committed to focusing on a number of factors, including teaching staff, equipment, modern training methods with curriculum suitable for AI technology and semiconductor chips laboratories, etc. in order to attract talented students to the training and research of AI, Big Data, Blockchain, etc. It is known that CMC University wants to increase the number of students enrolled from 15,000 to 20,000 by 2023, with 50% of those majoring in information technology. In order to develop high-tech human resources and help the government achieve its objective of having 50,000 semiconductor engineers by 2023, the university has also planned to integrate NVIDIA’s training program into the curriculum at its AI and IC Design departments.

The delegation experiences the demo space of CMC’s technology products.

In response to the information provided by CMC officials, Mr. Keith Strier -NVIDIA Vice President, AI Nations Initiative expressed his admiration for both the company’s current potential and the executives’ strategic vision. This will serve as an advantage for building sustainable relationships between the two businesses. CMC and NVIDIA are dedicated to establishing a long-term, all-encompassing strategic alliance with the goal of advancing the prosperity and growth of not just Ho Chi Minh City but the entire nation, helping to establish Vietnam as the region’s hub for artificial intelligence. Concurrently, both companies will persist in executing the delineated strategic partnership initiatives to actualize the aforementioned goals.

Representatives of both companies take commemorative photos at CMC Data Center.