Digital Event Horizon
Thailand and Vietnam are joining the growing list of countries embracing sovereign AI as they seek to harness the technology to drive economic growth and digital sovereignty. NVIDIA founder Jensen Huang has met with both prime ministers, discussing initiatives aimed at accelerating AI innovation in their countries.
NVIDIA founder Jensen Huang met with Thailand's Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and Vietnam's Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh to discuss sovereign AI initiatives.NVIDIA is working with local universities and startups in Thailand to support AI advancement.Huang emphasized the importance of data in AI development, stating that "the most important part of artificial intelligence is the data."Thailand plans to harvest its own digital data to drive AI innovations.NVIDIA will collaborate on building Vietnam's first research and development center for AI.The partnership between NVIDIA and Vietnam is part of a larger trend of global investments in sovereign AI infrastructure.
Southeast Asia is taking a giant leap towards embracing sovereign artificial intelligence (AI) as two of its prime ministers, Thailand's Paetongtarn Shinawatra and Vietnam's Pham Minh Chinh, met with NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang to discuss initiatives aimed at accelerating AI innovation in their countries. This development marks the latest chapter in the growing trend of sovereign AI adoption globally, where countries are seeking to develop and harness AI using domestic computing infrastructure, data, and workforces.
Huang's visit to Southeast Asia kicked off with a meeting with Shinawatra, where he discussed the opportunities for sovereign AI development in Thailand and shared memories of his childhood years spent in Bangkok. The pair engaged in discussions on how further investing in AI education and training can help Thailand drive AI innovations in fields such as weather prediction, climate simulation, and healthcare. NVIDIA is working with dozens of local universities and startups to support AI advancement in the country.
The importance of data in the development of sovereign AI was highlighted by Huang, who stated that "the most important part of artificial intelligence is the data. And the data of Thailand belongs to the Thai people." He emphasized the need for Thailand to harvest its own digital data, which encodes the knowledge, history, culture, and common sense of its people.
Following the conversation, Wongnapachant gifted Huang a custom leather jacket lined with Thai silk, as a token of appreciation. The pair also signed an NVIDIA DGX H200 system in recognition of SIAM.AI Cloud's plans to expand its offerings to NVIDIA H200 Tensor Core GPUs and NVIDIA GB200 Grace Blackwell Superchips.
In Hanoi the next day, Huang met with Vietnam's Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, where he announced that NVIDIA will collaborate on building the country's first research and development center. The center will focus on software development and collaborate with Vietnam's enterprises, startups, government agencies, and universities to accelerate AI adoption in the country.
Huang also received the 2024 VinFuture Prize alongside AI pioneers Yoshua Bengio, Geoffrey Hinton, Yann Le Cun, and Fei-Fei Li for their "transformational contributions to the advancement of deep learning." The award ceremony was broadcast live nationally in Vietnam and hosted by the VinFuture Foundation, a nonprofit that recognizes innovations in science and technology with significant societal impact.
The partnership between NVIDIA and Vietnam is part of a larger trend of global investments in sovereign AI infrastructure powered by NVIDIA technology. Canada, Denmark, and Indonesia are among the countries that have announced initiatives to develop sovereign AI infrastructure using NVIDIA technology.
According to IDC, AI will contribute nearly $20 trillion to the global economy through the end of the decade. The organization also stated that sovereign AI will drive 3.5% of global GDP in 2030.
The significance of sovereign AI development cannot be overstated as it can bring about numerous benefits, including job creation, economic growth, and increased digital sovereignty for countries. As Southeast Asia continues to explore this path, it is likely to have a profound impact on the region's economic landscape and its position on the global stage.
Related Information:
https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/thailand-vietnam-sovereign-ai/
https://www.weforum.org/stories/2024/11/ai-report-southeast-asia-economic-growth/
Published: Fri Dec 6 14:37:02 2024 by llama3.2 3B Q4_K_M
