Vietnam’s leading real estate and retail conglomerate Vingroup has announced its plan to become an international-standard technology-industry-service business in the future.

The ambitious plan, with a focus on technology development and application, will be realized by a series of activities, Vingroup said at a signing ceremony in Hanoi on Tuesday.

The event saw the multifaceted conglomerate ink an agreement with the top 50 universities in the Southeast Asian country to provide funding for academic-science-technology projects and cooperate with them in training and educational programs to share ideas and lectures.

Vingroup said it is also committed to recruiting 100,000 science and tech graduates in the next ten years.

This is only the first in a string of activities the company is carrying out to turn itself into a tech group.

Monday’s signing ceremony also celebrated the introduction of Vingroup’s four new units to help it become Vietnam’s leading technology-industry-service business by 2028.

Among these entities is VinTech, a software developer formed as a spin-off from the company’s hi-tech arm VinSmart to specialize in developing artificial intelligence (AI) products, software programs and new-generation materials.

VinTech is expected to enhance the production of automobiles and smart home-appliance products of its parent company.

The other newly-established units are the Big Data Research Institute, focusing on research in the fields of big data, AI, and applied science, and the Vin Hi-Tech Research Institute, in charge of receiving technology transfers in such aspects as new energy, new material, biology, the environment and electronics.

The final piece of the master plan is the Applied Science and Technology Fund, created to sponsor science projects on computing, AI, robotics, automation, nanotechnology, renewable energy and new-age material.

The fund will be used to support research projects of domestic students and lecturers, boosting the quality of engineering graduates.

On top of these establishments, Vingroup is also expected to develop VinTech City, a tech hub modeled after the renowned Silicon Valley, in Hanoi to create a business ecosystem to serve information-technology startup companies.

Vingroup will also launch a separate fund to seek opportunities in technology and AI projects that are applicable on a global scale.

The company will assist those projects with financial help and allow them to make the best utilization of the conglomerate’s business ecosystem to test and commercialize their products.

“Vingroup has now qualified to join the technological and industrial sectors after 25 years of consolidation and investment," Nguyen Viet Quang, vice-chairman and deputy general director of Vingroup, said at the signing ceremony.

"Investments in the two sectors will not only help Vingroup reach new heights but also create a new tech-industry environment to put Vietnam on the world map of technology and industry.”

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