Nvidia’s Vietnam deal: a game changer or just noise?

IN VIETNAM, Google Trends – a feature that shows what people are searching for online in real-time – is usually dominated by lottery results and football matches. But Nvidia, the US$3.3 trillion chipmaker fuelling the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, cracked the top searches earlier this month after its CEO Jensen Huang visited Hanoi to finalise a deal Vietnam had been eagerly anticipating.

Huang sat down for a casual street beer with Vietnam’s Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh after the US-based company officially committed to establish its first R&D centre in the country and acquired VinBrain for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition of the Vingroup-backed AI startup confirmed months of speculation about the move.

As the dust settles, attention has turned to Nvidia’s reasons for acquiring VinBrain and its impact on Vietnam’s tech scene.