NVIDIA has announced major initiatives to advance sovereign AI development in Southeast Asia, with founder and CEO Jensen Huang meeting with the prime ministers of Thailand and Vietnam to discuss AI innovation in their respective countries.
In Thailand, Huang met with Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra to explore opportunities for sovereign AI development, particularly in weather prediction, climate simulation, and healthcare. During his visit, Huang participated in a fireside chat with Bangkok-based SIAM.AI Cloud, where he emphasised the importance of local data sovereignty.
"The most important part of artificial intelligence is the data. And the data of Thailand belongs to the Thai people," Huang stated during the event. "The digital data of Thailand encodes the knowledge, the history, the culture, the common sense of your people. It should be harvested by your people." Following the conversation, SIAM.AI Cloud CEO Ratanaphon Wongnapachant presented Huang with a custom leather jacket lined with Thai silk.
In Vietnam, NVIDIA announced plans to establish its first research and development centre in the country, following Huang's meeting with Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh. The centre will focus on software development and collaborate with Vietnamese enterprises, startups, government agencies, and universities. NVIDIA also revealed its acquisition of VinBrain, a Hanoi-based AI healthcare diagnostics company funded by Vingroup.
The company's expansion in Southeast Asia builds on its existing partnerships with 65 Vietnamese universities and over 100 AI startups through the NVIDIA Inception programme. During his visit, Huang was awarded the 2024 VinFuture Prize alongside AI pioneers Yoshua Bengio, Geoffrey Hinton, Yann Le Cun, and Fei-Fei Li for their contributions to deep learning advancement. The awards ceremony, hosted by the VinFuture Foundation, was broadcast live nationally in Vietnam.
These developments are part of a broader global investment in sovereign AI, which enables countries to develop and harness AI using domestic computing infrastructure, data, and workforces. According to IDC, AI is projected to contribute nearly $20 trillion to the global economy through 2030.
The initiatives follow similar sovereign AI projects announced by Canada, Denmark, and Indonesia, all powered by NVIDIA technology. The company has also supported AI development projects in India and Japan across various sectors including finance, healthcare, and manufacturing.