Vietnam opens new National Innovation Center facility, chip design center

Vietnam has inaugurated a new facility of the National Innovation Center (NIC) and a chip design center as the country seeks to stimulate the startup ecosystem and deepen its participation in the global semiconductor supply chain.

Located at the Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park on the outskirts of Hanoi, the new NIC premise has a total floor area of nearly 20,000 square meters and was built at a cost of nearly VND1 trillion ($44 million), mostly from crowdfunding.

It is expected to be the largest innovation facility in Vietnam, providing incentives and attracting tech firms, startups and specialists to come and work, promoting technology transfer, research and development (R&D) and commercialization.

The NIC has developed an innovation network worldwide with some 2,000 members who are experts and intellectuals living in Vietnam and 20 countries and territories such as the U.S., Germany, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Australia.

The inauguration of the NIC marks a milestone in nurturing and accelerating the innovative startup ecosystem in the country, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh said at the inauguration ceremony on Saturday morning.

PM Chinh urged the Ministry of Planning and Investment to work out more conducive policies to attract domestic and foreign investment and the establishment of more R&D centers in the NIC.

Also on Saturday, Chinh and other senior officials joined the debut of the Chip Design Incubator located at the NIC. The incubating center is a collaboration among Synopsys, the University of Arizona, Keysight and Sun Edu – a company formed by leading experts of Vietnamese origin in the Silicon Valley, and other domestic partners.

The NIC will incubate outstanding chip designs, send them to manufacturing facilities and later have them tested by Keysight, an American company that manufactures electronics test and measurement equipment and software.

PM Chinh also attended the opening of the Samsung Innovation Campus (SIC), which demonstrates Samsung’s commitment to support the NIC in becoming an incubator for technology talents. For that, the SIC will coordinate with the NIC in holding courses on Big Data, AI, and IoT.

The PM witnessed a number of deals between Vietnamese and foreign partners such as the National University-Hanoi, National University-HCMC, Google, Samsung, SpaceX, Intel, Cadence, VinaCapital, Southeast Impact Alliance, VNPT, Sovico, Vietjet, HDBank, FPT and Tresemi on promoting innovation, developing skilled manpower, especially in semiconductors.